[Wikipedia-l] "Procedural default and disclaimer

Sat May 17 17:34:56 UTC 2003

Oualmakran Youssef wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I think that non French Wikipedian needs more details 
>about what happens and what had happenned.
>
Thank you!

>(details snipped)
>
>Then Aoineko created the accounts similar to "anthere". He admitted it
>was a joke and that he did not created all the conterfeit.
>
User names that confuse should be outlawed, but imposing controls is 
next to impossible.  Of the names which Anthere lists I don't think we 
can do anything about Antherement, because that involves a subjective 
judgement about a situation.  A parallel situation could develop if 
someone acquired the rights to the domain wickipedia.org.  If we managed 
to shut that down the whole problem could just flare up again at 
wikepedia.org or wikipaedia.org, etc., etc., etc.

The other names that differ only by an accent can and should be banned. 
 This has not been a problem in English because a lot of English 
speakers don't know how to put an accent on a letter.  As we migrate 
toward UTF-8 it should be possible for the system to treat the user 
names "Anthere" and "Anthère" and even "AnthÊre" as identical.

>Aoineko admitted that he did make the account ''anthère''
>to show how dangerous the use of similar nick may be. 
>
Ed Poor used a similar tactic to make a point about obscene user names 
when the TMC debate was raging.  One of the problems with such tactics 
is that it gets people more worked up and into flame wars.  It often 
backfires into the face of the person using it.

>I hope that things would become quieter and that they will both
>try to work together on the wiki even if they do not share the same
>policy. I thing it would be good if they stay both, even if they do
>not share the same policy (reverts/non-reverts on NPOV, how to deal 
>with vandals, etc)  but they share the same philosophy 
>(make knowledge availabe) and they same goal (make Wikipedia a big encyclopedia)
>
They are both established veteran contributors with much to offer who do 
what they do with unquestionably good intentions.

>Hope this email will be useful and that no one will 
>over-react to this email.
>
We needed a summary from someone who was not part of the war.  I felt 
too lazy to read it all to develop my own understanding.  I'm confident 
that we are all thankful for your efforts as a peacemaker

>Youssef
>
>Sorry for my typos. No one here to edit
> my email and correct my spelling mistakes :-(
>
The important thing is that you made your point.  Typos and spelling are 
not so important on the mailing list, unless they give a wrong message.

Eclecticology