To : wikipedia-l-admin(a)wikipedia.org
Subject : QUERIES ABOUT A SPECIFIC ENTRY
I have a few queries about an entry in your encyclopaedia. Is this the
Email address to which I should send them?
Thank you in anticipation.
John.
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To : john_francis_crawford(a)hotmail.com
Subject : Your message to Wikipedia-l awaits moderator approval
Your mail to Wikipedia-l with the subject QUERIES ABOUT A SPECIFIC ENTRY
is being held until the list moderator can review it for approval.
The reason it is being held: Post by non-member to a members-only list
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r of reasons:<BR>
<BR>
1. It promotes elitism, by tending to say that some articles are more equal=20=
than others.<BR>
<BR>
2. Wikipedia is, by nature, a work in progress. Every article can be changed=
, developed, reassessed, and rewritten. The Sifter idea creates an ill=
usion of finality about particular articles--they are "good enough," so to s=
peak. <BR>
<BR>
3. Most articles will be ignored. We are now close to 150 thousand articles=20=
on Wikipedia. I doubt anyone has read them all, and some have been long forg=
otten. In many cases this is because they deal with some arcane subject matt=
er that doesn' t really foster mass interest or debate (more often debate).=20=
As the intro to the BP page itself states: "we couldn't possibly keep track=20=
of all of the brilliant prose here!" In other words, more potential Brillian=
t Prose candidates will be left out than will be added. <BR>
<BR>
4. It can promote factionalism. Some people might have an inordinate number=20=
of articles in BP, so that when they write new articles, their supporters (a=
nd yes, there are people here who think that every word typed in by some of=20=
their Wiki-colleagues is divinely inspired) will immediately nominate it for=
BP. Once the flame wars die down, it will be there and it will be even more=
difficult to eliminate POV and other issues--after all, it is "brilliant pr=
ose," isn't it?<BR>
<BR>
5. There is so much left to be done yet. Maybe at a later date we can consid=
er this, but right now there are countless stubs, even more articles taken d=
irectly from EB, and entire areas that are not covered. As an extreme exampl=
e, if we rise above the debate over America-centric vs. Euro-centric article=
s, we will see how little there really is about Africa. Maybe we should be f=
illing in the gaps first, before we start patting ourselves on the back abou=
t how smart we are.<BR>
<BR>
6. Who are these so-called experts who will qualify material? From what I've=
seen so far, being an academic expert in a particular field hardly protects=
one from edit wars--Julie and 172 are two primary examples of this. Meanwhi=
le, the only qualification I have seen so far is that they have a B.A. Gimme=
a friggin' break! (and before I get accused of academic elitism, I make it=20=
known that I dropped out of college and spend an inordinate amount of time a=
t work correcting the BS from the BAs, MAs, and PhDs).<BR>
<BR>
7. Maybe the question isn't so much "why shouldn't we?" but "why should we?"=
Especially at this particular stage.<BR>
<BR>
Okay, I've had my say. Flame away.<BR>
<BR>
Danny<BR>
</FONT></HTML>
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of reasons:
1. It promotes elitism, by tending to say that some articles are more equal
than others.
2. Wikipedia is, by nature, a work in progress. Every article can be changed,
developed, reassessed, and rewritten. The Sifter idea creates an illusion of
finality about particular articles--they are "good enough," so to speak.
3. Most articles will be ignored. We are now close to 150 thousand articles
on Wikipedia. I doubt anyone has read them all, and some have been long
forgotten. In many cases this is because they deal with some arcane subject matter
that doesn' t really foster mass interest or debate (more often debate). As the
intro to the BP page itself states: "we couldn't possibly keep track of all of
the brilliant prose here!" In other words, more potential Brilliant Prose
candidates will be left out than will be added.
4. It can promote factionalism. Some people might have an inordinate number
of articles in BP, so that when they write new articles, their supporters (and
yes, there are people here who think that every word typed in by some of their
Wiki-colleagues is divinely inspired) will immediately nominate it for BP.
Once the flame wars die down, it will be there and it will be even more
difficult to eliminate POV and other issues--after all, it is "brilliant prose," isn't
it?
5. There is so much left to be done yet. Maybe at a later date we can
consider this, but right now there are countless stubs, even more articles taken
directly from EB, and entire areas that are not covered. As an extreme example, if
we rise above the debate over America-centric vs. Euro-centric articles, we
will see how little there really is about Africa. Maybe we should be filling in
the gaps first, before we start patting ourselves on the back about how smart
we are.
6. Who are these so-called experts who will qualify material? From what I've
seen so far, being an academic expert in a particular field hardly protects
one from edit wars--Julie and 172 are two primary examples of this. Meanwhile,
the only qualification I have seen so far is that they have a B.A. Gimme a
friggin' break! (and before I get accused of academic elitism, I make it known
that I dropped out of college and spend an inordinate amount of time at work
correcting the BS from the BAs, MAs, and PhDs).
7. Maybe the question isn't so much "why shouldn't we?" but "why should we?"
Especially at this particular stage.
Okay, I've had my say. Flame away.
Danny
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<HTML><FONT FACE=3Darial,helvetica><BODY BGCOLOR=3D"#ffffdd"><FONT SIZE=3D2=
FAMILY=3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0">Hello,<BR>
<BR>
assumed that you were just being cantankerous -- you do have a bit of a
reputation ;)
But, from this last post you argue that skin design could be a way to
hide useful features from a whole class of users (those who have not
logged in for whatever reason). If the original proposal suggested that
features would be hidden this might potentially be a concern. But as I
see it nobody is suggesting that any features which are currently
available to anon users will be take away, just that they may be
available only from specific pages so that they don't clutter up every
screen.
But even if some features were only available to logged in users, I
would not consider it a violation of the wiki way as long as anon users
can "edit this page right now!!!".
--Mark
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Zeuslike interpretations of God, is where the original dislike for "pagan"
religion sprouted from. Of course, these other notions were identical in
spirit to the monotheistic one -- but were judged by as "primitive" by other
primitives.
The point is, that if judged by the misuse -- the Western monotheist
tradition looks like a big pile of crud - such is politics. But if you
understand it correctly - the legacy and importance of this particular
aspect of everyone's culture, theres a lot worth respecting -- and of having
some respect for.
-SV-
Sandboxing), you seem sincere. You took care of that vandalism done by your
friend to "Socialism"... Mmm.. weird friend. :-) But maybe the developer is
looking for more evidence.
Menchi Zh-En
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SQL queries on the French database this morning, causing the site
to slow to a crawl for a while. They seem to be finished now, and
no harm done, but I'd like to suggest that if there are some
particular statistics you're looking for and you suspect that a
particular query might be expensive, ask about it on one of the
mailing lists. We might be able to help optimize it, or get the
statistics another way, or even ust suggest a better time to run.
--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee(a)piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC