From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 1 00:47:34 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 17:47:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <002401c56626$5216bf20$c57d0450@Galasien> References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> <000001c565b8$67ee3760$c57d0450@Galasien> <550ccb82050531141110bfbb61@mail.gmail.com> <002401c56626$5216bf20$c57d0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <429D05A6.3050701@shaw.ca> Charles Matthews wrote: > "Skyring" wrote. > >> I don't really care if most of the inhabitants of a large city live >> their lives free from crime - it's the assaults and murders that get >> on the front pages, and Wikipedia seems to have rather a lot of this >> compared to some other online communities. > > Suddenly you have my full attention. Who has been murdered? Maveric149. But his death was reverted just a few minutes later and then he was protected against further killing, so no biggie. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 00:20:22 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 20:20:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Blocked after making several edits - accused of "vandalism"?! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 5/31/05, advert wrote: > Kat, > Thank you for unblocking me. It's good to know that at least one admin has a sense of fairness here. It is very frustrating as a newbie to be told to jump right in and to "be bold!" with editing, but then to be blocked for not having known the rules. I wasn't even aware beforehand that there was a "neutral point of view" rule. > > When I get a chance I'll try to read through the rules in order to understand how I can be allowed to make changes to the parts which I don't think are at all "neutral" in the entry as it was (even before I tried editing it). Hi Advert, Actually I suspect that there are very many people who would have unblocked you, were they aware of what happened. ... We can't be perfect, but we do try! Thanks for your patience. As far as being bold goes, the *vast* majority of new users don't edit a potentially controversial subject, and if they do and their changes are reverted, then they usually don't notice or don't care.... So they never get into a revert war, and thus they don't get blocked. Because of this our 'be bold' advice is good in almost all cases. For the most part on wikipedia you can be a perfectly happy editor even if you ignore all rules. There is only one rule beyond really basic common sense which is enforced in any material way, and that is the Three Revert Rule (3RR). Actually, a great many wikipedians would rather the 3RR not exist, but without it there are endless revert wars with no mechanism in place to get the disagreeing parties to calm down and talk out their changes. I hope you can understand why such a rule is needed. If you avoid editing controversial subjects, it is very likely that you will not need to know much of our rules and policy. I would *highly* suggest that you avoid those articles until you are well familiarized with Wikipedia... sometimes it is very challenging to edit those articles, and it really can make editing unfun. There is an enormous number of articles in wikipedia which really could use your love and attention, so why not start there? Best of luck! From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 1 00:20:43 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 17:20:43 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429D05A6.3050701@shaw.ca> References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> <000001c565b8$67ee3760$c57d0450@Galasien> <550ccb82050531141110bfbb61@mail.gmail.com> <002401c56626$5216bf20$c57d0450@Galasien> <429D05A6.3050701@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <429CFF5B.50400@telus.net> Bryan Derksen wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> "Skyring" wrote. >> >>> I don't really care if most of the inhabitants of a large city live >>> their lives free from crime - it's the assaults and murders that get >>> on the front pages, and Wikipedia seems to have rather a lot of this >>> compared to some other online communities. >> >> Suddenly you have my full attention. Who has been murdered? > > Maveric149. But his death was reverted just a few minutes later and > then he was protected against further killing, so no biggie. Dr. Who has done this several times, and is still alive and well. Should he now be known as Maveric 150 Ec From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 00:26:16 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 20:26:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <63861.62.252.0.4.1117577045.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050531193938.0159D1AC18DD@mail.wikimedia.org> <63861.62.252.0.4.1117577045.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On 5/31/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: > We don't, or shouldn't, give aggressive trolls due process. Or the right > to troll this mailing list. > I'm not at all happy that, rather than indefinitely ban this troll, Arbcom > has decided to take on his case. This can only give him more opportunity > to troll. But without due process we can not determine if someone is a Troll or if they were actually wronged. You can't escape providing due process. You can avoid providing an undue degree of fairness... due process and no more. It seems like that's what we are doing now, telling him to buzzoff the list as we've given him his due 15 minutes... So I guess the system is working in this case. From tempforcomments2 at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 01:01:38 2005 From: tempforcomments2 at hotmail.com (A Nony Mouse) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 02:01:38 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome Message-ID: Apparently it was a very good idea. I've been banned from the list for speaking out. I shudder to think what would have happened if I revealed my Wikipedia username or my name on this list. A.Nony.Mouse. >I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you would >react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be harassed for >this. Good idea, I think. _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 01:02:09 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 02:02:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <20050531193938.0159D1AC18DD@mail.wikimedia.org> <63861.62.252.0.4.1117577045.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <16636.62.252.0.4.1117587729.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Gregory Maxwell said: > But without due process we can not determine if someone is a Troll or > if they were actually wronged. You can't escape providing due process. Well the minute he started in on the trolling I think it's fair to say he was not just some innocent user who had been wronged. He's the most blatant troll I've ever seen and the fact that he's still permitted to edit wikipedia with impunity some three weeks after being clearly identified, and is also being allowed to troll this mailing list, is in my opinion a grave failure of the system. He has maliciously wounded Wikipedia with nearly every one of his edits and he has apparently been given explicit permission to carry on doing it. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Jun 1 04:12:53 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 21:12:53 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050531151731.E7F0E1AC1906@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050531151731.E7F0E1AC1906@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> Phil Sandifer wrote: > May I ask what communities these are? Particularly the one with > hundreds of thousands of members. It seems that Skyring has ignored the opportunity to back up his vague claims with specific evidence. However, judging from his user page, it appears that the two communities he's alluding to are LiveJournal and BookCrossing. Anyway, I'd like to take an opportunity to see how the "competition" compares, and whether other large, open online communities really are more "polite and productive" as he claims. First of all, I don't see any reason to say that the atmosphere at LiveJournal is any better than on Wikipedia. As with Slashdot and Kuro5hin, two of the other leading candidates, LiveJournal has its own well-documented social issues, of which you can get the first inkling by reading our articles about them. I don't mean to bash any of these sites - as with Wikipedia, if you're not looking to get involved in contentious areas, you probably won't be - but they have their own problems, along with their own ways of combating them. They may not be worse than Wikipedia in this regard, but I wouldn't agree that they're any better, either. BookCrossing may have a comparable number of members to Wikipedia, but its character is too different for a sensible comparison. I mean, who's going to force you to pick up a book you're not interested in? I don't see how the community brings out the kind of passion that produces the disruptions we experience. I might consider Skyring's argument more plausible if made about some other communities, including possibly craigslist and Flickr (notably, unlike the previous examples, their Wikipedia articles fail to mention whatever critics they may have). With Flickr, you don't have to reveal anything you don't want to reveal, go anywhere you don't want to go, or deal with people you choose not to deal with. While collaboration and community dynamics do exist, the site is not organized in a way that fundamentally requires it. And still, as their FAQ reveals, where they do have community groups and channels (similar to IRC), they have the same problems with disruptive behavior and deal with them in the same way. That leaves craigslist, in my opinion, as the one realistic candidate for a more "polite and productive" community on a scale similar to Wikipedia. If someone knows more about the seamy side of craigslist than I do, feel free to enlighten me to the contrary. Presumably their forums can occasionally breed bad behavior, as with all such creatures, but I know of little else. It's also interesting to note that craigslist happens to be the only one of these sites we have not yet overtaken in terms of traffic. Perhaps we should take more interest in figuring out what lessons we can pick up from their experience. --Michael Snow From wikipediaisstupid at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 05:16:20 2005 From: wikipediaisstupid at hotmail.com (Cranston Snord) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 00:16:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <16636.62.252.0.4.1117587729.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: "Maliciously wounded"??? I'd like to see some evidence of that. I've done nothing of the sort. -Enviroknot >From: "Tony Sidaway" >Reply-To: minorityreport at bluebottle.com,English Wikipedia > >To: >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on >Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 02:02:09 +0100 (BST) > >Gregory Maxwell said: > > But without due process we can not determine if someone is a Troll or > > if they were actually wronged. You can't escape providing due process. > > >Well the minute he started in on the trolling I think it's fair to say he >was not just some innocent user who had been wronged. He's the most >blatant troll I've ever seen and the fact that he's still permitted to >edit wikipedia with impunity some three weeks after being clearly >identified, and is also being allowed to troll this mailing list, is in my >opinion a grave failure of the system. He has maliciously wounded >Wikipedia with nearly every one of his edits and he has apparently been >given explicit permission to carry on doing it. > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 05:28:57 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:28:57 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <16636.62.252.0.4.1117587729.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On 6/1/05, Cranston Snord wrote: > "Maliciously wounded"??? > > I'd like to see some evidence of that. I've done nothing of the sort. How about your email address for starters? -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From sean at epoptic.org Wed Jun 1 05:36:46 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 22:36:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <429D496E.4010004@epoptic.com> Cranston Snord stated for the record: > "Maliciously wounded"??? > > I'd like to see some evidence of that. I've done nothing of the sort. > > -Enviroknot Indeed, don't give him too much credit. The malice is there; the capability is lacking. -- Sean Barrett | To speak algebraically: Mr. Mathews is execrable sean at epoptic.com | but Mr. Channing is (x+1)ecrable. --Edgar Allen Poe From jack-lutz at comcast.net Wed Jun 1 05:51:07 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (jack-lutz at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 05:51:07 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] signoff wikien-l Message-ID: <060120050551.8934.429D4CCB00009074000022E62205889116969B9A04D3050C0E06@comcast.net> From ultrablue at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 09:28:16 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (ultrablue at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 17:28:16 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Good reasons for blocking Enviro In-Reply-To: References: <20050531193938.0159D1AC18DD@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: I should clarify that I am not the user who blocked Enviroknot. I was merely responding to Anonymouse's allegations of the mailing list failing to address the main issue, namely the blocking of Enviroknot. ~Mark Ryan On 6/1/05, Richard Rabinowitz wrote: > > >Message: 4 > >Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 15:43:14 +0800 > >From: > >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on > >To: English Wikipedia > >Message-ID: > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > >On 5/31/05, A Nony Mouse wrote: > >> By the time I got to the discussion, it was a good series of emails > long, > >> and despite the number of list members who had posted, none save > SlimVirgin > >> had bothered to address Enviroknot's concerns on the block in any way. > >> SlimVirgin herself made a bad judgement call. An edit made in good > faith > >> should never be considered a reversion, even if it contains some > content > >> that is included in a later reversion. > > >The 3RR provides an electric-fence against continuing revert wars. > >Most of the administrators who enforce the 3RR (and even the > >[[WP:AN/3RR]] page) request that as little circumstantial information > >be provided. Good faith or bad faith does not come into whether a user > >has violated the rule. Your interpretation of the meaning of > >"reversion" is not the one accepted in the Wikipedia community. There > >are simple reverts and complex reverts (where something is > >surreptitiously sneaked back into an article). Every reversion is a > >"good faith" reversion to someone in an article content dispute. > > Okay, thanks for clarifying what a "reversion" is. > > >Do not assume from the silence of users on the concerns of Enviroknot. > >Before I first replied to the list about this situation, I examined > >all the relevant diffs, and concluded in my own mind that there is a > >clear-cut violation of the 3RR here. > > Okay, but you should've explained your reasons beforehand; those reasons > could've saved us much agita! > > >The 3RR does allow administrators some discretion, such as the ability > >to unblock people where they have shown remorse for breaking the rule. > >Enviroknot has not expressed any such remorse, and has not addressed > >the allegations of sockpuppetry. Instead, he or she has spammed the > >mailing list and attacked Wikipedia Administrators as a whole. Had > >Enviroknot come up with a good explanation for sharing IPs with other > >users, expressed some sort of remorse for breaking a very basic rule > >and agreed to work collaboratively on the relevant article's talk page > >to reach consensus, I have little doubt the ban would have been > >happily lifted by a number of administrators. > > >~Mark Ryan > > Agreed. Here is someone who has clear, thought-out, and well-displayed > (now, anyway) reasons for blocking Enviroknot. Anyone who wants to counter > those reasons should go ahead and do so this is what debate is all about, > folks. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Jun 1 13:57:51 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 09:57:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What Wikipedia Admins are, anyway Message-ID: Richard suggested: > > Personally I favor being a Barbarian Admin, although Archaeologist > > Admin is good for a change of pace, and Valkyrie Admin has its > > equipment advantages at lower levels. > > > > Stan > > How about Viking Admin? :-) I really like the idea of having a Hiking Admin, and I thank you for suggesting it. You could tell someone to "take a hike" when they got "off the path", without giving "a fence". Or you could sponsor outings where local Wikipedians got together for hiking parties. I'm just not sure this should include hitchhiking. That might drive some users away. We should also consider having a Kipling Admin. Here hoping I'm not being any sillier than the rest of you lot :-) Ed Poor <-- somewhat dyshexic today From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 1 16:09:00 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 09:09:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: 569_424606_39943_2725_741_0_38057_ Message-ID: <20050601160900.26574.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> --- A Nony Mouse wrote: > Apparently it was a very good idea. > > I've been banned from the list for speaking out. > > I shudder to think what would have happened if I > revealed my Wikipedia > username or my name on this list. > > A.Nony.Mouse. Really? You've been banned from the list? Then how did this posting make it through? RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 1 16:09:00 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 09:09:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: 569_424606_39943_2725_741_0_38057_ Message-ID: <20050601160900.26574.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> --- A Nony Mouse wrote: > Apparently it was a very good idea. > > I've been banned from the list for speaking out. > > I shudder to think what would have happened if I > revealed my Wikipedia > username or my name on this list. > > A.Nony.Mouse. Really? You've been banned from the list? Then how did this posting make it through? RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From iMeowbot at mac.com Wed Jun 1 16:24:29 2005 From: iMeowbot at mac.com (iMeowbot) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 12:24:29 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: <20050601160900.26574.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: "Rick" wrote: > --- A Nony Mouse wrote: [...] > Really? You've been banned from the list? Then how > did this posting make it through? Earlier messages were from tempforcomments@ rather than tempforcomments2@ . From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Wed Jun 1 18:19:16 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 11:19:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 31 May 2005, Michael Snow wrote: > Phil Sandifer wrote: > > > May I ask what communities these are? Particularly the one with > > hundreds of thousands of members. > [snip] > > That leaves craigslist, in my opinion, as the one realistic candidate > for a more "polite and productive" community on a scale similar to > Wikipedia. If someone knows more about the seamy side of craigslist than > I do, feel free to enlighten me to the contrary. Presumably their forums > can occasionally breed bad behavior, as with all such creatures, but I > know of little else. It's also interesting to note that craigslist > happens to be the only one of these sites we have not yet overtaken in > terms of traffic. Perhaps we should take more interest in figuring out > what lessons we can pick up from their experience. > Check out the "Rants & Raves" section. I can't speak for any other local version of Craigslist, but at portland.craigslist.com there have been a number of flame wars that make any exchange on EN-wikipedia look not only polite but extremely intellectual. (Currently, amongst the usual posts bashing gays, fat women, national corporations, & city government, there is a dispute over pornography that makes no sense & I have no desire to get to the bottom of -- but is noteable because one side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, thus disrupting the forum to prove their point.) I honestly doubt any community is entirely "polite & productive". To paraphrase the late Douglas Adams, the problem with people is people. On the other hand, I do find the classifieds on Craigslist quite useful -- which I consider is Craiglist's most important feature. Does this mean that we should consider Wikiclassifieds? (The ability to edit other people's personal ads offers the potential for continuous and immeasurable entertainment, although it might not be worth the resulting trouble.) Geoff From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 19:52:22 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 21:52:22 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that > >responsibility, and they are present on this list. > > Name them. Take them to ArbCom. Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and 20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in question. And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends while you only have enemies. But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only made a mistake/got played by the trolls. -- mvh Bj?rn From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:05:04 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:05:04 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49bdc74305060113056df94815@mail.gmail.com> Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing... Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that > > >responsibility, and they are present on this list. > > > > Name them. Take them to ArbCom. > > Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather > evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to > accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint > within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and > 20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all > traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint > obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a > troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user > must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in > question. > > And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for > further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you > to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows > all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends > while you only have enemies. > > But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the > unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue > some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > > -- > mvh Bj?rn > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From arkady at arkady.org.uk Wed Jun 1 20:08:32 2005 From: arkady at arkady.org.uk (Arkady Rose) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 21:08:32 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305060113056df94815@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> <49bdc74305060113056df94815@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <429E15C0.6020001@arkady.org.uk> Jack Lynch wrote: > Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing... You hardly count as a newbie who is unaware of the rules. -a > On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > >>>>There are a number of administrators who are failing in that >>>>responsibility, and they are present on this list. >>> >>>Name them. Take them to ArbCom. >> >>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was >>harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed >>because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. >> >>First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather >>evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to >>accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint >>within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and >>20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all >>traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint >>obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a >>troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user >>must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in >>question. >> >>And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for >>further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you >>to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows >>all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends >>while you only have enemies. >> >>But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the >>unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue >>some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll >>forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly >>forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only >>made a mistake/got played by the trolls. >> >>-- >>mvh Bj?rn >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > -- Imagination is just intelligence having fun. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.3.3 - Release Date: 31/05/2005 From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:16:55 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:16:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Good reasons for blocking Enviro In-Reply-To: References: <20050531193938.0159D1AC18DD@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >The 3RR does allow administrators some discretion, such as the ability >to unblock people where they have shown remorse for breaking the rule. >Enviroknot has not expressed any such remorse, and has not addressed >the allegations of sockpuppetry. Instead, he or she has spammed the >mailing list and attacked Wikipedia Administrators as a whole. Had >Enviroknot come up with a good explanation for sharing IPs with other >users, expressed some sort of remorse for breaking a very basic rule >and agreed to work collaboratively on the relevant article's talk page >to reach consensus, I have little doubt the ban would have been >happily lifted by a number of administrators. I totally agree with this. If environknot had been less hostile, his chances of being unblocked would've been much larger. --Mgm From sean at epoptic.org Wed Jun 1 20:26:46 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:26:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Good reasons for blocking Enviro In-Reply-To: References: <20050531193938.0159D1AC18DD@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <429E1A06.2010304@epoptic.com> MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record: > I totally agree with this. If environknot had been less hostile, his > chances of being unblocked would've been much larger. And if trolls were contributors, we wouldn't need the ArbComm. -- Sean Barrett | If you take cranberries and stew sean at epoptic.com | them like applesauce they taste much | more like prunes than rhubarb does. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:29:28 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:29:28 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E15C0.6020001@arkady.org.uk> References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> <49bdc74305060113056df94815@mail.gmail.com> <429E15C0.6020001@arkady.org.uk> Message-ID: <49bdc74305060113297cee992d@mail.gmail.com> I was tho, back when I they formed the arb com, and I took an admin there Jack On 6/1/05, Arkady Rose wrote: > Jack Lynch wrote: > > Hey, thats me! Your talking about ME! Oh wait, thats not a good thing... > > You hardly count as a newbie who is unaware of the rules. > > -a > > > > On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > > >>>>There are a number of administrators who are failing in that > >>>>responsibility, and they are present on this list. > >>> > >>>Name them. Take them to ArbCom. > >> > >>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > >>harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > >>because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > >> > >>First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather > >>evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to > >>accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint > >>within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and > >>20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all > >>traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint > >>obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a > >>troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user > >>must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in > >>question. > >> > >>And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for > >>further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you > >>to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows > >>all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends > >>while you only have enemies. > >> > >>But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the > >>unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue > >>some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > >>forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > >>forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > >>made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > >> > >>-- > >>mvh Bj?rn > >>_______________________________________________ > >>WikiEN-l mailing list > >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Imagination is just intelligence having fun. > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 267.3.3 - Release Date: 31/05/2005 > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:35:23 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:35:23 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom being given evidence of the violations in question. Secondly, a lot of users go straight onto the attack of a blocking or reverting admin while simply asking to undo their actions or asking for an explanation would be much more helpful. Also, you can't expect admins to be infallible all the time. I've made some bad decisions, but I've always been open to discussion. Still, there's enough good reasons to put admins who repeatedly fail to discuss their controversial actions. BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that RFCs. --Mgm On 6/1/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that > > >responsibility, and they are present on this list. > > > > Name them. Take them to ArbCom. > > Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather > evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to > accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint > within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and > 20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all > traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint > obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a > troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user > must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in > question. > > And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for > further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you > to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows > all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends > while you only have enemies. > > But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the > unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue > some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > > -- > mvh Bj?rn > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:38:03 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:38:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: iMeowbot >"Rick" wrote: > > > --- A Nony Mouse wrote: >[...] > > > Really? You've been banned from the list? Then how > > did this posting make it through? > >Earlier messages were from tempforcomments@ rather than tempforcomments2@ . Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his Everyking e-mail can still post. Jay. From cunctator at kband.com Wed Jun 1 20:46:41 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:46:41 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On Newspeak In-Reply-To: <429E1A06.2010304@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 6/1/05 4:26 PM, "Sean Barrett" wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm stated for the record: > >> I totally agree with this. If environknot had been less hostile, his >> chances of being unblocked would've been much larger. > > And if trolls were contributors, we wouldn't need the ArbComm. I'd just like to say that I despise the Newspeak technique of abbreviating the name of the arbitration committee. As Orwell wrote in 1984: "It was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it." See [[Newspeak]]. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 20:51:18 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:51:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > > >There are a number of administrators who are failing in that > > >responsibility, and they are present on this list. > > > > Name them. Take them to ArbCom. > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. >First you have to "file a complaint" which means you have to gather >evidence and then submit that for public review to get the ArbCom to >accept it. Then you need to get someone else to sign your complaint >within 24 hours or else your complaint is automatically rejected and >20 seconds later some admin will come around and delete it so that all >traces of whatever it was is gone. The person seconding your complaint >obviously cannot be a user someone can suspect being a sockpuppet or a >troll or "a known troublemaker". And most important, the other user >must also be involved in the dispute between you and the admin in >question. Actually, that's for an RfC, not an arbitration. As for the other conditions you claim, they don't exist, except for known sockpuppets, and I can't fathom why you think a RfC initiated by one person and seconded by his sockpuppet would be valid. >And then, if you succeed with all that, your complaint is accepted for >further review in the ArbCom! Woho! Then all that is left is for you >to fight in the Wikipedia version of a trial against someone who knows >all the rules, while you are a newbie and has lots of powerful friends >while you only have enemies. What a bizarre view of the process. >But what if you, like a hero in Hollywood, manages to beat the >unbeatable, win the unwinnable and actually get the ArbCom to issue >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only >made a mistake/got played by the trolls. Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin, and the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a troublemaker/troll? Jay. From sean at epoptic.org Wed Jun 1 20:55:20 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 13:55:20 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On Newspeak In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <429E20B8.6030208@epoptic.com> The Cunctator stated for the record: > On 6/1/05 4:26 PM, "Sean Barrett" wrote: > >>And if trolls were contributors, we wouldn't need the ArbComm. > > > I'd just like to say that I despise the Newspeak technique of abbreviating > the name of the arbitration committee. As Orwell wrote in 1984: "It was > perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered > its meaning, by cutting out most of the associations that would otherwise > cling to it." Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Wikipedia. -- Sean Barrett | Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus sean at epoptic.com | ad mentiendum Rei Publicae causa. From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:19:05 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:19:05 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060114174a860be@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060114174a860be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> > I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of > protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom > complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom > being given evidence of the violations in question. I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an admin. Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that has been collected and also ignored. > Secondly, a lot of users go straight onto the attack of a blocking or > reverting admin while simply asking to undo their actions or asking > for an explanation would be much more helpful. Very true - many admins exploit that fact. Some admin blocks a user, that user comes back in another form and sprouts insults around him/her, the admin can then defend its decision by the bad behaviour the user exhibited IN REPSONSE to the harassment. But the fact you mention is not really pertinent and can not defend bad actions from admins. > Also, you can't expect admins to be infallible all the time. I've made > some bad decisions, but I've always been open to discussion. I don't "expect" that. :) I know that each and every sysop is about 100 times more secure in their position than the average user because of admin cameradiereship (sp?). But I would have very much preferred a system in which one bad decision is enough. If one admin goes down, there is 100 other users to replace him/her. > BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that RFCs. I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the procedure was exactly as I described. I even witnessed first-hand a user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin involved.. I must also add so I don't offend someone to much. I think that even if you replaced all misbehaving cowboy-sysops with good well-behaved ones, nothing would change. Why? Because it's the System man, the System! -- mvh Bj?rn From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:28:50 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:28:50 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <740c3aec05060114287cbf3f89@mail.gmail.com> > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with me" > or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. > >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > >made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > > Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin, and > the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a > troublemaker/troll? Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't. But you can yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone does mistakes sometimes". And also of countless number of examples in which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints against administrators. For a very clear example see the OP's post, who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two admins who don't like him/her. -- mvh Bj?rn From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:32:31 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:32:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > > I don't know what you expect, Bj?rn, but a certain degree of > > protection is needed for anyone who's been submitted to an arbcom > > complaint. We can't just let anyone accuse someone without the arbcom > > being given evidence of the violations in question. > >I think that is unrelated to the fact that The System, as it currently >is constructed, does not work for an editor being harassed by an >admin. Actually, it doesn't appear to work very well for admins who are being harrassed by editors. >Besides, there is ample evidence in the diffs. Evidence that >has been collected and also ignored. What specific evidence are you talking about? > > BTW Arbcom complaints don't need to be signed by someone else, that >RFCs. > >I didn't know that. Has it changed recently? Last time I checked the >procedure was exactly as I described. No, it has always been that way. You're confusing RfC with RfAR. >I even witnessed first-hand a >user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get >a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't >very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin >involved.. I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee procedure. Which case are you referring to? Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:44:50 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:44:50 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060114287cbf3f89@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > > > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > > >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > > >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing > > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with >me" > > or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. > >No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all >complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think >that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is >against policy. Sigh. Can you leave the "I know you are but what am I" type comments off the mail-list please? > > >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > > >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > > >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > > >made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > > > > Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin, >and > > the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a > > troublemaker/troll? > >Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't. Then how can you claim it as fact? >But you can >yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how >mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone >does mistakes sometimes". Can you provide some of those "countless examples"? >And also of countless number of examples in >which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints >against administrators. That they were valid is solely your opinion. >For a very clear example see the OP's post, >who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two >admins who don't like him/her. Didn't like him, or didn't like the smears he was posting anonymously? I don't know what makes you so sure it was the former. Jay. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:45:01 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:45:01 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for. You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard. There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit. --Mgm On 6/1/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: iMeowbot > >"Rick" wrote: > > > > > --- A Nony Mouse wrote: > >[...] > > > > > Really? You've been banned from the list? Then how > > > did this posting make it through? > > > >Earlier messages were from tempforcomments@ rather than tempforcomments2@ . > > Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his > Everyking e-mail can still post. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:49:22 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 17:49:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/1/05, JAY JG wrote: > Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his > Everyking e-mail can still post. > Jay. AIM ALL WEAPONS AT FEET. FIRE! You're just substantiating the claims of hasty admin behavior by throwing out such allegations. If indeed you believe that someone is a troll, you should to the right thing and quit feeding them. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:52:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:52:34 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm >Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for. > >You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence >it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've >based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard. >There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit. You're right that I assumed it based on his writing style. However, the point remains, he can still post from his real e-mail account, whoever he is. And since I'm the third person here to state who the real editor is, why did you jump on me, and not the first two? Jay. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:54:14 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:54:14 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: References: <740c3aec05060114287cbf3f89@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom. The only ones cases of admins before arbcom I can remember are those who were accused of harrasment by people who repeated inserted nonsense into articles and were reverted. However, I'm sure my mind is foggy with regard to the history of arbitration, so if anyone can provide examples, I'd happily read up on it. --Mgm On 6/1/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > > > > > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was > > > >harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed > > > >because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > > > > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing > > > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with > >me" > > > or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. > > > >No, the rules are set up so that admins are protected from all > >complaints. Admins often seem to think that new users seem to think > >that "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is > >against policy. > > Sigh. Can you leave the "I know you are but what am I" type comments off > the mail-list please? > > > > >some kind of verdict AGAINST the admin in question? Well, then you'll > > > >forever be known as a troublemaker/troll and the admin will be quickly > > > >forgiven by his or her peers because "he/she is a good guy" and only > > > >made a mistake/got played by the trolls. > > > > > > Can you give an example of this happening? Arbcom sanctioning an admin, > >and > > > the person who brought the case therefore being viewed as a > > > troublemaker/troll? > > > >Umm... It has never happened, so obviously I can't. > > Then how can you claim it as fact? > > >But you can > >yourself search the archives to find countless examples of how > >mistakes and harassments by admins have been brushed off as "everyone > >does mistakes sometimes". > > Can you provide some of those "countless examples"? > > >And also of countless number of examples in > >which users have been branded trolls for brining up valid complaints > >against administrators. > > That they were valid is solely your opinion. > > >For a very clear example see the OP's post, > >who even found it best to post anonymously, and then was outed by two > >admins who don't like him/her. > > Didn't like him, or didn't like the smears he was posting anonymously? I > don't know what makes you so sure it was the former. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:56:10 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:56:10 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Simple, I never read the other 2 messages who named him because my inbox is flooded with mail about this and I'm starting to be selective about what I read. --Mgm On 6/1/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > >Come on, Jay. That's totally uncalled for. > > > >You can't say such a thing unless you can provide technical evidence > >it's him. Something like similar writing styles (which I assume you've > >based this on) isn't going to be conclusive evidence in this regard. > >There's such a thing as impersonation to discredit. > > You're right that I assumed it based on his writing style. However, the > point remains, he can still post from his real e-mail account, whoever he > is. And since I'm the third person here to state who the real editor is, > why did you jump on me, and not the first two? > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 21:58:42 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:58:42 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/1/05, JAY JG wrote: > > Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse account, I'm sure his > > Everyking e-mail can still post. > > Jay. > >AIM ALL WEAPONS AT FEET. >FIRE! > >You're just substantiating the claims of hasty admin behavior by >throwing out such allegations. What hasty behaviour? Making an allegation is not the same as actually taking action on it. And the points made in my previous e-mail remain: 1. Whoever the person is, they can still post from their real account. 2. Why are you jumping on me, when I'm the third person on the list to make the connection? >If indeed you believe that someone is a troll, you should to the right >thing and quit feeding them. Good point. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 1 22:01:11 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 18:01:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > >Simple, I never read the other 2 messages who named him because my >inbox is flooded with mail about this and I'm starting to be selective >about what I read. I'm flattered that you read my malilings; it was worth it just to learn that. ;-) Jay. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 1 22:01:25 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:01:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050601220125.33175.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> --- JAY JG wrote: > Regardless of what happened to his A Nony Mouse > account, I'm sure his > Everyking e-mail can still post. > > Jay. And will, at the drop of an arbitration or admin action. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 20:07:30 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 21:07:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Geoff Burling said: > but is noteable because one > side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, > thus > disrupting the forum to prove their point.) What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? From morven at gmail.com Wed Jun 1 22:43:25 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:43:25 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42f90dc00506011543cb27a63@mail.gmail.com> On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: > What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose > workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a > website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? With respect, Tony: what could be said about this THIS time that wasn't said last time? It'd be flogging a dead horse on all sides. -Matt (User:Morven) From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 22:46:27 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 23:46:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <42f90dc00506011543cb27a63@mail.gmail.com> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42f90dc00506011543cb27a63@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <11060.62.252.0.4.1117665987.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Matt Brown said: > On 6/1/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: >> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >> workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? > > With respect, Tony: what could be said about this THIS time that > wasn't said last time? It'd be flogging a dead horse on all sides. > Quite. From shebs at apple.com Wed Jun 1 22:55:46 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:55:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Geoff Burling said: > >>but is noteable because one >>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>thus >>disrupting the forum to prove their point.) >> > >What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? > You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times. Stan From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 23:12:19 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 00:12:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> Message-ID: <36160.62.252.0.4.1117667539.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Stan Shebs said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > >>Geoff Burling said: >> >>>but is noteable because one >>>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>>thus >>>disrupting the forum to prove their point.) >>> >> >>What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >>workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >>website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? >> > You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times. Not really. To me, it's one of those odd concepts that crop up now and then but never seem to be adequately explained. Clearly we're not talking about some kind of high explosive or even something that can cause software to malfunction. Suppose you put something onto a website, how could you know it was workplace unsafe? Which particular workplace? How can you know? From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 20:07:30 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 21:07:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Geoff Burling said: > but is noteable because one > side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, > thus > disrupting the forum to prove their point.) What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Jun 1 21:04:21 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:04:21 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on References: <740c3aec050601125276a17b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000701c566ee$a39fb6d0$c57d0450@Galasien> "BJ?rn Lindqvist" wrote >> Name them. Take them to ArbCom. >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. When I was a newbie, 'dispute resolution' was a multi-step process. In which going to the ArbCom was the last stage, for intractable disputes. Of course if you have rules that are going to be applied legalistically, they will be complex. I doubt they are biased in favour of admins: admins have extra powers, but more rights? Charles From sean at epoptic.org Wed Jun 1 23:24:29 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 16:24:29 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429E43AD.2030905@epoptic.com> Tony Sidaway stated for the record: > Geoff Burling said: > >>but is noteable because one >>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>thus >>disrupting the forum to prove their point.) > > > What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose > workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a > website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? Attention all: please do not feed the troll. -- Sean Barrett | Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus sean at epoptic.com | ad mentiendum Rei Publicae causa. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 1 23:53:48 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 00:53:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E43AD.2030905@epoptic.com> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429E43AD.2030905@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <26507.62.252.0.4.1117670028.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Sean Barrett said: > Tony Sidaway stated for the record: > >> Geoff Burling said: >> >>>but is noteable because one >>>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>>thus >>>disrupting the forum to prove their point.) >> >> >> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >> workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? > > Attention all: please do not feed the troll. I'm sorry that you think it's a troll. Sean. I will not refrain from challenging this odd neologism when I see it used carelessly. From sean at epoptic.org Thu Jun 2 00:14:09 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 17:14:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> Message-ID: <429E4F51.9030400@epoptic.com> Stan Shebs stated for the record: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > >> Geoff Burling said: >> >>> but is noteable because one >>> side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>> thus >>> disrupting the forum to prove their point.) >>> >> >> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >> workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? >> > You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times. It even has its own Wikipedia article. -- Sean Barrett | Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus sean at epoptic.com | ad mentiendum Rei Publicae causa. From ultrablue at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 01:55:28 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (ultrablue at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:55:28 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rogue Admin Syndrome In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The email address was not banned from the mailing list. The email address was *unsubscribed* from the WikiEN-l mailing list at 20:59 May 30, 2005 (UTC), although by whom I cannot ascertain (the only message it sends to mailing list administrators is "tempforcomments at hotmail.com has been unsubscribed", so for all I know A Nony Mouse might have unsubscribed manually). By re-subscribing on the same email address, A Nony Mouse would have been readily able to continue posting on that email address. The mailing list ban list, on the other hand, prevents people from actually subscribing to the mailing list, but tempforcomments at hotmail.com is not on the ban list. ~Mark Ryan On 6/1/05, A Nony Mouse wrote: > Apparently it was a very good idea. > > I've been banned from the list for speaking out. > > I shudder to think what would have happened if I revealed my Wikipedia > username or my name on this list. > > A.Nony.Mouse. > > > >I have decided to make this anonymous. I do not know how some of you > would > >react and I do not wish to take any chance that I would be harassed for > >this. > > Good idea, I think. > > _________________________________________________________________ > On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to > get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From ultrablue at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 02:06:35 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (ultrablue at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:06:35 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] custom RSS syndication In-Reply-To: <3472f5c1050531123917608e8d@mail.gmail.com> References: <3472f5c1050531123917608e8d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Wikipedia doesn't have RSS syndication as far as I know, but there is an XML export function, I think. It's used by some of our leeching mirrors. You might have more luck posting this request to our technical mailing list: wikitech-l at wikimedia.org The people who would know for sure are more likely to read that mailing list than this one. This one is more about article content than technical issues. ~Mark Ryan On 6/1/05, QuotationsBook.com Webmaster/Support wrote: > Hello > > I'm constructing a large literary resource, and would like to query > articles about authors automatically, and receive Wikipedia articles > back as RSS/XML documents to present in my website, with all the > relevant backlinks to wikipedia. > > Does Wikipedia have customised syndication of its content? > > Regards > Amit > quotationsbook.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 02:20:54 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 22:20:54 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> JAY JG wrote: >> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist >> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was >> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed >> because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. > > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing > things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with > me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view Then any policy violations are OK. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 02:30:37 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:30:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/1/05, SPUI wrote: > Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view > Then any policy violations are OK. Interesting to see the list of users that supported that position and compare it to the list of users unable to keep themselves out of disputes over appropriate admin behavior with users. From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 2 05:32:17 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 01:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? Message-ID: <20050602053217.0C60B12CFC@mprdmxin.myway.com> I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty close to harrassing a new user, given that he reverted the user twice, and in doing so didn't once post a polite edit summary, nor a helpful comment to Willswikihelp's talk page, or even any comment whatsoever to either article's talk page, even after Willswikihelp complained of harassment on RickK's talk page. Since Willswikihelp is such a new user, you can quickly review his entire contribution history and see how just one or two people, especially if they're admins, can ruin the good faith of a new user. The actions and comments of Cantus and SchmuckyTheCat aren't any better, but they're not admins, so personally, I don't expect nearly as much from them. (However, reading SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries in response to this new user on the South Lake Tahoe, California article is especially disturbing.) I doubt you'll ever see this new user complain to the ArbCom. He's obviously frustrated. I'm not sure he'll be back. Michael Turley User:Unfocused --- On Wed 06/01, MacGyverMagic/Mgm < macgyvermagic at gmail.com > wrote: Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom. _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 08:17:45 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:17:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E4F51.9030400@epoptic.com> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> <429E4F51.9030400@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <10170.62.252.0.4.1117700265.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Sean Barrett said: > Stan Shebs stated for the record: > >> Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >>> Geoff Burling said: >>> >>>> but is noteable because one >>>> side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, >>>> thus >>>> disrupting the forum to prove their point.) >>>> >>> >>> What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose >>> workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a >>> website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? >>> >> You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained multiple times. > > It even has its own Wikipedia article. Thank you. I must say I find the idea that workplace rules should extend outside the workplace in this way, applying to people who don't even work there, very, very puzzling. If these rules are really so important, why do people insist on risking breaching them by visiting internet sites that have terms of use, like the following one applying to craiglist: "You understand that craigslist does not control, and is not responsible for Content made available through the Service, and that by using the Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable." From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Jun 2 08:24:19 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:24:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk><429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> <429E4F51.9030400@epoptic.com> <10170.62.252.0.4.1117700265.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <004f01c5674c$7aa38780$c57d0450@Galasien> Tony Sidaway wrote > I must say I find the idea that workplace rules should extend outside the > workplace in this way, applying to people who don't even work there, very, > very puzzling. Tony - this is off-off-topic and AFAIK no one is going to have their views changed by your further pursuit of the matter in this thread. Charles From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Thu Jun 2 03:29:56 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 20:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Geoff Burling said: > > but is noteable because one > > side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to their contributions, > > thus > > disrupting the forum to prove their point.) > > What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this context? Whose > workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a photograph on a > website cause a completely unrelated workplace to become unsafe? > This post challenges me in a way I haven't been challenged before: I can express three possible responses, but given the nature of these responses, I feel I am limited to only using one of them. Could someone help me decide which of these three responses should I use? 1. Tony, do you honestly not know what I meant by "workplace unsafe"? Are you, for some reason, unable to point your browser at http://portland.craigslist.com, find the link for "Rants & Raves", then examine the posts there to see what I might mean? The ones with pictures attached are all helpfully marked, so if this is a sinceely pressing question for you, I'd expect you to take a look & see what I meant. And if you have no interest in doing your own research, what is your point for these questions? FWIW, I picked this term "workplace unsafe" because I had only looked at two of the 20 or more posts with pictures on this topic. While both were images of part of an unclothed body, I didn't want to base my assumptions on such an unrepresentative sample & assume that none of the others were more appropriate for a web site named www.pregnantteeniesfuckedbygoats.com. And because I'm sure if I had merely written "pictures of unclothed people", someone would have found the few that were not simply unclothed people, & made the effort to misrepresent my point by accusing me of condoning pictures I might find offensive. 2. I was sincere in describing the exchanges here as intellectual as compared to what usually appears in "Rants & Raves". Even the concurrent exchange about "Rogue Admins" is polite, thoughtful, & restrained compared to the ones I've seen in that spot at Craig's List; over there, telling someone you disagree with "Fuck off and die" is better than half of the exchanges I've read in "Rants & Raves" -- & one reason I don't usually read it, despite the fact there are some very fine posts there (which fortunately make it to "Best of Craig's List"). However, if you want to be disruptive to make a point (something usually discouraged here at Wikipedia), & show that we can be just as nasty & offensive, please don't try to imitate examples of Gay bashing, complaints about fat women, national business chains, or local government. As the joke goes, a single feather can be a lot of fun; the whole chicken is just plain offensive. 3. I am reminded of a Zen Buddhist story, about a Master who has taken a vow of chastity, & his young disciple. One day, as they were travelling along, they came to a river, where a woman was standing, in provocative, yet expensive, clothes. She asked the Master if he would be so kind as to help her across the river; the Master agreed, and carried her across the river on his back. She thanked the Master, & they went their separate ways. This incident troubled the young disciple: why did his master let a woman -- particularly one dressed as she had been -- touch him? Didn't that infringe on his vow of chastity? The disciple thought about about this for a long time, & at last asked his Master about the woman. "I left her back at the river, & have gone on," the master replied calmly. "You appear to still be carrying her." I recall you making a point about the phrase "workplace unsafe" quite eloquently in a discussion some time back, about how you didn't like the phrase & why. I have left that discussion & have gone on. Geoff From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 08:51:37 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:51:37 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: References: <740c3aec05060114287cbf3f89@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <740c3aec05060201511e1592b0@mail.gmail.com> > Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin repeatedly > harrasing a regular user failing to be put before arbcom. I'd like to avoid bringing that up as it can only cause more bad blood. But since you opt on seeing examples, off the top of my hat: Lir and Everyking. Approach the situation with open eyes and you will see that we have a problem. Pretend that you are blind and you wont see anything. That it has happened before is not important now. What is important is to make sure it doesn't happen again, or atleast, make it much more unusual than it is now. We can do that. We have a zero tolerance policy on 3+ reverts and it has decreased the number of reverts. We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator abuse. -- mvh Bj?rn From morven at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 08:55:49 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 01:55:49 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602053217.0C60B12CFC@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050602053217.0C60B12CFC@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050602015519378068@mail.gmail.com> On 6/1/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty close to harrassing a new user Pretty close? I'd say it's over the line, personally, having reviewed the history. Rick, can you justify your behavior in treating well-meaning new users who are making accurate and factual additions to articles in this way, treating them as if they are vandalising Wikipedia? Outright accusing them of vandalism, in fact, when all they did was add factual information that you considered inappropriately placed? > The actions and comments of Cantus and SchmuckyTheCat aren't any better, but they're > not admins, so personally, I don't expect nearly as much from them. (However, reading > SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries in response to this new user on the South Lake > Tahoe, California article is especially disturbing.) I am (speaking of SchmuckyTheCat's edit summaries) frankly, disgusted that someone should address another editor on Wikipedia like that - worse yet, without even it being provoked in the slightest. Compared to that, Cantus' behavior was terse and over-harsh, but in comparison ... though I think one should not simply revert the addition of factual material because it is 'badly written'. The whole set of behavior is frankly disturbing. Rather the antithesis of "don't bite the newbies". -Morven From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 09:11:05 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:11:05 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> > >I even witnessed first-hand a > >user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get > >a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which wasn't > >very strange because there really only was he/she and the admin > >involved.. > > I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration Committee > procedure. Which case are you referring to? Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin. Taking the matter directly to the ArbCom doesn't work. And I was mistaken about the deadline too, it is 48 hours. The case I am referring to is between a user whos username starts with O and an admin whos username starts with R. I'm not interested in bringing up the specific case to the mailing list (it happened many months ago) because nothing good can come out of it. I'm just, hesistantly, mentioning the usernames by their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described. -- mvh Bj?rn From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 09:25:15 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:25:15 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060201511e1592b0@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec05060114287cbf3f89@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060201511e1592b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > I'd like to avoid bringing that up as it can only cause more bad > blood. But since you opt on seeing examples, off the top of my hat: > Lir and Everyking. Approach the situation with open eyes and you will > see that we have a problem. Pretend that you are blind and you wont > see anything. That it has happened before is not important now. What > is important is to make sure it doesn't happen again, or atleast, make > it much more unusual than it is now. We can do that. We have a zero > tolerance policy on 3+ reverts and it has decreased the number of > reverts. We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator > abuse. You're right. But we'd have to establish when something is abuse first and make some allowance for honest mistakes. --Mgm From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 2 10:19:49 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:19:49 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050602101949.GC9978@thingy.apana.org.au> BJ?rn Lindqvist (bjourne at gmail.com) [050602 19:12]: > their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and > see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described. I think you lost me when you talked earlier about how oppressed Lir was by the arbitration process. - d. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 11:20:55 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 12:20:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> BJ?rn Lindqvist said: >> >I even witnessed first-hand a >> >user trying the ArbCom route and failing because he/she could not get >> >a second user involved in the dispute to back him/her up. Which >> >wasn't very strange because there really only was he/she and the >> >admin involved.. >> >> I strongly doubt that, since that's not part of the Arbitration >> Committee procedure. Which case are you referring to? > > Ok. It was a Request for Comments. But it is the route you are > supposed to go if you have been threatened badly by an admin. In the case of threatening or abusive behavior, a post on [[WP:AN/I]] should be enough. Although it seems to me that administrator abuse is often a fallback claim by people who are behaving in a problematic manner, I don't dismiss it out of hand and I think it would be most extraordinary if administrators didn't occasionally act in a heavy-handed, unjust and sometimes even vindictive manner. We should take such things seriously. I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution. Non-administrator complainants tend to be hobbled, however, by their lack of knowledge of how Wikipedia works. Administrators tend to know better than other editors just how much discretion they're allowed (it's quite extensive, and arguably has to be so). Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a particular admin has gone too far. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 11:27:13 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 12:27:13 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > JAY JG wrote: >> >> No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for >> doing things against policy; new users often seem to think >> "disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is >> against policy. > > Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view> Then any policy violations are OK. Looking at RickK's response to that RfC, he seems to provide a very good explanation of his actions and they seems to be have been well within policy. In particular, I find the argument that the second incarnation of Falling Up (band) was significantly different from the first, somewhat questionable to say the least. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 11:28:12 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 12:28:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <004f01c5674c$7aa38780$c57d0450@Galasien> References: <429D35C5.5000506@earthlink.net> <7318.62.252.0.4.1117656450.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk><429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> <429E4F51.9030400@epoptic.com> <10170.62.252.0.4.1117700265.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <004f01c5674c$7aa38780$c57d0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <3832.194.72.110.12.1117711692.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Charles Matthews said: > Tony Sidaway wrote > >> I must say I find the idea that workplace rules should extend outside >> the workplace in this way, applying to people who don't even work >> there, very, very puzzling. > > Tony - this is off-off-topic and AFAIK no one is going to have their > views changed by your further pursuit of the matter in this thread. Indeed. I've had my say. No more on this. From chris_mahan at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 15:30:17 2005 From: chris_mahan at yahoo.com (Christopher Mahan) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 08:30:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > > We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator > > abuse. I would add that admins should not email users privately since we want to be able to trace their activity. If the administrator is contacting the user via private email, it becomes a game of "he said", "she said". I suggest that a link to an administrator "code of ethics" be included in the list reminders, so that all users will know what to expect from administrators. I would also like to add that for the most part, wikipedia administrators are doing an outstanding job. Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan at yahoo.com chris.mahan at gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail From spyders at btinternet.com Thu Jun 2 15:41:52 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 16:41:52 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? References: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000a01c56789$9912be10$38419d51@hedlatora> I've never suffered harassment by an admin although I have felt, occasionally, that one or two are 'out to get you'. Some admins (which i'll leave un-named) aren't able to see a second point of view, don't look in to things, and act before they think. I've seen blocks logs where an admin blocks an IP and ends up blocking 100 people, just because they didn't look into it. Some admins don't necessarily abuse their powers, but are too quick to use it. The issue when somebody is in their RfA, of course, is that it is often hard to judge how that user will use their powers - many change their ways after becoming an admin. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 15:45:40 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 16:45:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <17778.194.72.110.12.1117727140.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Christopher Mahan said: > > >> > We should have a zero tolerance policy on administrator >> > abuse. > > I would add that admins should not email users privately since we > want to be able to trace their activity. If the administrator is > contacting the user via private email, it becomes a game of "he > said", "she said". > I strongly disagree. We have to communicate with blocked editors on a daily basis. This is unavoidable. From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 15:45:14 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 11:45:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > SPUI said: > >>JAY JG wrote: >> >>>No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for >>>doing things against policy; new users often seem to think >>>"disagreeing with me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is >>>against policy. >> >>Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor. >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view> Then any policy violations are OK. > > Looking at RickK's response to that RfC, he seems to provide a very good > explanation of his actions and they seems to be have been well within > policy. In particular, I find the argument that the second incarnation of > Falling Up (band) was significantly different from the first, somewhat > questionable to say the least. > You seriously read the following and determined they were substantially the same? '''Falling Up''' is a christian rock band. '''Members''' * Tom * Jessy * Jeremy * Joe * Josh * Mike '''Discography''' * Crashings '''links''' * [http://www.fallingupcrashings.com/ Official Website]. ---- Falling Up is a Christian band consisting of Thomas Charles Cox (guitar), Joseph A. Kisselburgh (guitar), Mike, Josh Shroy (drums), Jessy Ribordy (vocals) and Jeremy Miller (bass guitar). They were named after the first song they wrote, which refers to how imperfect people are, but how sufficient the grace of God is to compensate for that imperfection. In harmony with their name, their music is heavy on themes about grace. They debuted in February 24, 2004 with an 11-song album titled "Crashings." Aaron Sprinkle (who also produced Kutless and Anberlin) produced this album, which combines rock, metal, strings and R+B. The music is similar to Kutless', and the members of the two bands were childhood friends in their hometown of Albany, Oregon. It was the members of Kutless who passed Falling Up's demo album on to BEC Recordings owner, Brandon Ebel which lead to Falling Up signing on to BEC alongside Kutless in the summer of 2003. Discography * Crashings (2004) o 1. Bittersweet o 2. Symmetry o 3. Broken Heart o 4. Escalates o 5. New Hope Generation o 6. The Gathering o 7. Jacksonfive o 8. Divinity o 9. Places o 10. Falling in Love o 11. Ambience o 12. Arafax Deep External Links * [http://www.fallingupcrashings.com/ Official band site] * Lyrics What the fuck are you smoking? From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 15:47:35 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 11:47:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F2A17.4000909@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > > I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a > few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try > to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not > reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve > the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move > the RFC to certified status, notify the subject, and await responses. > It's really just a formalization of third party dispute resolution. That's the problem - the admin had to be abusive in the same way to someone else, and you have to locate that person. Somehow I don't find that very likely in the majority of cases. From sean at epoptic.org Thu Jun 2 15:49:57 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:49:57 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F2AA5.5080308@epoptic.com> Christopher Mahan stated for the record: > I would add that admins should not email users privately since we > want to be able to trace their activity. If the administrator is > contacting the user via private email, it becomes a game of "he > said", "she said". I agree most emphatically, but will add that some users forbid such openness, demanding that "private messages" remain private. I ignore such demands -- all messages sent to me related to arbitration matters are promptly forwarded to the ArbComm mailing list. -- Sean Barrett | Awright, hold it... where's the sean at epoptic.com | mutant repellent? --Steve Dallas From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 16:21:51 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 17:21:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> Message-ID: <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: >> first, somewhat questionable to say the least. >> > You seriously read the following and determined they were substantially > the same? Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard. From rob at rbrwr.org Thu Jun 2 15:55:55 2005 From: rob at rbrwr.org (Rob Brewer) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 15:55:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin Message-ID: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> This week's edition of the UK entertainment scandal e-mail Popbitch (see [[Popbitch]]) includes a link to [[Talk:Michael Colvin]] which includes some "bizarre conspiracy theories" relating to [[Derek Laud]], a contestant on the current series of Big Brother. User:Smoddy deleted them as "possibly libellous" but they have been restored. They also exist in the history of [[Michael Colvin]] at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Colvin&oldid=6052341 Do we really want to be carrying this stuff? If not we will have to delete it, both from the article (using selective undelete) and the talk page, and probably protect the pages to stop it being pasted back in again. Opinions? Rob ([[user:Rbrwr]]) -- Rob Brewer "This time I want cash, not forged book tokens" From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 16:29:58 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 17:29:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F2A17.4000909@gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F2A17.4000909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7163.194.72.110.12.1117729798.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >> I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap >> together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you >> have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has >> reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and >> failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with >> his own evidence. Move the RFC to certified status, notify the >> subject, and await responses. It's really just a formalization of >> third party dispute resolution. > > That's the problem - the admin had to be abusive in the same way to > someone else, and you have to locate that person. Somehow I don't find > that very likely in the majority of cases. No, you and someone else have to make an effort to deal with the *same* problem. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 2 16:32:22 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 02:32:22 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> Message-ID: <20050602163221.GD9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Rob Brewer (rob at rbrwr.org) [050603 02:25]: > This week's edition of the UK entertainment scandal e-mail Popbitch (see > [[Popbitch]]) includes a link to [[Talk:Michael Colvin]] which includes some > "bizarre conspiracy theories" relating to [[Derek Laud]], a contestant on the > current series of Big Brother. User:Smoddy deleted them as "possibly > libellous" but they have been restored. They also exist in the history of > [[Michael Colvin]] at > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Colvin&oldid=6052341 > Do we really want to be carrying this stuff? If not we will have to delete it, > both from the article (using selective undelete) and the talk page, and > probably protect the pages to stop it being pasted back in again. > Opinions? It's been deleted from the talk page once (admins can see it, and IANAL but I have been a journalist, and it sure smelt like defamation to me). This is close to zap on sight IMO. (It's certainly original research if the documentation backing it up isn't to hand.) May need to keep an eye on the article and talk page for a while, yes. - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 2 16:54:41 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:54:41 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: SPUI >JAY JG wrote: >>>From: BJ?rn Lindqvist >>>Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by new users who was >>>harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse they never suceed >>>because the rules are complex and setup to protect the administrators. >> >> >>No, the rules are set up so that admins can only be sanctioned for doing >>things against policy; new users often seem to think "disagreeing with me" >>or "not putting up with my POV edits" is against policy. > >Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without" that editor. >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view >Then any policy violations are OK. Thanks for showing exactly how trivial and petty these complaints of admin abuse really are. Jay. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 2 17:14:06 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 03:14:06 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] tempforcomments@hotmail.com Message-ID: <20050602171406.GE9978@thingy.apana.org.au> tempforcomments2 at hotmail.com wrote: :I've been banned from the list for speaking out. :I shudder to think what would have happened if I revealed my Wikipedia :username or my name on this list. Sorry, that was me - I removed the address (not banned it) thinking it was Enviroknot trolling again - didn't realise it was Everyking. You are free to resubscribe the address if you wish to. - d. From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 17:32:38 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:32:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> > >> first, somewhat questionable to say the least. > >> > > You seriously read the following and determined they were substantially > > the same? > > Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard. What is the music notability standard and why does it fail one of the most popular Christian rock bands? -- mvh Bj?rn From joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 17:38:52 2005 From: joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com (Josh Gordon) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:38:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <75c1297005060210385b2a07b9@mail.gmail.com> In exactly how many places do we need to have this exact same discussion? --jpgordon On 6/2/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > > >> first, somewhat questionable to say the least. > > >> > > > You seriously read the following and determined they were > substantially > > > the same? > > > > Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard. > > What is the music notability standard and why does it fail one of the > most popular Christian rock bands? > > -- > mvh Bj?rn > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 2 17:39:36 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 03:39:36 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: tempforcomments@hotmail.com Message-ID: <20050602173936.GG9978@thingy.apana.org.au> :Sorry, that was me - I removed the address (not banned it) thinking it was :Enviroknot trolling again - didn't realise it was Everyking. You are free :to resubscribe the address if you wish to. Everyking just told me on IRC that tempforcomments is *not* him. So it's someone imitating him, i.e. trolling. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 18:04:31 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:04:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <000a01c56789$9912be10$38419d51@hedlatora> References: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <000a01c56789$9912be10$38419d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: On 6/2/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > I've never suffered harassment by an admin although I have felt, > occasionally, that one or two are 'out to get you'. Some admins (which i'll > leave un-named) aren't able to see a second point of view, don't look in to > things, and act before they think. I've seen blocks logs where an admin > blocks an IP and ends up blocking 100 people, just because they didn't look > into it. Some admins don't necessarily abuse their powers, but are too quick > to use it. The issue when somebody is in their RfA, of course, is that it is > often hard to judge how that user will use their powers - many change their > ways after becoming an admin. There is no real way of cheacking this in advance. -- geni From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 18:17:33 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:17:33 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: References: <20050602153018.28725.qmail@web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <000a01c56789$9912be10$38419d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: Well you can at least look at the contributions and when you see a huge number of recent good contributions, check the talk page history... and do extra warnings. It's not hard and you should be checking contributions anyways. On 6/2/05, geni wrote: > On 6/2/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > > I've never suffered harassment by an admin although I have felt, > > occasionally, that one or two are 'out to get you'. Some admins (which > i'll > > leave un-named) aren't able to see a second point of view, don't look in > to > > things, and act before they think. I've seen blocks logs where an admin > > blocks an IP and ends up blocking 100 people, just because they didn't > look > > into it. Some admins don't necessarily abuse their powers, but are too > quick > > to use it. The issue when somebody is in their RfA, of course, is that it > is > > often hard to judge how that user will use their powers - many change > their > > ways after becoming an admin. > > > There is no real way of cheacking this in advance. > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:20:34 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:20:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <000701c566ee$a39fb6d0$c57d0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <20050602182035.34276.qmail@web60625.mail.yahoo.com> --- Charles Matthews wrote: > "BJ?rn Lindqvist" wrote > > >> Name them. Take them to ArbCom. > > >Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by > new users who was > harassed my some overly aggressive admins. Ofcourse > they never suceed > because the rules are complex and setup to protect > the administrators. > > When I was a newbie, 'dispute resolution' was a > multi-step process. In > which going to the ArbCom was the last stage, for > intractable disputes. Of > course if you have rules that are going to be > applied legalistically, they > will be complex. I doubt they are biased in favour > of admins: admins have > extra powers, but more rights? > > Charles I think you'll find that even those of us who are admins, and those who have just been here for a while, find the process user-unfriendly. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:22:25 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:22:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E3CF2.4010005@apple.com> Message-ID: <20050602182225.76097.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> --- Stan Shebs wrote: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > > >Geoff Burling said: > > > >>but is noteable because one > >>side is attaching workplace unsafe pictures to > their contributions, > >>thus > >>disrupting the forum to prove their point.) > >> > > > >What does workplace unsafe actually mean in this > context? Whose > >workplace? Why unsafe? How can a person placing a > photograph on a > >website cause a completely unrelated workplace to > become unsafe? > > > You know full well, it's been exhaustively explained > multiple times. > > Stan It's been *asserted* multiple times. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:31:16 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:31:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050602183116.18692.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> --- SPUI wrote: > JAY JG wrote: > >> From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > >> Total Bullshit. That has been done many times by > new users who was > >> harassed my some overly aggressive admins. > Ofcourse they never suceed > >> because the rules are complex and setup to > protect the administrators. > > > > > > No, the rules are set up so that admins can only > be sanctioned for doing > > things against policy; new users often seem to > think "disagreeing with > > me" or "not putting up with my POV edits" is > against policy. > > Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running > without" that editor. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view > > Then any policy violations are OK. I would like to note that you withdrew your RfC. ~~~~ __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:35:50 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:35:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602053217.0C60B12CFC@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <20050602183550.40478.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> > "michaelturley at myway.com" wrote: > I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty > close to harrassing a new user This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around attacking VfD nominations as bad faith. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:40:44 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:40:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05060201511e1592b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050602184044.54013.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> --- BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > Personally, I'd like to see an example of an admin > repeatedly > > harrasing a regular user failing to be put before > arbcom. > > I'd like to avoid bringing that up as it can only > cause more bad > blood. But since you opt on seeing examples, off the > top of my hat: > Lir and Everyking. Really, Really REALLY bad example. Lir got anything and everything that he deserved. His repeated trolling and bad faith edits and attacks should have gotten him banned much sooner than they did. He was given many, many chances and repeatedly made Wikipedia a sour place to be. Imagine me, defending Everyking! RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From morven at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 18:49:42 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:49:42 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602183550.40478.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602053217.0C60B12CFC@mprdmxin.myway.com> <20050602183550.40478.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050602114944406fcf@mail.gmail.com> On 6/2/05, Rick wrote: > This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around > attacking VfD nominations as bad faith. Yes, and quite possibly he's following your contributions to check up on you, but you /did/ still revert a newbie adding factual information in seeming good faith twice without any explanation to him other than 'stop vandalising Wikipedia!'. You are being in that case at least, far too hurried and quick to revert. -Matt (User:Morven) From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 18:54:31 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:54:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> --- SPUI wrote: > What the fuck are you smoking? Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 18:54:55 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:54:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> Message-ID: <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Rob Brewer said: > > Do we really want to be carrying this stuff? If not we will have to > delete it, both from the article (using selective undelete) and the > talk page, and probably protect the pages to stop it being pasted back > in again. This is extremely serious abuse--the worst I have ever seen. As it's not really encyclopedic and in my opinion may pose a danger to Wikipedia I've taken the liberty of deleting it. I know this is not included in the deletion policy but this series of patently false and extremely damaging allegations could expose Wikipedia to a rather hefty defamation suit. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 18:58:51 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:58:51 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Why not make an attempt at discrediting the position rather than the person arguing it? On 6/2/05, Rick wrote: > --- SPUI wrote: > > What the fuck are you smoking? > > Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like > to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Yahoo! Mail Mobile > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. > http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 18:59:58 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:59:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <56950.62.252.0.4.1117738798.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Tony Sidaway said: > Rob Brewer said: >> >> Do we really want to be carrying this stuff? If not we will have to >> delete it, both from the article (using selective undelete) and the >> talk page, and probably protect the pages to stop it being pasted back >> in again. > > This is extremely serious abuse--the worst I have ever seen. As it's > not really encyclopedic and in my opinion may pose a danger to > Wikipedia I've taken the liberty of deleting it. I know this is not > included in the deletion policy but this series of patently false and > extremely damaging allegations could expose Wikipedia to a rather hefty > defamation suit. I should add that I found the defamatory allegations not in the talk page (which had been zapped) but in the article itself, appended after the stub template. I zapped the Michael Colvin article. It will probably be recreated, so keep a lookout. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:02:40 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:02:40 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <49bdc743050602120273c28ddb@mail.gmail.com> Are you seriously suggesting RickK not engage in Ad Hominem arguments? Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/2/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Why not make an attempt at discrediting the position rather than the > person arguing it? > > On 6/2/05, Rick wrote: > > --- SPUI wrote: > > > What the fuck are you smoking? > > > > Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like > > to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. > > > > RickK > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Yahoo! Mail Mobile > > Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. > > http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Jun 2 19:04:53 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:04:53 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <001801c567a5$f6cf1b40$c57d0450@Galasien> I think Wiki-en has got off very lightly, as far as legal problems and defamation issues is concerned. I see that Alexa now makes WP #46 of English sites on the Web. There will come a point when not having serious assets is not an adequate defence against the litigious. (I'm not saying WP doesn't have other lines of defence, but 'not worth suing' may not last forever as the _first_ of those.) Charles PS IANAL, all that ... From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 19:07:57 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:07:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <38543.62.252.0.4.1117739277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> BJ?rn Lindqvist said: >> >> first, somewhat questionable to say the least. >> >> >> > You seriously read the following and determined they were >> > substantially >> > the same? >> >> Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard. > > What is the music notability standard? This beastie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music/Notability_and_Music_Guidelines > and why does it fail one of the most popular Christian rock bands? Um, we're not talking about Payable on Death and whatnot, just some guys who put out their album over the internet and are still playing church gigs. From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:14:17 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:14:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F5A89.406@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > SPUI said: > >>>first, somewhat questionable to say the least. >>> >> >>You seriously read the following and determined they were substantially >> the same? > > Yes, clearly the same band which failed the music notability standard. And fail it did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Falling_Up_%28band%29 From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:16:15 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:16:15 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050602183116.18692.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602183116.18692.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F5AFF.1060804@gmail.com> Rick wrote: > --- SPUI wrote: >>Unless "Wikipedia would more or less stop running >>without" that editor. >> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/RickK#Outside_view > >>Then any policy violations are OK. > > > I would like to note that you withdrew your RfC. ~~~~ I withdrew it because the process was broken, and the RFC wasn't getting anywhere. From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 2 19:17:58 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 15:17:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? Message-ID: <20050602191758.1D56460338@mprdmxin.myway.com> >> "michaelturley at myway.com"
wrote:
> I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty
>> close to harrassing a new user

>This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around
>attacking VfD nominations as bad faith.
>
>RickK
I *have* commented my VfD votes regarding lack of cursory research before nomination. I will continue to do so where evidence suggests that such simple checks have not been done, however, I will work on my phrasing. I have repeatedly asked RickK what about my comments was a personal attack, and how I should rephrase them, but RickK has completely ignored me, other than to say that I'm "whining" on his talk page and accuse me of personal attacks. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVotes_for_deletion%2FZetor&diff=14596876&oldid=14596488 for the latest example. Had RickK made ANY sincere attempt to communicate with me politely instead of making accusations, this certainly would not have escalated. Instead, he simply ignored and/or deleted my comments, while at the same time, accused me of "personal attacks". These accusations are not supported by WP:NPA, however, RickK's calling my attempts to communicate with him as "whining" is. However, I expect nothing will happen with either the User:Willswikihelp account nor my issue, since so many have already agreed with the statement in a recent RfC that implied that the wheels will fall off of Wikipedia if RickK's actions aren't simply tolerated as is. Therefore, this is the full extent of my complaint, and as far as I care to prosecute it. Michael Turley User:Unfocused PS: Nice try on changing the "Reply to:" to avoid seeing my response on the list. It didn't work. _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:17:04 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:17:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602183550.40478.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602183550.40478.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F5B30.40101@gmail.com> Rick wrote: >>"michaelturley at myway.com" > > wrote: > >>I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is pretty >>close to harrassing a new user > > This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around > attacking VfD nominations as bad faith. Ad-hominem bullshit. From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:17:45 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:17:45 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F5B59.8020701@gmail.com> Rick wrote: > --- SPUI wrote: > >>What the fuck are you smoking? > > > Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like > to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. Hahaha, more ad-hominem. And I haven't been with the GNAA for several months. RickK on the other hand is continually abusive. From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 2 19:21:04 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 15:21:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F5B59.8020701@gmail.com> References: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <429F5B59.8020701@gmail.com> Message-ID: <764588A1-75BB-49A5-B7FF-98FE1FA5937E@sbcglobal.net> Strange - I seem to remember you identifying your contributions as "from the GNAA" more recently than "several months" in IRC. -Snowspinner On Jun 2, 2005, at 3:17 PM, SPUI wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> --- SPUI wrote: >> >>> What the fuck are you smoking? >>> >> Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like >> to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. >> > > Hahaha, more ad-hominem. And I haven't been with the GNAA for > several months. RickK on the other hand is continually abusive. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 19:23:59 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:23:59 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <764588A1-75BB-49A5-B7FF-98FE1FA5937E@sbcglobal.net> References: <20050602185431.34269.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <429F5B59.8020701@gmail.com> <764588A1-75BB-49A5-B7FF-98FE1FA5937E@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <429F5CCF.1080700@gmail.com> Phil Sandifer wrote: > Strange - I seem to remember you identifying your contributions as > "from the GNAA" more recently than "several months" in IRC. Yes, as an example of a GNAA member doing good. My early contributions have not stopped being those of a GNAA member. From rob at rbrwr.org Thu Jun 2 18:55:58 2005 From: rob at rbrwr.org (Rob Brewer) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 18:55:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <56950.62.252.0.4.1117738798.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <56950.62.252.0.4.1117738798.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <20050602185558.M94369@rbrwr.org> On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:59:58 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote > I should add that I found the defamatory allegations not in the talk > page > (which had been zapped) but in the article itself, appended after > the stub template. I zapped the Michael Colvin article. It will > probably be recreated, so keep a lookout. I have restored the safe revisions of [[Michael Colvin]] using selective undelete; Hoshie's edit that removed the libel reverted the article to the state it was in beforehand, and I've left that one deleted as well, so the history credits all diffs correctly. Rob [[user:Rbrwr]] -- Rob Brewer "This time I want cash, not forged book tokens" From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 19:38:11 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:38:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <20050602185558.M94369@rbrwr.org> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> <30125.62.252.0.4.1117738495.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <56950.62.252.0.4.1117738798.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <20050602185558.M94369@rbrwr.org> Message-ID: <16390.62.252.0.4.1117741091.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Rob Brewer said: > > I have restored the safe revisions of [[Michael Colvin]] using > selective undelete; Hoshie's edit that removed the libel reverted the > article to the state it was in beforehand, and I've left that one > deleted as well, so the history credits all diffs correctly. > Thanks. You're a braver man than I. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 19:48:19 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 12:48:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Why not make an attempt at discrediting the position > rather than the > person arguing it? > > On 6/2/05, Rick wrote: > > --- SPUI wrote: > > > What the fuck are you smoking? > > > > Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd > like > > to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. > > > > RickK This article has been discussed ad nauseum, twice on VfD, once on VfU, and again on the bogus RfC that SPUI filed on me, which he himself rejected. It doesn't need further discussion here. SPUI is only bringing it up here, yet again (note that not a single person supported his position, even Jondel rejected it), to attempt to discredit me. I'd also like to note that SPUI is now using a sockpuppet account (use:Sockenpuppe) to make "prank" edits. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 20:00:12 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 13:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <429F5B30.40101@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050602200012.30260.qmail@web60617.mail.yahoo.com> --- SPUI wrote: > Rick wrote: > >>"michaelturley at myway.com" > > > > > wrote: > > > >>I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is > pretty > >>close to harrassing a new user > > > > This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around > > attacking VfD nominations as bad faith. > > Ad-hominem bullshit. Pot. Kettle. Black. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 2 20:09:29 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 13:09:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602191758.1D56460338@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <20050602200929.39575.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> --- "michaelturley at myway.com" wrote: > I have repeatedly asked RickK what about my comments > was a personal attack, and how I should rephrase > them, but RickK has completely ignored me, other > than to say that I'm "whining" on his talk page and > accuse me of personal attacks. See > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVotes_for_deletion%2FZetor&diff=14596876&oldid=14596488 > for the latest example. I have already commented on this subject on [[Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#Removing_attacks_on_VfD_nominators.27_motives]], and have no intention of disussing it ad nauseum. > PS: Nice try on changing the "Reply to:" to avoid > seeing my response on the list. It didn't work. I have no idea what you're talking about. I clicked "Reply" on Yahoo as I always do. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:12:21 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:12:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F6825.9000805@gmail.com> Rick wrote: > --- Gregory Maxwell wrote: > >>Why not make an attempt at discrediting the position >>rather than the >>person arguing it? > > This article has been discussed ad nauseum, twice on > VfD, once on VfU, and again on the bogus RfC that SPUI > filed on me, which he himself rejected. It doesn't > need further discussion here. SPUI is only bringing > it up here, yet again (note that not a single person > supported his position, even Jondel rejected it), to > attempt to discredit me. More like an attempt to get you to stop your crap. Jondel "rejected" the RFC because he didn't feel like putting up with it. I "rejected" the RFC because it was clear it wasn't getting anywhere. > > I'd also like to note that SPUI is now using a > sockpuppet account (use:Sockenpuppe) to make "prank" > edits. Hahahaha. Bad faith indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Sockenpuppe From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:13:12 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:13:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602200012.30260.qmail@web60617.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602200012.30260.qmail@web60617.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F6858.1020100@gmail.com> Rick wrote: > --- SPUI wrote: > > >>Rick wrote: >> >>>>"michaelturley at myway.com" >> >> >> >>>wrote: >>> >>> >>>>I'd say RickK's treatment of Willswikihelp is >> >>pretty >> >>>>close to harrassing a new user >>> >>>This from User:Unfocused, who likes to run around >>>attacking VfD nominations as bad faith. >> >>Ad-hominem bullshit. > > Pot. Kettle. Black. Yeah Rick, good job of describing yourself. From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:17:14 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:17:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602200929.39575.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602200929.39575.qmail@web60613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <429F694A.2080008@gmail.com> Rick wrote: > --- "michaelturley at myway.com" > wrote: > >>I have repeatedly asked RickK what about my comments >>was a personal attack, and how I should rephrase >>them, but RickK has completely ignored me, other >>than to say that I'm "whining" on his talk page and >>accuse me of personal attacks. See >> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVotes_for_deletion%2FZetor&diff=14596876&oldid=14596488 > >>for the latest example. > > I have already commented on this subject on > [[Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#Removing_attacks_on_VfD_nominators.27_motives]], > and have no intention of disussing it ad nauseum. (translation for others who don't have the time to read that) I was notified that what I was doing is wrong, but don't care and will continue. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 20:26:28 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:26:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> Message-ID: <35268.62.252.0.4.1117743988.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> I tried to fix the Derek Laud article the same way but now I can't see the history. Perhaps some database lag, or maybe I screwed up. There are some mischievous edits that aren't defamatory (using the word bummer, etc, just vulgar abuse) and I tried restoring those but the serious allegations I kept deleted and also some of the less defamatory but unsupported stuff From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 2 20:27:57 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 16:27:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? Message-ID: <20050602202757.70C936036B@mprdmxin.myway.com>
>> PS: Nice try on changing the "Reply to:" to avoid
> seeing my response on the list. It didn't work.
>
>I have no idea what you're talking about. I clicked
>"Reply" on Yahoo as I always do.
>
>RickK Then I apologize for that. That very well could have been (and probably was) a result of me using an unfamiliar webmail interface. When I originally replied to MacGyverMagic/Mgm, the list was included. I had originally subscribed to this list with no intention of ever posting to it, but since you didn't reply to any of my messages on your talk page, (except the last, which I've already mentioned) I decided to join the conversation here. Again, I am sorry for having included that PS line on my previous email. Now that we are corresponding, I want to know; is it your position that ANY suggestion to VfD nominators that they do cursory research before nomination is a "personal attack"? Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 20:30:35 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:30:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F6825.9000805@gmail.com> References: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> <429F6825.9000805@gmail.com> Message-ID: <58266.62.252.0.4.1117744235.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > Jondel "rejected" > the RFC because he didn't feel like putting up with it. I "rejected" > the RFC because it was clear it wasn't getting anywhere. >> Well fair enough. But it can't have been Rick's fault if the RFC didn't achieve the feedback you expected. That's why it's called a Request for Comments--we put them out when we're stuck trying to resolve a problem by ourselves and we think the matter would benefit from some fresh eyes looking at it. I know some people think of it as some kind of disciplinary thing, and if you expected that then you would have been disappointed because it really isn't like that at all. From rob at rbrwr.org Thu Jun 2 20:07:58 2005 From: rob at rbrwr.org (Rob Brewer) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 20:07:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Popbitch / Michael Colvin In-Reply-To: <35268.62.252.0.4.1117743988.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050602155555.M11218@rbrwr.org> <35268.62.252.0.4.1117743988.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <20050602200758.M65946@rbrwr.org> On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 21:26:28 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote > I tried to fix the Derek Laud article the same way but now I can't > see the history. Perhaps some database lag, or maybe I screwed up. > There are some mischievous edits that aren't defamatory (using the > word bummer, etc, just vulgar abuse) and I tried restoring those but > the serious allegations I kept deleted and also some of the less > defamatory but unsupported stuff Now you're the braver man. There is a danger, in case like this, of making the history misleading and thus putting us in violation of the GFDL. [[Michael Colvin]] was simple; this one looks like it wasn't. Rob [[user:Rbrwr]] -- Rob Brewer "This time I want cash, not forged book tokens" From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:36:26 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:36:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <58266.62.252.0.4.1117744235.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> <429F6825.9000805@gmail.com> <58266.62.252.0.4.1117744235.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F6DCA.4070603@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > SPUI said: > >>Jondel "rejected" >>the RFC because he didn't feel like putting up with it. I "rejected" >>the RFC because it was clear it wasn't getting anywhere. > > Well fair enough. But it can't have been Rick's fault if the RFC didn't > achieve the feedback you expected. That's why it's called a Request for > Comments--we put them out when we're stuck trying to resolve a problem by > ourselves and we think the matter would benefit from some fresh eyes > looking at it. > I know some people think of it as some kind of disciplinary thing, and if > you expected that then you would have been disappointed because it really > isn't like that at all. Well yeah, I got comments. Comments that proved to me that the whole system is corrupt. I was hoping that those comments would persuade RickK to rethink his actions, but I can be rather naive at times. So if I did want to attempt to get RickK to stop, what would I do? File an RFAr and hope ArbCom is impartial enough to accept? From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 2 20:48:46 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 16:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up Message-ID: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700 on Amazon's album sales list. This is far from a garage band playing church gigs. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From skyring at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:53:22 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 06:53:22 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <75c1297005060210385b2a07b9@mail.gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> <75c1297005060210385b2a07b9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205060213532ceb1d6f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/05, Josh Gordon wrote: > In exactly how many places do we need to have this exact same discussion? Your question cannot be answered exactly. But an approximate answer is that it is an irrational number. -- Peter in Canberra From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 20:58:58 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:58:58 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <38543.62.252.0.4.1117739277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> <38543.62.252.0.4.1117739277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <740c3aec0506021358665fc995@mail.gmail.com> > > What is the music notability standard? > This beastie: > > and why does it fail one of the most popular Christian rock bands? > > Um, we're not talking about Payable on Death and whatnot, just some guys > who put out their album over the internet and are still playing church > gigs. I don't know what Payable on Death is. I see now that the Notability and Music Guidelines are pretty strict. But still, these guys produce 25,000+ relevant hits on Google. Is there maybe some other Christian band named Falling Up or maybe a Christian hymn? Not long ago, 25,000 hits was an automatic keeper. -- mvh Bj?rn From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 21:02:39 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:02:39 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <20050602101949.GC9978@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <20050602101949.GC9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <740c3aec050602140237fd120f@mail.gmail.com> > > their initials so that readers themselves can do their research and > > see that the situation actually is as atrocious as I have described. > > I think you lost me when you talked earlier about how oppressed Lir was > by the arbitration process. What are you talking about? I said that Lir was harassed by certain admins, not opressed by the fine men and women in the Arbitration Commitee. -- mvh Bj?rn From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 21:03:07 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:03:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F6DCA.4070603@gmail.com> References: <20050602194819.7744.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> <429F6825.9000805@gmail.com> <58266.62.252.0.4.1117744235.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F6DCA.4070603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <52225.62.252.0.4.1117746187.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > > Well yeah, I got comments. Comments that proved to me that the whole > system is corrupt. I was hoping that those comments would persuade > RickK to rethink his actions, but I can be rather naive at times. I'm not sure what you mean by "the system." People just give their opinions in a RfC, it's pretty free-format. You and jondell got five endorsements. RickK made a response that got got one endorsement. SnowSpinner made an outside view that said "Wikipedia would more or less stop running without RickK" and unsurprisingly that got 14 endorsements (it didn't say anything about the merits of the case). jpgordon wrote a pretty neutral suggestion that RickK back off and let another administrator deal with the problem, and this got three endorsements. Mackensen said it was a storm in a teacup and got eleven endorsements. Firebug wrote a response mildly chiding RickK for not acting in the way he did and for not responding to the RfC (he did subsequently respond). This got nine endorsements--including one from you! Kim Bruning wrote another broadly hagiographic outside view that got thirteen endorsements. This seems like a good haul to me. I don't know what you expected, but there does seem to be a substantial recognition there that RickK is generally a good administrator but he makes mistakes. I think that's pretty fair. You then wrote a final "outside view" claiming you had been trolled. > > So if I did want to attempt to get RickK to stop, what would I do? File > an RFAr and hope ArbCom is impartial enough to accept? What precisely was he continuing to do that you thought he should stop doing? Just deleting some articles? Probably better to take that to VFU. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 21:05:43 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:05:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up In-Reply-To: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <2178.62.252.0.4.1117746343.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> michaelturley at myway.com said: > > > FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700 > on Amazon's album sales list. This is far from a garage band playing > church gigs. > I'm not sure how to take that. Number eight thousand, seven hundred? Really? From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 21:15:59 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:15:59 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> > I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a > few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try > to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not > reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve > the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty quickly. > Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, > some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such > cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a > particular admin has gone too far. I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity. -- mvh Bj?rn From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 2 21:21:52 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 17:21:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up Message-ID: <20050602212152.D57C460378@mprdmxin.myway.com>
>> FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700
>> on Amazon's album sales list. This is far from a garage band playing
>> church gigs.
>>
>
>
>I'm not sure how to take that. Number eight thousand, seven hundred?
>Really?
> Well, it was earlier today, then I checked again and found it at around #11,700. I don't have a clue how they calculate that or how much their hourly updates can swing the numbers, but apparently a lot. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From geniice at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 21:27:32 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:27:32 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/2/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap together a > > few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you have taken to try > > to resolve the problem and how the other party has reacted (or not > > reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and failed to resolve > > the same problem, to certify with you, along with his own evidence. Move > > Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky > part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first > experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty > quickly. > > > Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, > > some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such > > cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a > > particular admin has gone too far. > > I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator > privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of > tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning > that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would > very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far > an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers > privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't > seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity. > > -- > mvh Bj?rn > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > 172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases. a full ist of admins who have lost thier adminship (for a number of reasons) may be found at [[Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Former_Administrators]] -- geni From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 21:30:58 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:30:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> BJ?rn Lindqvist said: >> I don't think the RFC process is especially onerous. Just slap >> together a few diffs showing what has been done and the actions you >> have taken to try to resolve the problem and how the other party has >> reacted (or not reacted). Get your co-complainant, who has tried and >> failed to resolve the same problem, to certify with you, along with >> his own evidence. Move > > Easier said than done. Locating your co-complainant is the tricky > part. You just won't find many editors on Wikipedia who's first > experience of the community was a banning. They tend to leave pretty > quickly. > >> Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, >> some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in >> such cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that >> a particular admin has gone too far. > > I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator > privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of tree > digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning that > you have seen more than one instance of this happening. It would very > good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far an > admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers > privilegies. There's a list of five cases of desysopping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_de-adminship > Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't > seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity. The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are governed by the same standards that apply to all editors. From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 21:39:13 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 17:39:13 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > > The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are governed by > the same standards that apply to all editors. So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too will get sanctions. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 21:54:21 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:54:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >> The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are >> governed by the same standards that apply to all editors. > > So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he > too will get sanctions. No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 22:11:29 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 18:11:29 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > SPUI said: > >>Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >>>The Everyking RFAr proved, if it needed to be, that admins are >>>governed by the same standards that apply to all editors. >> >>So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he >>too will get sanctions. > > No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him from talking to new users. From morven at gmail.com Thu Jun 2 22:15:10 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 15:15:10 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up In-Reply-To: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc005060215155c0bf5cf@mail.gmail.com> On 6/2/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700 on Amazon's album > sales list. This is far from a garage band playing church gigs. It would be interesting to see in what musical company such a sales ranking gives them. -Matt (User:Morven) From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 22:39:50 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:39:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005060215155c0bf5cf@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050602204846.A087D6036E@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42f90dc005060215155c0bf5cf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <57358.62.252.0.4.1117751990.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Matt Brown said: > On 6/2/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: >> FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700 >> on Amazon's album sales list. This is far from a garage band playing >> church gigs. > > It would be interesting to see in what musical company such a sales > ranking gives them. http://www.ryantown.com/gayboyfriend/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 22:48:37 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 23:48:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0506021358665fc995@mail.gmail.com> References: <429E6D06.3040902@gmail.com> <1614.194.72.110.12.1117711633.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F298A.6090509@gmail.com> <61782.194.72.110.12.1117729311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021032a4bfab0@mail.gmail.com> <38543.62.252.0.4.1117739277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec0506021358665fc995@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <23387.62.252.0.4.1117752517.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> BJ?rn Lindqvist said: > > I don't know what Payable on Death is. Probably the most popular Christian rock group. Their last album even managed to get banned from Christian record stores because of some actually rather tame cover artwork, and enter the mainstream charts at number nine. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Jun 2 23:08:38 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 00:08:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: Shocking behavior towards Willswikihelp (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on) In-Reply-To: <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> Message-ID: <24093.62.252.0.4.1117753718.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? > > Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him > from talking to new users. You have a good point. I just looked the Willswikihelp case. He bit a newcomer who wrote a little eulogy to Sonny Bono in the middle of the South Lake Tahoe, California article. That's very bad behavior. What made it even worse was that another editor backed him up. A touch of groupthink there, I think. I hope RickK will apologise to this guy. This really didn't look like vandalism, just a newcomer making an inappropriate edit. Then RickK jumps into Isabella Allende and reverts what looks to me like a reasonable, if wordy, edit about her children's books. Cantus jumps in and does the same thing. Very bad behavior. SchmuckytheCat then goes and lists Chertsey.jpg, which Willswikihelp uploaded, on IFD claiming it was "no source, uploaded by vandal" and without going to Willswikihelp asking him to complete the licensing information on the image. There's a huge failure to assume good faith here, and I see absolutely no reason for it. The image was in effect trashed without any kind of good faith request for licensing information. That kind of behavior is enormously bad for Wikipedia. I'm shocked. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 01:17:37 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 11:17:37 +1000 Subject: Shocking behavior towards Willswikihelp (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on) In-Reply-To: <24093.62.252.0.4.1117753718.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> <24093.62.252.0.4.1117753718.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <5309126705060218177c9c7513@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: > You have a good point. I just looked the Willswikihelp case. He bit a > newcomer who wrote a little eulogy to Sonny Bono in the middle of the > South Lake Tahoe, California article. That's very bad behavior. What > made it even worse was that another editor backed him up. A touch of > groupthink there, I think. > > I hope RickK will apologise to this guy. This really didn't look like > vandalism, just a newcomer making an inappropriate edit. > > Then RickK jumps into Isabella Allende and reverts what looks to me like a > reasonable, if wordy, edit about her children's books. Cantus jumps in > and does the same thing. Very bad behavior. > > SchmuckytheCat then goes and lists Chertsey.jpg, which Willswikihelp > uploaded, on IFD claiming it was "no source, uploaded by vandal" and > without going to Willswikihelp asking him to complete the licensing > information on the image. > > There's a huge failure to assume good faith here, and I see absolutely no > reason for it. The image was in effect trashed without any kind of good > faith request for licensing information. That kind of behavior is > enormously bad for Wikipedia. > > I'm shocked. Then why not practice what you preach, and go talk to RickK? It does seem like a mistake has been made (although it is worth noting that Willswikihelp did seem to have some problems with Wikiquette when I looked, but that didn't make him a vandal), but would it be not be more appropriate to talk it over and see what happens rather that running to the mailing list calling for blood? I'm getting awfully tired of this small group that believes a non-admin deserves a thousand chances and neverending good faith in the faith of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, whereas if an admin slips up, they deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered. -- ambi From avenier at venier.net Fri Jun 3 03:16:50 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 22:16:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up In-Reply-To: <20050602212152.D57C460378@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050602212152.D57C460378@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <429FCBA2.6060609@venier.net> michaelturley at myway.com wrote: >
>> FYI: I checked it earlier; Falling Up's album rates in at about #8700
>> on Amazon's album sales list. This is far from a garage band playing
>> church gigs.
>>
>
>
>I'm not sure how to take that. Number eight thousand, seven hundred?
>Really?
> > >Well, it was earlier today, then I checked again and found it at around #11,700. I don't have a clue how they calculate that or how much their hourly updates can swing the numbers, but apparently a lot. > Evidently a it varies a lot -- currently appears to be #17,402 . I don't know that these numbers mean a lot. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 3 05:00:12 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 22:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050602202757.70C936036B@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <20050603050013.60127.qmail@web60625.mail.yahoo.com> --- "michaelturley at myway.com" wrote: > Now that we are corresponding, I want to know; is it > your position that ANY suggestion to VfD nominators > that they do cursory research before nomination is a > "personal attack"? > > Michael Turley > User:Unfocused As I have said repeatedly, all you have to do is to indicate that your own Google search revealed notable links. Attacking other people's motives is not on. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Fri Jun 3 07:20:58 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 08:20:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: Shocking behavior towards Willswikihelp (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on) In-Reply-To: <5309126705060218177c9c7513@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec050601141933b52dbd@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec05060202115ccef6b5@mail.gmail.com> <53752.194.72.110.12.1117711255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> <7192.62.252.0.4.1117747858.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> <54471.62.252.0.4.1117749261.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> <24093.62.252.0.4.1117753718.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <5309126705060218177c9c7513@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <33971.62.252.0.4.1117783258.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Rebecca said: > On 6/3/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >> I'm shocked. > > Then why not practice what you preach, and go talk to RickK? It does > seem like a mistake has been made (although it is worth noting that > Willswikihelp did seem to have some problems with Wikiquette when I > looked, but that didn't make him a vandal), but would it be not be more > appropriate to talk it over and see what happens rather that > running to the mailing list calling for blood? I do not call for blood. I have expressed a hope that RickK would apologise for his shocking behavior. I'm sorry if my shock has been transmuted into a call for sanctions in your mind--I should perhaps have made it more clear that I only wish to see administrators, and all other editors, treat newcomers with understanding. From morven at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 07:31:24 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 00:31:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Falling Up In-Reply-To: <429FCBA2.6060609@venier.net> References: <20050602212152.D57C460378@mprdmxin.myway.com> <429FCBA2.6060609@venier.net> Message-ID: <42f90dc005060300313ccb572a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/2/05, Andrew Venier wrote: > Evidently a it varies a lot -- currently appears to be #17,402 > . > > I don't know that these numbers mean a lot. I suspect that it's heavily rated by recent sales, and thus is probably meaningless for lower-ranked items. -Matt (User:Morven) From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 3 07:48:18 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 08:48:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? Message-ID: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called me a jerk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F Now, before I make a fool of myself making an inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could tell me if there are any proper channels of redress for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me defending myself. Thanks in advance, Dan100 ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com From morven at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 08:25:35 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 01:25:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050603012530639a9a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called me a jerk: I think enough whining about this has gone on already. You told the arbcom to "stop playing Perry Mason and go write some articles". Ambi took exception to this and called you a jerk. Much childishness ensued. I'd suggest that both you and Ambi quit this and get about doing something more useful for the whole project. And although the whole Wikipedia dispute resolution process is convoluted and somewhat painful, it serves a necessary purpose and is the least bad way of dealing with certain problems we've yet managed to devise. Saying "why can't we all just get along?" doesn't work when some people are determined to NOT get along. -Matt (User:Morven) From skyring at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 08:28:07 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 18:28:07 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called > me a jerk: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > tell me if there are any proper channels of redress > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > defending myself. I think you should take Ambi's advice. Making a fuss over her comment merely underscores the point she was making. -- Peter in Canberra From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 3 09:22:22 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 10:22:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> So can I take it as being OK to call someone a jerk? Dan100 --- Skyring wrote: > On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi > called > > me a jerk: > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > > tell me if there are any proper channels of > redress > > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > > defending myself. > > I think you should take Ambi's advice. Making a fuss > over her comment > merely underscores the point she was making. > > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Fri Jun 3 10:36:53 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 11:36:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <30081.194.72.110.12.1117795013.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Dan Grey said: > So can I take it as being OK to call someone a jerk? No. It's not okay to act like one either. That applies to both of you. From mindspillage at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 10:42:45 2005 From: mindspillage at gmail.com (Kat Walsh) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 06:42:45 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8e253f5605060303425e6e5c6b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > So can I take it as being OK to call someone a jerk? No. But you can follow the advice given to you, quite sanely, on that very same page, and calmly take it up with Ambi herself if you're still smarting over it. You shouldn't have insulted her (and the rest of the committee). She shouldn't have called you a jerk. You are equally to blame. I don't know what sort of action you want anyone to take here; I don't believe any official outside action is called for. All involved parties should cool off, apologize for the intemperate words, and deal with the issues that underlie your barbs rather than the namecalling. -Kat [[User:Mindspillage]] > --- Skyring wrote: > > > On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi > > called > > > me a jerk: > > > > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > > > > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > > > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > > > tell me if there are any proper channels of > > redress > > > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > > > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > > > defending myself. > > > > I think you should take Ambi's advice. Making a fuss > > over her comment > > merely underscores the point she was making. > > > > -- > > Peter in Canberra -- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 10:47:00 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:47:00 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Harrasment by an admin - examples? In-Reply-To: <20050603050013.60127.qmail@web60625.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050602202757.70C936036B@mprdmxin.myway.com> <20050603050013.60127.qmail@web60625.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/3/05, Rick wrote: > --- "michaelturley at myway.com" > wrote: > > Now that we are corresponding, I want to know; is it > > your position that ANY suggestion to VfD nominators > > that they do cursory research before nomination is a > > "personal attack"? > > > > Michael Turley > > User:Unfocused > > As I have said repeatedly, all you have to do is to > indicate that your own Google search revealed notable > links. Attacking other people's motives is not on. > > RickK Or that you can provide the ISBN number and author name of an existing book as a source of its importance. --Mgm From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 10:53:29 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:53:29 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <8e253f5605060303425e6e5c6b@mail.gmail.com> References: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <8e253f5605060303425e6e5c6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Yep, I agree with Mindspillage. Apologize to each other and patch things up. One personal attack, while bad, isn't enough to call for sanctions on either of you. Discussing it with each other is much more productive. -Mgm On 6/3/05, Kat Walsh wrote: > On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > So can I take it as being OK to call someone a jerk? > > No. But you can follow the advice given to you, quite sanely, on that > very same page, and calmly take it up with Ambi herself if you're > still smarting over it. > > You shouldn't have insulted her (and the rest of the committee). She > shouldn't have called you a jerk. You are equally to blame. I don't > know what sort of action you want anyone to take here; I don't believe > any official outside action is called for. All involved parties should > cool off, apologize for the intemperate words, and deal with the > issues that underlie your barbs rather than the namecalling. > > -Kat > [[User:Mindspillage]] > > > --- Skyring wrote: > > > > > On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > > > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi > > > called > > > > me a jerk: > > > > > > > > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > > > > > > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > > > > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > > > > tell me if there are any proper channels of > > > redress > > > > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > > > > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > > > > defending myself. > > > > > > I think you should take Ambi's advice. Making a fuss > > > over her comment > > > merely underscores the point she was making. > > > > > > -- > > > Peter in Canberra > > -- > "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily > escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Jun 3 12:26:19 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 06:26:19 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <064214BC-2D66-43B8-B452-9D965ACC568B@ctelco.net> There are no untouchables, however, this incident will be looked at in the context of all of Ambi's behavior, which means that it is unlikely that we will dump all over someone who generally acts in a responsible way. It is possible for a Wikipedia user to destroy their reputation by repeatedly trading on it in an inappropriate way, but it takes a series of incidents. As to a channel of redress, begin with Ambi. As to whether further steps are appropriate, use common sense. Are we dealing with an important problem or an isolated incident? Fred On Jun 3, 2005, at 1:48 AM, Dan Grey wrote: > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called > me a jerk: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > tell me if there are any proper channels of redress > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > defending myself. > > Thanks in advance, > > Dan100 > > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday > snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Jun 3 12:35:44 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 06:35:44 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42CB9EA9-B0EC-4E6F-B634-3EDB72709DCE@ctelco.net> No, even Ambi would agree that it is not ok to call someone a jerk. But is it to be "Never forget; never forgive" or "Live and let live"? Or is there a serious problem here that we all need to closely look at? I would say the criteria for judging that question would be whether this problem goes on an on or whether Ambi as well as you is willing to forgive and forget. Fred On Jun 3, 2005, at 3:22 AM, Dan Grey wrote: > So can I take it as being OK to call someone a jerk? > > > Dan100 > > --- Skyring wrote: > > >> On 6/3/05, Dan Grey wrote: >> >>> I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi >>> >> called >> >>> me a jerk: >>> >>> >>> >> >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > >>> >>> Now, before I make a fool of myself making an >>> inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could >>> tell me if there are any proper channels of >>> >> redress >> >>> for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is >>> 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me >>> defending myself. >>> >> >> I think you should take Ambi's advice. Making a fuss >> over her comment >> merely underscores the point she was making. >> >> -- >> Peter in Canberra >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >> > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday > snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 13:49:38 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 09:49:38 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050602141579a460e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: BJ?rn Lindqvist > > Successful arbitration cases have been brought against administrators, > > some of them resulting in loss of administrator powers. Usually in such > > cases there has been consensus amongst other administrators that a > > particular admin has gone too far. > >I think I remember one case in which the ArbCom revoked administrator >privilegies from an admin. Some admin who had a name consisting of >tree digits and was not 172. But you are talking in pluralis meaning >that you have seen more than one instance of this happening. I've seen it in a number of cases; sometimes the admins lost their powers temporarly, sometimes permanently, sometimes they had other sanctions not involving admin powers. >It would >very good if you could describe the events so that we can see how far >an admin actually can go before he or she loses his or hers >privilegies. Set a precedence, formalize the rules, so that it doesn't >seem like admins are VIP:s with diplomatic immunity. Bu the rules *are* formalized, and the precedents *have* been set, and it doesn't seem like admins are "VIPs with diplomatic immunity" except to a small number of editors who are typically trolls or cranks. Jay. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Fri Jun 3 13:50:16 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 09:50:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] No redress against personal attack - take the moral high road Message-ID: Dan Grey (Dan100) [mailto:dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk] wrote: > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called > me a jerk: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbit > ration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > tell me if there are any proper channels of redress > for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > 'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > defending myself. Wikipedia policy does NOT provide users the right of "redress". Ignore it the first time or so. After that, ask the person POLITELY to stop calling you names. If they persist, ask others for help, such as a senior admin. (Yes, I know: all admins have the same "rank". I mean someone who's been around a long time and knows everybody, like me or Anthere or maveric169. Sheesh! Do I have to spell this out?) If peer pressure from admins fails, you make a request for arbitration. BUT - note this carefully! - you must leave a "clean audit trail". In all your dealings with the person who is bothering you, make sure that you do not retaliate. Ignore this guideline at your own risk! Any attempt to change others' behavior on this wiki by "doing unto them what they have done to you" AUTOMATICALLY lowers your chance of prevailing. This is not junior high school: tit for tat does not apply here. Your behavior must be exemplary (like mine ;-) and then everyone is bound to treat you well. Why does this work? Well, take me for example. My personal views are considered "extreme" (even offensive) by many other contributors - including admins and arbcom members. But I avoid PERSONAL ATTACKS, and I'm gracious and yielding at all times. Except when I lose it! And when I'm having a bad day I withdraw, mull things over and undo or take back what I did or said. Generally with copious, self-abasing apologies. And why not? Am I here for the honor and glory of being respected by a multitude - or did I come here to Help. Build. An encyclopedia. For the benefit of the world. Figure out why YOU are here, and act accordingly. (I can coach you, if requested.) Uncle Ed [[User:Ed Poor]] From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 13:51:31 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 09:51:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: geni > > >172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases. a >full ist of admins who have lost thier adminship (for a number of >reasons) may be found at >[[Wikipedia:List_of_administrators#Former_Administrators]] In addition, as I said before, other admins have had admin powers temporarily revoked, or have had other sanctions placed on them. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 13:55:01 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 09:55:01 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F7C81.5000900@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: SPUI ? >So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too >will get sanctions. Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 13:57:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 09:57:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <429F8411.4000706@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: SPUI > >>No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? > >Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him >from talking to new users. And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass admins? For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to your harrassment of RickK? Jay. From drspui at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 14:56:15 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 10:56:15 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A06F8F.60707@gmail.com> JAY JG wrote: >> From: SPUI > > ? > >> So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he >> too will get sanctions. > > Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being > abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa. If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not? From drspui at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 14:57:31 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 10:57:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A06FDB.7040906@gmail.com> JAY JG wrote: >> From: SPUI >> >>> No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? >> >> >> Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban >> him from talking to new users. > > And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass > admins? For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to > your harrassment of RickK? Nothing. Admins should be held to a higher standard. Those that are unable to avoid RickK-like behavior should not be admins. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Fri Jun 3 15:16:14 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 16:16:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <42A06F8F.60707@gmail.com> References: <42A06F8F.60707@gmail.com> Message-ID: <54493.194.72.110.12.1117811774.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> SPUI said: > JAY JG wrote: >>> From: SPUI >> >> ? >> >>> So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he >>> too will get sanctions. >> >> Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins >> being abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa. > > If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not? Surely you don't need to be told the answer to that rhetorical question. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 15:45:30 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 11:45:30 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Dan Grey > >I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called >me a jerk: > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > >Now, before I make a fool of myself making an >inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could >tell me if there are any proper channels of redress >for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is >'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me >defending myself. In my experience, it usually takes consistent application of far worse labels in order to make an Arbitration Committee case, and that applies to everyone, not just Ambi. That said, your implication that admins are held to a different standard of conduct is true, but the standard they are held to is actually much higher than that of the typical editor. Jay. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 3 16:00:50 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 09:00:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <20050603074818.67655.qmail@web26006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050603160050.80769.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> --- Dan Grey wrote: > I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi > called > me a jerk: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F I would think your option is clear. Stop being a jerk. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 16:03:12 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:03:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem user Message-ID: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> User:Scandum has become increasingly a thorn in my side. He is obviously some sort of neo-eugenicist and he spends all of his time on here causing problems on eugenics related articles. Put basically, he questions basic historical facts (such as that the Nazis used eugenic rhetoric to justify their racial policies) and tries to edit them out of articles. When he is advised to look at the many dozens of references given in the article -- all to scholarly works, all available on Amazon.com, all available at a standard library -- he claims he has never read them and cannot get access to them. He does not cite anything to justify his own opinions, and apparently has never read anything on the topic. If you do give him a web source, he disregards it as a "random source" or simply disagrees with it. He hasn't broken any rules, but he's wasting a lot of time. The POV he is pushing is completely uninformed about the articles he is trying to push it into, he seems to purposely not understand direct responses to his queries, he repeats the same old schtick no matter how carefully the other editors attempt to reason with him and show him their sources. Those who disagree with him he labels "bullies". It is clear to me, anyway, that he knows nothing reliable about the topic and is just a crank. The changes he wants to institute are ones which anybody with even a mild education in the subject matter knows are at worst untrue and at best historically and logically incoherent. As an example, he filed a POV warning because he wanted a line change from saying that part of what put eugenics into disrepute was a reaction to the Nazi eugenic programs, to saying that what put eugenics into disrepute was the UN Human Rights Declaration. The latter doesn't specifically mention eugenics but even then it was *caused* by a reaction to the Nazis. He doesn't seem to understand the difference, it is clear he just wants to remove any reference to the Nazis. I'm getting pretty fed up, after three weeks it is clear that reasoning with him isn't going to get anywhere, and he is really wasting a lot of my time and the time of others on here. Anybody have any advice? If anybody wanted to read the small novel of talk at [[Eugenics]], I'd appreciate any specific insight as well. I'm trying to be civil -- failing at times -- but I get pretty annoyed when some crank pushing what I consider to be a pretty ugly and revisionist POV (into an article which has been carefully written so as to minimize its own judgments and POV -- it doesn't say "eugenics is a Nazi philosophy" as it easily could, it is about perceptions and rhetoric) cuts back on time which I could be spending writing or editing better articles because I have to explain things to him that he would have known if he had done any actual reading in the subject. (And mind you, I don't mind explaining things -- I do mind when I am sure that my efforts are wasted because my explanations will not be read) Hopefully this doesn't come off as too elitist, anti-user, whatever. I think if you look at his contribs list though you can see his agenda pretty well, and I try to assume good faith with people for at least the first week of their work. You can see, if you look, that I've tried to rewrite various things in the article to be more clear and precise, and have for the most part tried to take everything he said at least seriously enough to give it a real response (up to the point of repetition). Again, he hasn't broken any rules, I don't see any real grounds for mediation, I'm just getting very frustrated, and justifiably so, I think. FF From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 16:15:01 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:15:01 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <42A06F8F.60707@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: SPUI > >JAY JG wrote: >>>From: SPUI >> >>? >> >>>So now we just need to push RickK into becoming more trollish, and he too >>>will get sanctions. >> >>Thanks for supporting my contention that the real issue is admins being >>abused with near impunity by editors, rather than vice versa. > >If that's the only way to stop RickK's abuse, why not? It appears that the abuse is mostly coming from you, so if I were you I'd be cautious about starting a campaign to get tough with abusers. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 3 16:24:01 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:24:01 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <42A06FDB.7040906@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: SPUI > >JAY JG wrote: >>>From: SPUI >>> >>>>No. But what kind of sanctions should he get, and for what reason? >>> >>> >>>Reason? Harassing new users. Sanctions? Not sure. Can't exactly ban him >>>from talking to new users. >> >>And what kind of sanctions would you suggest for user who harrass admins? >>For example, what sanctions would be an appropriate response to your >>harrassment of RickK? > >Nothing. Admins should be held to a higher standard. They are, but certainly no users should be allowed to harrass others; this isn't Viligantipedia. >Those that are unable to avoid RickK-like behavior should not be admins. And those that are unable to avoid SPUI-like behaviour? Perhaps they should not be posting to this mailing list, as a start. Jay. From viajero at quilombo.nl Fri Jun 3 16:47:01 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 18:47:01 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem user In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42A08985.40205@quilombo.nl> Open an RfC on this user. List some examples of "POV pushing". If Scandum is not citing sources for his additions and/or is ignoring sources supplied by other users, then he IS breaking rules. Keep in mind that an RfC on an individual should focus on personal behaviour and not content issues. Some users respond positively to being the subject of an RfC; others don't. If Scandum doesn't, you may have a good case to bring before the ArbCom. HTH V. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 3 16:55:02 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 18:55:02 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Redress against personal attack? References: <550ccb8205060301284a309d7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050603092222.62976.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <8e253f5605060303425e6e5c6b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42A08B66.1090009@yahoo.com> Kat Walsh a ?crit: All involved parties should > cool off, apologize for the intemperate words, and deal with the > issues that underlie your barbs rather than the namecalling. > > -Kat > [[User:Mindspillage]] Nod. Exactly. It is unfortunately real that some of us (me included sometimes) resort to using bad words to call others when the pressure is too high. But that happens. Best is to give it a few hours, feel the regret build up, apology and try to put the whole thing aside. Not always easy. But the best. I would even go as far as saying that after a while... you get to realise some people just blow up this way from time to time. Then, you somehow get used to it. But generally, abusive use of insults get oneself bad reputation. ant From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 17:14:34 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 13:14:34 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem user In-Reply-To: <42A08985.40205@quilombo.nl> References: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> <42A08985.40205@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <98dd099a050603101465a4bf79@mail.gmail.com> Well, yes, I suppose I can do that. I suppose I was also just looking for anybody else's input on this before I go ahead with something like that -- making sure I am doing the right thing on this. Again, he's not doing anything flagrantly out of bounds but he is becoming quite a pest. FF On 6/3/05, Viajero wrote: > Open an RfC on this user. List some examples of "POV pushing". If > Scandum is not citing sources for his additions and/or is ignoring > sources supplied by other users, then he IS breaking rules. Keep in mind > that an RfC on an individual should focus on personal behaviour and not > content issues. > > Some users respond positively to being the subject of an RfC; others > don't. If Scandum doesn't, you may have a good case to bring before the > ArbCom. > > HTH > > V. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 3 17:22:52 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 18:22:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <42A08B66.1090009@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050603172252.60427.qmail@web26007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Thank you all for answering my questions, and for your advice, particulary Ed Poor. I have apologized to Ambi for my original comments. They were not *meant* to be a personal attack, however, if that is how they have been read, then that is what they are, and so an apology is in order. I have also simply expressed my disappointment with Ambi's comments, and want to leave it there. I just expected more of an arbitrator. So that is that :-) Dan100 --- Anthere wrote: > > > Kat Walsh a ?crit: > All involved parties should > > cool off, apologize for the intemperate words, and > deal with the > > issues that underlie your barbs rather than the > namecalling. > > > > -Kat > > [[User:Mindspillage]] > > Nod. Exactly. > > It is unfortunately real that some of us (me > included sometimes) resort > to using bad words to call others when the pressure > is too high. > But that happens. Best is to give it a few hours, > feel the regret build > up, apology and try to put the whole thing aside. > Not always easy. But > the best. > > I would even go as far as saying that after a > while... you get to > realise some people just blow up this way from time > to time. Then, you > somehow get used to it. But generally, abusive use > of insults get > oneself bad reputation. > > ant > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From cunctator at kband.com Fri Jun 3 17:38:52 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 13:38:52 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] No redress against personal attack - take the moral high road In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 6/3/05 9:50 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > Your behavior must be exemplary (like mine ;-) and then everyone is > bound to treat you well. > > Why does this work? Well, take me for example. My personal views are > considered "extreme" (even offensive) by many other contributors - > including admins and arbcom members. But I avoid PERSONAL ATTACKS, and > I'm gracious and yielding at all times. > > Except when I lose it! And when I'm having a bad day I withdraw, mull > things over and undo or take back what I did or said. Generally with > copious, self-abasing apologies. Exactly. Ed's always gracious and polite, except when he's a total nitwit and obtuse blowhard. Just like me. I've been called a lot worse than "jerk" by others here at Wikipedia, and I haven't called for "personal redress". I do try to understand why people get upset with me, and act accordingly, but I also recognize that that Wikipedia is not the center of my social universe and a little intemperateness is not a big deal. By the way, I think that there are lots of people who can be jerks here at Wikipedia. But it doesn't mean they can't also be humble and helpful. Remember the virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris. From rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu Fri Jun 3 19:07:59 2005 From: rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu (Richard Rabinowitz) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 15:07:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Name sounds familiar In-Reply-To: <20050602190458.0346D1190A3E@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050602190458.0346D1190A3E@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:54:31 -0700 (PDT) >From: Rick >--- SPUI wrote: > What the fuck are you smoking? >Knock off the attacks on the mailing list. I'd like >to mention that SPUI is also a member of the GNAA. >RickK SPUI's involved in this? and what's the GNAA? Rickyrab From spyders at btinternet.com Fri Jun 3 19:19:51 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 20:19:51 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Name sounds familiar References: <20050602190458.0346D1190A3E@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <002801c56871$3772a2e0$6c859d51@hedlatora> [[Gay Nigger Association of America]]. A trolling group. > SPUI's involved in this? and what's the GNAA? From timwi at gmx.net Fri Jun 3 19:22:44 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 20:22:44 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A Nony Mouse wrote: ... quite a lot. Clearly, there's a huge thread following A Nony Mouse's first posting. I have not read it. I don't think I have the nerve. But I want to comment on something, and I apologise if this has been said elsewhere in the thread already. A Nony Mouse is placing a lot of blame on admins, saying they are clearly misbehaving in one way or another. However, with 473 admins on the English Wikipedia, I think we are well beyond the point where we can place any blame for large-scale emergent behavioural patterns on any single admin or any particular set of admins. You can't blame the admins for "feeling special", because they *are* -- they're admins, and non-admins aren't. That makes them special. You can't blame the admins for "believing that they are somehow better than others", because they have been elected, thereby clearly having gained trust in the community. I am *NOT* saying that these behaviours are perfectly okay! But you are na?ve if you don't expect them to occur more and more as the number of admins increases. These behaviours are within human nature, and a system that doesn't take this into account is to blame, not the admins. To put it bluntly: Don't be surprised that admins "exceed their authority" if the system allows them to get away with it. Timwi From timwi at gmx.net Fri Jun 3 19:32:52 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 20:32:52 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > > Why not look at the Internet communities that DO work? How can we when you haven't mentioned what they are? From timwi at gmx.net Fri Jun 3 20:00:02 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:00:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: JAY JG wrote: > From: "A Nony Mouse" > >> From the very first email he sent to this list I saw nothing but list >> members being dismissive and rude. > > It's not the first time "Cranston" has e-mailed this list. Huh? The very first e-mail he sent to this list is not the first time he e-mailed this list? ... Uh...... What? From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 20:28:25 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 22:28:25 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Name sounds familiar In-Reply-To: <002801c56871$3772a2e0$6c859d51@hedlatora> References: <20050602190458.0346D1190A3E@mail.wikimedia.org> <002801c56871$3772a2e0$6c859d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: I don't care what he's a member of. If he can abide by Wikipedia policies and keep his edits NPOV, I welcome SPUI to continue editing. --Mgm On 6/3/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > [[Gay Nigger Association of America]]. A trolling group. > > > SPUI's involved in this? and what's the GNAA? > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Jun 3 21:40:39 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 15:40:39 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Problem user In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a050603090311b909bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <12211372-31EB-47FF-A056-FEE5CDE3B445@ctelco.net> This sounds like a move that will go to arbitration. I suggest you move it along. Speak to Scandum about changing sure enough, but move it along and we can get it over with if he is determined to keep on with the stuff you describe. For example, ask him if he will use inter-library loan to check references before he deletes them. Fred On Jun 3, 2005, at 10:03 AM, Fastfission wrote: > User:Scandum has become increasingly a thorn in my side. He is > obviously some sort of neo-eugenicist and he spends all of his time on > here causing problems on eugenics related articles. Put basically, he > questions basic historical facts (such as that the Nazis used eugenic > rhetoric to justify their racial policies) and tries to edit them out > of articles. When he is advised to look at the many dozens of > references given in the article -- all to scholarly works, all > available on Amazon.com, all available at a standard library -- he > claims he has never read them and cannot get access to them. He does > not cite anything to justify his own opinions, and apparently has > never read anything on the topic. If you do give him a web source, he > disregards it as a "random source" or simply disagrees with it. > > He hasn't broken any rules, but he's wasting a lot of time. The POV he > is pushing is completely uninformed about the articles he is trying to > push it into, he seems to purposely not understand direct responses to > his queries, he repeats the same old schtick no matter how carefully > the other editors attempt to reason with him and show him their > sources. Those who disagree with him he labels "bullies". > > It is clear to me, anyway, that he knows nothing reliable about the > topic and is just a crank. The changes he wants to institute are ones > which anybody with even a mild education in the subject matter knows > are at worst untrue and at best historically and logically incoherent. > As an example, he filed a POV warning because he wanted a line change > from saying that part of what put eugenics into disrepute was a > reaction to the Nazi eugenic programs, to saying that what put > eugenics into disrepute was the UN Human Rights Declaration. The > latter doesn't specifically mention eugenics but even then it was > *caused* by a reaction to the Nazis. He doesn't seem to understand the > difference, it is clear he just wants to remove any reference to the > Nazis. > > I'm getting pretty fed up, after three weeks it is clear that > reasoning with him isn't going to get anywhere, and he is really > wasting a lot of my time and the time of others on here. Anybody have > any advice? If anybody wanted to read the small novel of talk at > [[Eugenics]], I'd appreciate any specific insight as well. I'm trying > to be civil -- failing at times -- but I get pretty annoyed when some > crank pushing what I consider to be a pretty ugly and revisionist POV > (into an article which has been carefully written so as to minimize > its own judgments and POV -- it doesn't say "eugenics is a Nazi > philosophy" as it easily could, it is about perceptions and rhetoric) > cuts back on time which I could be spending writing or editing better > articles because I have to explain things to him that he would have > known if he had done any actual reading in the subject. (And mind you, > I don't mind explaining things -- I do mind when I am sure that my > efforts are wasted because my explanations will not be read) > > Hopefully this doesn't come off as too elitist, anti-user, whatever. I > think if you look at his contribs list though you can see his agenda > pretty well, and I try to assume good faith with people for at least > the first week of their work. You can see, if you look, that I've > tried to rewrite various things in the article to be more clear and > precise, and have for the most part tried to take everything he said > at least seriously enough to give it a real response (up to the point > of repetition). Again, he hasn't broken any rules, I don't see any > real grounds for mediation, I'm just getting very frustrated, and > justifiably so, I think. > > FF > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From skyring at gmail.com Fri Jun 3 21:47:21 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 07:47:21 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820506031447710f0edf@mail.gmail.com> On 6/4/05, Timwi wrote: > Skyring wrote: > > > > Why not look at the Internet communities that DO work? > > How can we when you haven't mentioned what they are? Are you saying that you only know of non-functional Internet communities? -- Peter in Canberra From timwi at gmx.net Sat Jun 4 10:13:23 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 11:13:23 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: <550ccb820506031447710f0edf@mail.gmail.com> References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820506031447710f0edf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On 6/4/05, Timwi wrote: >>Skyring wrote: >> >>>Why not look at the Internet communities that DO work? >> >>How can we when you haven't mentioned what they are? > > Are you saying that you only know of non-functional Internet communities? No, I just think that different people have different opinions on what constitutes a community that "works". In my mind, Wikipedia works, but clearly you disagree. So when you tell us to look at something that fulfills _your_ criteria, you should tell us what it is, or we will be left to guess what _your_ criteria are. But anyway -- I've noticed elsewhere in the thread that you were probably talking about LiveJournal and BookCrossing. I don't know the latter. As for LiveJournal, you mentioned that it "includes the sort of members who are well-educated, well-spoken, intelligent and fun to be with" -- I might have agreed to that about two or three years ago, but in my experience LiveJournal is increasingly taken over by the illiterate. It is also a long shot to claim that it "works" -- it is the target of avalanches of spam and trolling, and the management barely comes up with features to even come anywhere near combatting it. When a LiveJournal community still has active maintainers, they can keep the noise somewhat down by deleting and banning, but it is a lot of work and not very rewarding (you get a lot of complaints that you have deleted legitimate stuff). In practice, most communities, not to mention all syndicated feeds, do not have (active) maintainers. I'm not sure why I've written all this, as it doesn't really have anything to do with Wikipedia. LiveJournal is not a creative or collaborative work, so the aspects that make it "work" are entirely irrelevant for Wikipedia. Timwi From skyring at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 12:50:12 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 22:50:12 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Recent goings-on In-Reply-To: References: <6E61B93E-C5B9-4FE1-8191-DC6C2BD1FE0C@sbcglobal.net> <550ccb82050530224467f908ba@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820506031447710f0edf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205060405507ac8d6aa@mail.gmail.com> On 6/4/05, Timwi wrote: > Skyring wrote: > > On 6/4/05, Timwi wrote: > >>Skyring wrote: > >> > >>>Why not look at the Internet communities that DO work? > >> > >>How can we when you haven't mentioned what they are? > > > > Are you saying that you only know of non-functional Internet communities? > > No, I just think that different people have different opinions on what > constitutes a community that "works". In my mind, Wikipedia works, but > clearly you disagree. Nobody is saying Wikipedia doesn't work. I don't. > So when you tell us to look at something that > fulfills _your_ criteria, you should tell us what it is, or we will be > left to guess what _your_ criteria are. You've got that wrong too. > But anyway -- I've noticed elsewhere in the thread that you were > probably talking about LiveJournal and BookCrossing. I don't know the > latter. As for LiveJournal, I wasn't talking about Livejournal. If you have anything relevant to Wikipedia and its problems, say so. -- Peter in Canberra From mapellegrini at comcast.net Sat Jun 4 19:22:35 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 15:22:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions pertaining to an ongoing problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC --Mark Pellegrini From jwales at wikia.com Sat Jun 4 14:49:14 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 16:49:14 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The mythical golden age Message-ID: <42A1BF6A.9000107@wikia.com> Charles Matthews wrote: > Nobody should kid themselves that there was ever a golden time when > there was no 'bickering'. If you look at the traffic numbers you > see huge growth. Every month or so an asocial user kicking up a fuss > about the way things are handled... it's the price we pay for being > a radically open community. Remember, this is a big volunteer > project; all that happens is that some people simply make it too > hard for them to be accepted as volunteers. Absolutely right. There was no golden age. :-) --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sat Jun 4 15:34:05 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 17:34:05 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? Message-ID: <42A1C9ED.2030606@wikia.com> >I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called >me a jerk: > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > >Now, before I make a fool of myself making an >inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could >tell me if there are any proper channels of redress >for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is >'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me >defending myself. Here's the best option in such cases, in my opinion: "Ambi, I am really very sorry about all this. I did not mean to be a jerk. My comment about 'Perry Mason' was rude and uncalled for, and I regret it. I also think that you should not have called me a jerk, but since I hope you will forgive me for my behavior, I have already forgiven you for calling me a jerk. Here's hoping we can be friends soon, and again, I apologize for causing you any trouble." Thinking about "defending" oneself is already going down a path to further conflict. WikiLove... --Jimbo From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sat Jun 4 21:26:59 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 07:26:59 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050605 05:23]: > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC Everyone should read and consider this. We've had *lengthy* discussions on this matter on wikien-l. Basically: most of the really poisonous arseholes have in fact been kicked off en: Wikipedia, and when new ones show up they are ejected in reasonable order. (In a lot of cases, it's not even reaching the AC as they're dealt with as obvious vandals and trolls by WP:AN/I.) So now the AC is getting a lot of grey-area cases that are really a proxy for a content dispute. What to do about this? - d. From joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 21:58:28 2005 From: joshua.p.gordon at gmail.com (Josh Gordon) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 14:58:28 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <42A1C9ED.2030606@wikia.com> References: <42A1C9ED.2030606@wikia.com> Message-ID: <75c1297005060414587e8b511d@mail.gmail.com> Reminds me of something I saw a few times on the highways outside of Tokyo a few years ago. An impatient driver cuts off another driver; the driver who had been cut off gestures an apology, as if to say "Excuse me for being so rude as to put you in a position in which you felt it necessary to cut me off." --jpgordon ~~~~ On 6/4/05, Jimmy Wales wrote: > > >I'd like to know what my options are after Ambi called > >me a jerk: > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration#Everyking_3_deadlock.3F > > > >Now, before I make a fool of myself making an > >inappropiate fuss on the wiki, maybe someone could > >tell me if there are any proper channels of redress > >for this kind of thing, whether or not Ambi is > >'untouchable' and therefore it's not worth me > >defending myself. > > Here's the best option in such cases, in my opinion: > > "Ambi, I am really very sorry about all this. I did not mean to be a > jerk. My comment about 'Perry Mason' was rude and uncalled for, and I > regret it. I also think that you should not have called me a jerk, but > since I hope you will forgive me for my behavior, I have already > forgiven you for calling me a jerk. Here's hoping we can be friends > soon, and again, I apologize for causing you any trouble." > > Thinking about "defending" oneself is already going down a path to > further conflict. > > WikiLove... > > --Jimbo > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 22:13:54 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 00:13:54 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take the case because of conduct. It's the controversial cases in which large numbers of people disagree that are the problem. Unfortunately, those take time, and can't be properly handled by a small group of people (they're probably divided on it themselves). --Mgm On 6/4/05, David Gerard wrote: > Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050605 05:23]: > > > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC > > > Everyone should read and consider this. We've had *lengthy* discussions on > this matter on wikien-l. > > Basically: most of the really poisonous arseholes have in fact been kicked > off en: Wikipedia, and when new ones show up they are ejected in reasonable > order. (In a lot of cases, it's not even reaching the AC as they're dealt > with as obvious vandals and trolls by WP:AN/I.) So now the AC is getting a > lot of grey-area cases that are really a proxy for a content dispute. What > to do about this? > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 22:26:31 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 00:26:31 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <49bdc74305060415261e7aee81@mail.gmail.com> There does need to be some sort of final say on matters of NPOV and opinion. Concensus cannot always be achieved, and many contentious pages are controlled by a POV lobby which alert one another when a vote w partican potential comes along. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing > without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take > the case because of conduct. It's the controversial cases in which > large numbers of people disagree that are the problem. Unfortunately, > those take time, and can't be properly handled by a small group of > people (they're probably divided on it themselves). > > --Mgm > > On 6/4/05, David Gerard wrote: > > Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050605 05:23]: > > > > > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > > > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC > > > > > > Everyone should read and consider this. We've had *lengthy* discussions on > > this matter on wikien-l. > > > > Basically: most of the really poisonous arseholes have in fact been kicked > > off en: Wikipedia, and when new ones show up they are ejected in reasonable > > order. (In a lot of cases, it's not even reaching the AC as they're dealt > > with as obvious vandals and trolls by WP:AN/I.) So now the AC is getting a > > lot of grey-area cases that are really a proxy for a content dispute. What > > to do about this? > > > > > > - d. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sat Jun 4 22:33:16 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:33:16 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing > without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take > the case because of conduct. It's the controversial cases in which > large numbers of people disagree that are the problem. Unfortunately, > those take time, and can't be properly handled by a small group of > people (they're probably divided on it themselves). > That's what we do at the moment, look at the conduct and leave the content to work itself out. The question is whether we are missing the underlying problem by doing this. Are we missing the frustrations that /lead/ to good people loosing their temper and acting badly? And would it be better for there to be some other means, outside of the AC, to solve these content disputes before that happens? I have mixed feelings on all this - I see that there are problems, but am not fully convinced that the majority of them won't be fixed with a little time and a little faith in the good will of editors. I'm not saying we ignore things until they go away, just that a proactive solution may give disputes an emphasis that might be harmful - maybe without intervention the eventualist approach will work in a lot of cases. But that said, I realise we are in a whole new situation with the growing Wikipedia, and maybe what worked a year ago won't do so nowadays. And content does seem to be the key issue in many disputes that we have looked at recently. --sannse From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 22:58:53 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 00:58:53 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: Well, that may be the case, but those being disadvantaged in content cases are always going to claim such a committee is taking sides. How exactly do you plan to bring together an impartial team to judge such things. Take for example the school issue. It's been dragging for a long time, but I don't think making a decision can be reached at the moment which both sides can be content with. How would you deal with such a thing? --Mgm On 6/5/05, sannse wrote: > > > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing > > without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take > > the case because of conduct. It's the controversial cases in which > > large numbers of people disagree that are the problem. Unfortunately, > > those take time, and can't be properly handled by a small group of > > people (they're probably divided on it themselves). > > > > That's what we do at the moment, look at the conduct and leave the > content to work itself out. The question is whether we are missing the > underlying problem by doing this. Are we missing the frustrations that > /lead/ to good people loosing their temper and acting badly? And would > it be better for there to be some other means, outside of the AC, to > solve these content disputes before that happens? > > I have mixed feelings on all this - I see that there are problems, but > am not fully convinced that the majority of them won't be fixed with a > little time and a little faith in the good will of editors. I'm not > saying we ignore things until they go away, just that a proactive > solution may give disputes an emphasis that might be harmful - maybe > without intervention the eventualist approach will work in a lot of cases. > > But that said, I realise we are in a whole new situation with the > growing Wikipedia, and maybe what worked a year ago won't do so > nowadays. And content does seem to be the key issue in many disputes > that we have looked at recently. > > --sannse > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sat Jun 4 23:14:52 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 09:14:52 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050605 08:13]: > Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing > without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take > the case because of conduct. It's the controversial cases in which > large numbers of people disagree that are the problem. Unfortunately, > those take time, and can't be properly handled by a small group of > people (they're probably divided on it themselves). For an example, check the WMC vs Cortonin case. Can content be decided by which side explodes in frustration first? I submit that this may not be the best of ideas. A lot of it is that the AC has been too effective; so people start dealing with others as problems to be dealt with, with the AC at the end of the process. This is not a good attitude either. - d. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sat Jun 4 23:25:16 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:25:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/4/05, David Gerard wrote: > For an example, check the WMC vs Cortonin case. Can content be decided by > which side explodes in frustration first? I submit that this may not be the > best of ideas. > > A lot of it is that the AC has been too effective; so people start dealing > with others as problems to be dealt with, with the AC at the end of the > process. This is not a good attitude either. I don't really have anything to add here because David made his point here so clearly. I think this is a really important perspective. We come here to write an encyclopedia, not to politic. Thanks David. From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Sun Jun 5 02:38:18 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:38:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia e-mail (fwd) Message-ID: Hi "Noitall", I'm sorry that my response to you is delayed; I access Wikipedia from a dial-up account, & I only read your email about half an hour ago. From examining the history logs at [[Islamic Terrorism]], you violated the [[Wikipedia:Three-revert rule]]. In brief, when any contributor -- & that applies to me as much as to you to Mustafaa or Yuber -- to Wikipedia makes more than three reversions to an article within 24 hours, that contributor can be banned from editing Wikipedia for up to 24 hours. The intent of this rule is to get people to talk & listen to each other over contentious edits -- & to prevent articles from being locked from anyone editing them. I do think that Mustafaa should have asked another Administrator who had not been involved in this article to have done the ban so in tandem with this & the fact that it took so long for me to look into the matter, I'm ending your ban. I hope you take the time to first look at the article above about the 3-revert rule, & to talk to Mustafaa & Yuber about this article on the Talk page before making further changes to that article. I also suggest that you look at the articles listed at [[Wikipedia:Resolving disputes]], in the event you feel you are not getting a fair hearing about your edits. I am also forwarding your email to Wikipedia-EN, where you can ask for help & receive it much quicker. Geoff ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 02:48:11 GMT From: Noitall To: Llywrch Subject: Wikipedia e-mail I am requesting both information and assistance. I made an edit to [[Islamic Terrorism]] on Wiki. I believe my edit was a balanced description of the term and significantly improved it. I did not insert any POV. However, this is apparently a highly monitored page with two Muslim editors (or more). They teamed up to do a reactionary vandalism, reverting the page. I believe they broke several of Wiki policies: 1. Most important is that they have an obvious POV. 2. Second, they rv instead of simply making one simple correction, the only correction that they disagreed with. 3. Unlike what they stated, there has been no previous discussion of this issue. The only previous discussion concerned their own sensitivity to the term. The term ?Islamic Terrorism? is the term used by the West and it is the term being described. I provided a source (and there would be tens of thousands of sources, because this is the proper term in the West. I accurately described the dispute that some Muslims have over a term used in the West. But the biggest problem is they somehow shut me out of the system. I believe that I have made significant contributions to Wiki and I very greatly object to 2 people teaming up to shut me out of the system so that they can insert their POV. These people are doing a real disservice to Wiki, and I can think of no worse vandalism than they have done: Mustafaa and Yuber So, I would appreciate any information and assistance you can provide to Noitall. Thank you. Noitall From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sun Jun 5 03:13:26 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 04:13:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <41640.62.252.0.4.1117941206.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> sannse said: > > That's what we do at the moment, look at the conduct and leave the > content to work itself out. The question is whether we are missing the > underlying problem by doing this. Are we missing the frustrations > that /lead/ to good people loosing their temper and acting badly? And > would it be better for there to be some other means, outside of the > AC, to solve these content disputes before that happens? There are ample means for this. We have talk pages and email addresses. There is the RFC process. If content disputes get out of hand it's because "good" people cannot bring themselves to act like good people. From mapellegrini at comcast.net Sun Jun 5 03:35:18 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:35:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <42A272F6.7080103@comcast.net> "We have talk pages and email addresses. There is the RFC process. If content disputes get out of hand it's because "good" people cannot bring themselves to act like good people." This is demonstrably not true. I can see you have never dealt with the likes of Plautus before. -Mark From rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu Sun Jun 5 04:07:33 2005 From: rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu (Richard Rabinowitz) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 00:07:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 17 In-Reply-To: <20050604204405.E7A7B1190BC7@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050604204405.E7A7B1190BC7@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Name sounds familiar >To: English Wikipedia >Message-ID: >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 >I don't care what he's a member of. If he can abide by Wikipedia >policies and keep his edits NPOV, I welcome SPUI to continue editing. >--Mgm >On 6/3/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: >> [[Gay Nigger Association of America]]. A trolling group. >> >> > SPUI's involved in this? and what's the GNAA? Agreed. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sun Jun 5 07:51:56 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 09:51:56 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/5/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/4/05, David Gerard wrote: > > For an example, check the WMC vs Cortonin case. Can > >content be decided by which side explodes in frustration first? > >I submit that this may not be the best of ideas. > > A lot of it is that the AC has been too effective; so people start dealing > > with others as problems to be dealt with, with the AC at the end of the > > process. This is not a good attitude either. That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. --Mgm From misfitgirl at gmail.com Sun Jun 5 10:35:31 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 20:35:31 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <530912670506050335105d046a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I > think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party > but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. > > --Mgm The point is that it didn't work before, and there's been no idea of how to fix the issue that ruined things before - that none of us are trained mediators, and most of us simply did not have the skills to bring antagonistic, warring parties together. We'd all like a mediation committee that worked, but wishing doesn't necessarily make it so. -- ambi From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 5 11:51:29 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 21:51:29 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050605115129.GA358@thingy.apana.org.au> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050605 17:52]: > That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I > think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party > but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. Mediation is good, but it's hard to make mediation into a part of a formal process. [[WP:TINMC]] being officially unofficial is probably the right approach, for example. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 5 12:11:39 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 22:11:39 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A272F6.7080103@comcast.net> References: <42A272F6.7080103@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20050605121139.GC358@thingy.apana.org.au> Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050605 13:36]: > "We have talk pages and email addresses. There is the RFC process. If > content disputes get out of hand it's because "good" people cannot bring > themselves to act like good people." > This is demonstrably not true. I can see you have never dealt with the > likes of Plautus before. He's in the class of pathological users we now show the door in a careful but livably efficient manner. (c.f. Irate, WikiUser.) I think the characterisation of what happens in the sort of dispute that's a proxy for a content issue has something to it. - d. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 5 12:20:02 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 14:20:02 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42A2EDF2.3030307@yahoo.com> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: > On 6/5/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > >>On 6/4/05, David Gerard wrote: >> >>>For an example, check the WMC vs Cortonin case. Can >>>content be decided by which side explodes in frustration first? > >I submit that this may not be the best of ideas. >> > >>>A lot of it is that the AC has been too effective; so people start dealing >>>with others as problems to be dealt with, with the AC at the end of the >>>process. This is not a good attitude either. >> > > That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I > think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party > but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. > > --Mgm I think the main issue with the MC is somehow its bureaucratic level. I realise now that an issue is more likely to be resolved amiably when * it is quickly handled, before the escalation occur and anger gets so high editors are no more willing to compromise. The necessity of having to make an official request, then wait with no one stepping is very detrimental to the whole process. I think it works better when editors contact directly a person. * people know and feel confortable to the one they are asking help. And... that is a bit unfortunate to say, but I fear this is true : they like the person to have a sort of authority. They come to the mediator thinking the mediator can make the decision for them... and it may be the mediator job to make it happen that the editors themselves come to the agreement. If Linuxbeak is reading this, I think he will understand what I mean. I think he asked help of an "arbitrator" to resolve his tripartite problem between himself, the community and the CAP. But in the end, all what I did is just to talk with him, clarify certain things, suggested solutions... However, He made the decision himself. So, it was only the job of a mediator/facilitator after all. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 5 12:20:46 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 14:20:46 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050605115129.GA358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42A2EE1E.9000005@yahoo.com> David Gerard a ?crit: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050605 17:52]: > > >>That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >>think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party >>but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. > > > > Mediation is good, but it's hard to make mediation into a part of a formal > process. [[WP:TINMC]] being officially unofficial is probably the right > approach, for example. > > > - d. Agreed. Ant From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Jun 5 12:44:03 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 08:44:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605083435.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> MacGynerMagic wrote ... >Don't judge the content, but the user conduct. If people keep editing >without discussing it and trying to reach common ground, you can take >the case because of conduct. But there are indeed cases where people keep editing while discussing it ad infinitum, and discussions may take up over 100 kbs, and still the dispute is not resolved. These are disputes where it is simply not enough to judge behavior; we need to judge the content. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first and an on-line community second. Personal behavior is very important and it is good that we have mechanisms to deal with conflicts over user conduct. But content is more important, and we need mechanisms to deal with conflicts over content. sannse wrote... >I have mixed feelings on all this - I see that there are problems, but >am not fully convinced that the majority of them won't be fixed with a >little time and a little faith in the good will of editors. I'm not >saying we ignore things until they go away, just that a proactive >solution may give disputes an emphasis that might be harmful - maybe >without intervention the eventualist approach will work in a lot of cases. > > >But that said, I realise we are in a whole new situation with the >growing Wikipedia, and maybe what worked a year ago won't do so >nowadays. And content does seem to be the key issue in many disputes >that we have looked at recently. I agree completely. I do think most disputes can be and are resolved through time and good faith. But the fact remains that some disputes over content do not get resolved. In my experience (biased, I acknowledge) this is usually because the two people have different ideas about what constitutes research or appropriate sources. NPOV and NOR may enter into it, and in some cases these policies alone are sufficient to resolve the case -- but in some cases, they are not. In such cases, someone needs to determine what kind of research has been done, what kinds of sources are being used, and decide on that basis. This is the kind of thing ArbCom has traditionally stayed away from. At one point (around the time of my conflict with RJII), some suggested that ArbCom can deal with content disputes -- but,ultimately, they did not. We need either a firm commitment that ArbCom will deal with content disputes, pure and simple, or we need another mechanism. Steve Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Jun 5 12:48:13 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 08:48:13 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> David Gerard wrote ... >Basically: most of the really poisonous arseholes have in fact been kicked >off en: Wikipedia, and when new ones show up they are ejected in reasonable >order. (In a lot of cases, it's not even reaching the AC as they're dealt >with as obvious vandals and trolls by WP:AN/I.) So now the AC is getting a >lot of grey-area cases that are really a proxy for a content dispute. What >to do about this? David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the past years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and Wikipedia needs a mechanism for dealing with these content-based disputes. Several people (with some notable exceptions) argued that the ArbCom can handle this, and should. RJII on the Capitalism page was an attempt to take those people at their word, and have the ArbCom handle a content dispute. Fred Bauder seemed to be the only one on the ArbCom to take an interest in this case. Needless to say, after a month or more of arguing and reverts, I and several people simply left the capitalism article, to await an ArbCom decision. Then the ArbCom declared that, since we had left, there was no more conflict, so the situation was resolved! What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it will consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will not. We just need to make this clear, one way or the other. And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we need to develop another committee or mechanism. I am repeating something I have said several times in the past. This issue is not new. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 5 12:56:51 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 22:56:51 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <20050605125651.GE358@thingy.apana.org.au> steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [050605 22:48]: > What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it will > consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will not. We > just need to make this clear, one way or the other. I can tell you now we have no intention of taking on this one as well! Not just the amount of work, but simply that that's not what the AC was put into place for. > And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we need to > develop another committee or mechanism. Well, yeah. There are all sorts of possible problems. Specialist Point Of View is not necessarily Neutral Point Of View. That sort of thing. > I am repeating something I have said several times in the past. This issue > is not new. That's why it's being discussed here as well :-) - d. From sean at epoptic.org Sun Jun 5 13:40:46 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 06:40:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42A300DE.6020708@epoptic.com> steven l. rubenstein stated for the record: > What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it will > consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will not. > We just need to make this clear, one way or the other. The ArbComm[0] will neither consider nor pass judgement on content-based disputes. Is that clear enough for you? [0] For values of "ArbComm" that include [[User:the Epopt]]. -- Sean Barrett | Aw, Mom, you act like I'm not even sean at epoptic.com | wearing a bungee cord! --Calvin From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 5 14:07:04 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 08:07:04 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <530912670506050335105d046a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <530912670506050335105d046a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <51A2C89C-D22B-446A-8767-A429F419E2D2@ctelco.net> I agree with this. Successful mediation is a lot more than saying "Let's all get along." There are techniques which professional mediators are trained in and experience helps. It is very much an art which requires talent. It can work, but it will require patient recruiting of trained skilled people as well as development of skills within those presently involved. I think it can work out well for those involved as skills developed here can be transfered to real life employment opportunities. Fred On Jun 5, 2005, at 4:35 AM, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > >> That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >> think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either >> party >> but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. >> >> --Mgm >> > > The point is that it didn't work before, and there's been no idea of > how to fix the issue that ruined things before - that none of us are > trained mediators, and most of us simply did not have the skills to > bring antagonistic, warring parties together. We'd all like a > mediation committee that worked, but wishing doesn't necessarily make > it so. > > -- ambi > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From timwi at gmx.net Sun Jun 5 14:28:01 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 15:28:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Redress against personal attack? In-Reply-To: <75c1297005060414587e8b511d@mail.gmail.com> References: <42A1C9ED.2030606@wikia.com> <75c1297005060414587e8b511d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Josh Gordon wrote: > Reminds me of something I saw a few times on the highways outside of Tokyo a > few years ago. An impatient driver cuts off another driver; the driver who > had been cut off gestures an apology, as if to say "Excuse me for being so > rude as to put you in a position in which you felt it necessary to cut me > off." Heh. And in Britain, you can get people to say "Sorry" by stepping on their foot. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 5 14:30:13 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 08:30:13 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050605125651.GE358@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <20050605125651.GE358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: My suggestion is to accept content issues, but appoint committees to research questions which are beyond ordinary competence. If someone is "on the level" they can cite book and page in established references in the field. Inability to do so generally means they are an original researcher or out of touch with the literature. There are some grey areas, for example, most references are in an unusual language, Armenian, for example, but almost all legitimate references can be accessed though an ordinary library with Inter Library Loan, or at a good college library. But you see, by looking at it this way it comes back to a behavior problem, not citing sources or improperly removing information that has been sourced because they don't like the point of view. Fred On Jun 5, 2005, at 6:56 AM, David Gerard wrote: > steven l. rubenstein (rubenste at ohiou.edu) [050605 22:48]: > > >> What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it >> will >> consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will >> not. We >> just need to make this clear, one way or the other. >> > > > I can tell you now we have no intention of taking on this one as > well! Not > just the amount of work, but simply that that's not what the AC was > put > into place for. > > > >> And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we >> need to >> develop another committee or mechanism. >> > > > Well, yeah. > > There are all sorts of possible problems. Specialist Point Of View > is not > necessarily Neutral Point Of View. That sort of thing. > > > >> I am repeating something I have said several times in the past. >> This issue >> is not new. >> > > > That's why it's being discussed here as well :-) > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 5 14:32:32 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 08:32:32 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A300DE.6020708@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A300DE.6020708@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <7CCC59FC-41CE-4915-B056-AAE839F72D4A@ctelco.net> Yes, we all understand, but the question is how to solve the problem or to live with the consequences of not solving it. It is by no means determined that the Arbitration Committee is not part of the solution. Fred On Jun 5, 2005, at 7:40 AM, Sean Barrett wrote: > steven l. rubenstein stated for the record: > > >> What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it >> will consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it >> will not. We just need to make this clear, one way or the other. >> > > The ArbComm[0] will neither consider nor pass judgement on content- > based disputes. Is that clear enough for you? > > [0] For values of "ArbComm" that include [[User:the Epopt]]. > > -- > Sean Barrett | Aw, Mom, you act like I'm not even > sean at epoptic.com | wearing a bungee cord! --Calvin > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 5 14:48:46 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 00:48:46 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unsubscribed posters now being moderated instead of rejected Message-ID: <20050605144846.GF358@thingy.apana.org.au> The list mods' mailboxes will now be flooded with crap in the cause of unsubscribed posters getting straight through to the list. Nazi spam or no Nazi spam. w00t :-) List info also updated accordingly. - d. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 5 17:28:55 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 10:28:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <20050605172856.35001.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it will > consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it will not. We > just need to make this clear, one way or the other. Going into the realm of deciding content disputes is something that the community and Jimbo will need to sign off on. It is not just a matter of the ArbCom ruling it so to make it so. We don't have that authority. Nor is such a small body of people competent in the number of areas of knowledge needed to make this workable. I, for example, know very little about advanced mathematics so I would be unable to judge a content dispute in that area without spending a very, very long time on research. > And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we need to > develop another committee or mechanism. This is not an either/or situation. My plan is for the ArbCom to consult various content specialist subcommittees when content issues arise. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.238_by_mav._Content_subcommittee Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav) __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sun Jun 5 17:43:15 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 10:43:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> Rebecca wrote: >On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > >>That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >>think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party >>but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. >> >>--Mgm >> >> >The point is that it didn't work before, and there's been no idea of >how to fix the issue that ruined things before - that none of us are >trained mediators, and most of us simply did not have the skills to >bring antagonistic, warring parties together. We'd all like a >mediation committee that worked, but wishing doesn't necessarily make >it so. > > I don't think the problem with mediation is a lack of training or skills (no offense, but by and large I wouldn't call the arbitrators professionally trained either). Mediation can be handled by anybody with good sense, patience, and the ability to resist getting over-agitated by the emotions of the disputing parties. We actually have had quite a few instances of successful mediation, but many of them have happened outside the formal process, often handled by people who are not part of the Mediation Committee. However, I agree that formal mediation is not working terribly well for us. One of the biggest challenges for Wikipedia mediation is simply the fact that we're stuck in an online, text-only medium. This affects mediation more dramatically than the other dispute resolution processes, because it takes away a key element of what normally makes mediation successful. One of the reasons mediation works is because it brings the parties together, *face-to-face* and with an observer present. This brings into play all kinds of social inhibitions that force the parties to tone down their hostility and aggression. The resulting atmosphere is much more conducive for the mediator and the parties to work together and find a mutually acceptable solution. Wikipedia mediation doesn't have a feasible way to recreate these conditions, and I doubt that even real-time communication via IRC can overcome this handicap. The lowered barriers against being deliberately offensive and the ease of miscommunication when using text are too great a challenge. As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting for cases to come to them. --Michael Snow From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sun Jun 5 18:23:56 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 20:23:56 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> Message-ID: I couldn't agree more, Michael. --Mgm On 6/5/05, Michael Snow wrote: > Rebecca wrote: > > >On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > > > > >>That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I > >>think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party > >>but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. > >> > >>--Mgm > >> > >> > >The point is that it didn't work before, and there's been no idea of > >how to fix the issue that ruined things before - that none of us are > >trained mediators, and most of us simply did not have the skills to > >bring antagonistic, warring parties together. We'd all like a > >mediation committee that worked, but wishing doesn't necessarily make > >it so. > > > > > I don't think the problem with mediation is a lack of training or skills > (no offense, but by and large I wouldn't call the arbitrators > professionally trained either). Mediation can be handled by anybody with > good sense, patience, and the ability to resist getting over-agitated by > the emotions of the disputing parties. We actually have had quite a few > instances of successful mediation, but many of them have happened > outside the formal process, often handled by people who are not part of > the Mediation Committee. > > However, I agree that formal mediation is not working terribly well for > us. One of the biggest challenges for Wikipedia mediation is simply the > fact that we're stuck in an online, text-only medium. This affects > mediation more dramatically than the other dispute resolution processes, > because it takes away a key element of what normally makes mediation > successful. > > One of the reasons mediation works is because it brings the parties > together, *face-to-face* and with an observer present. This brings into > play all kinds of social inhibitions that force the parties to tone down > their hostility and aggression. The resulting atmosphere is much more > conducive for the mediator and the parties to work together and find a > mutually acceptable solution. > > Wikipedia mediation doesn't have a feasible way to recreate these > conditions, and I doubt that even real-time communication via IRC can > overcome this handicap. The lowered barriers against being deliberately > offensive and the ease of miscommunication when using text are too great > a challenge. As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely > to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning > and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require > watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a > more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting > for cases to come to them. > > --Michael Snow > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From mapellegrini at comcast.net Sun Jun 5 18:27:19 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 14:27:19 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <42A34407.1070103@comcast.net> Mav wrote: "Going into the realm of deciding content disputes is something that the community and Jimbo will need to sign off on. It is not just a matter of the ArbCom ruling it so to make it so. We don't have that authority." Actually, Snowspinner made a comment on the RFC saying (correctly, I believe) that we are allowed to do that under the arbitration rules, as ratified by the community. On the other hand, (as I described *in detail* in my problem description) we have avoided doing that for fear of concentrating too much power in a single group of users. Also, we're not comptent to do it, either (although, again as I said in my lengthy problem description, in many of these cases it is obvious even to a lay man which side is advocating crackpottery) I agree with Mav's comment that this isn't a black or white thing, though, and I am keeping an open mind as to possible solutions (although I remain unconvinced by arguments put forth by Tony Sideaway-et-al in favor of more-of-the-same -- keeping the status quo and/or reforming the mediation commitee). Tony's arguement is a sort of optomistic eventualism (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eventualism). In other words, ignore the problem, let the users fight it out, come back in a year, and the article will have improved... probably. I find this to be a trite and downright lazy response to a real problem. Yes, it is true that in a year, the article will have probably improved. In the meantime, however, good users become frustrated from tangling with POV pushers (Think of Adam Carr as the canonical example, although lesser disputes like this arise on AIDS (with HIV deniars) and Evolution (fucking creationists), and the people there too become burned out). What do you tell someone who edits these articles when a new user comes along, and obviously starts pushing an agenda? It's very easy to view Wikipedia from 2,000 miles high and say everything is fine and getting better, but it's a bit less rosy when you actually come down to earth and actually have to deal with someone like this. In such a case, I don't think Tony's plan for strategic do-nothingness is the best solution -- I certainly think we can do better. On the other hand, I think having the arbcom bring in content advisors is an idea with potential. It's got all the makings of a workable solution -- it's simple, and it avoids the problem we are most trying to avoid (the excess concentration of power I mentioned). --Mark From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Jun 5 18:56:37 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 14:56:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605145235.033e2a28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Mav wrote, >Going into the realm of deciding content disputes is something that the >community and Jimbo will need to sign off on. It is not just a matter of the >ArbCom ruling it so to make it so. We don't have that authority. >Nor is such a small body of people competent in the number of areas of >knowledge needed to make this workable. I, for example, know very little >about >advanced mathematics so I would be unable to judge a content dispute in that >area without spending a very, very long time on research. I agree completely > > And if ArbCom will not or cannot handle content-based disputes, we need to > > develop another committee or mechanism. >This is not an either/or situation. My plan is for the ArbCom to consult >various content specialist subcommittees when content issues arise. >See >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.238_by_mav._Content_subcommittee > >Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I agree about babies and bathwater. I also like Mav's proposal. And I like Jguks. I see them as complementary -- Jguk's focusing on enforcing existing policies that are specifically content-related (NPOV, NOR, Cite Sources, Verifiability) and Mav's focusing on ensuring the high quality of our articles, in general. Right now it would probably be too unwieldy to enact both proposals, but I bet that as this community grows larger (say, in a year, possibly two) both proposals, with very clearly defined briefs, would be useful and practical. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sun Jun 5 20:09:40 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 21:09:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> steven l. rubenstein said: > > David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the > past years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and > Wikipedia needs a mechanism for dealing with these content-based > disputes. Why? If the disputes are irresolvable, why is it necessary to bring in a deus ex machina to declare a resolution? Isn't it just more honest to leave the irresolvable unresolved? I find this, the current way, quite satisfactory and if the arbcom really is accepting cases that are in the realm of content disputes then they should simply be more parsimonious in the kind of dispute they accept. From sean at epoptic.org Sun Jun 5 20:19:32 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 13:19:32 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42A35E54.1080409@epoptic.com> Tony Sidaway stated for the record: > steven l. rubenstein said: > >>David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the >>past years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and >>Wikipedia needs a mechanism for dealing with these content-based >>disputes. > > > Why? If the disputes are irresolvable, why is it necessary to bring in a > deus ex machina to declare a resolution? Isn't it just more honest to > leave the irresolvable unresolved? I find this, the current way, quite > satisfactory and if the arbcom really is accepting cases that are in the > realm of content disputes then they should simply be more parsimonious in > the kind of dispute they accept. No dispute is irresolvable once you get past that archaic idea of NPOV and accept OTPOV -- the One True Point of View. -- Sean Barrett | These go to eleven. It's one louder, isn't sean at epoptic.com | it? It's not ten. --Nigel of Spinal Tap From anthonydipierro at hotmail.com Sun Jun 5 22:36:57 2005 From: anthonydipierro at hotmail.com (Anthony DiPierro) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:36:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 20 In-Reply-To: <20050605182400.2424D1AC5926@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >Some can be tagged correctly without the original uploader: >* fair use >* where a suitable source is given >* images that are obviously PD because of age >and probably some other cases. Well, the fair use tag can actually never be used correctly by anyone, because fair use is a description of the use, not the image itself. Anthony _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From anthonydipierro at hotmail.com Sun Jun 5 22:56:07 2005 From: anthonydipierro at hotmail.com (Anthony DiPierro) Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:56:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest In-Reply-To: <20050605182400.2424D1AC5926@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >>I was thinking of another non-English semifork of Wikipedia which has >>way more articles than the Wikipedia version, and whose owner is >>deeply involved in Wikipedia but while bragging in private e-mails and >>on-list about how much work he/she does compared to others to put more >>free content online, does not consider allowing the corresponding >>language version of Wikipedia to share content. > >If they are GFDL, they cannot disallow that. If they are not GFDL, they >are using material originally from Wikipedia illegally. The GFDL doesn't require that everything on the site must be released under the GFDL, only derivative works. Even Wikipiedia itself uses non-GFDL content in its site. Besides, even if the content is GFDLed, Wikipedia would be required to start following the GFDL in order to use that content. That can go from easy to nearly impossible depending on whether or not there are invariant sections in the text. Anthony _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ From stephen.bain at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 01:53:39 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 11:53:39 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I > think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party > but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. Absolutely. Many people see mediation as only an annoying formality to skirt around before going to ArbCom. Mediation needs to be seen as an end in itself. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 03:38:26 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:38:26 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5309126705060520387280edbd@mail.gmail.com> On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > I don't think the problem with mediation is a lack of training or skills > (no offense, but by and large I wouldn't call the arbitrators > professionally trained either). Mediation can be handled by anybody with > good sense, patience, and the ability to resist getting over-agitated by > the emotions of the disputing parties. We actually have had quite a few > instances of successful mediation, but many of them have happened > outside the formal process, often handled by people who are not part of > the Mediation Committee. I think you're partly right there - mediation can be handled by anyone with those qualities, and in many cases, has indeed worked. I know of many instances of successful mediation outside of the formal process. The problem, though, is that a) the formal process hasn't been working - people haven't been able to get mediators to a particular dispute when its needed to prevent it from going any further, and b) some of the disputes are just too heated for all but the best mediators to do - and we don't have very many of those. It's for the latter reason that I'd really like to see someone like Ed Poor put together a guide to help those of us who aren't quite so good at it. > [skipped a bunch of stuff that is very true] > As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely > to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning > and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require > watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a > more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting > for cases to come to them. Once again, I think that's very true - but how can we get a system where these conflicts are actually attended to that quickly? -- ambi From stephen.bain at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 04:51:18 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 14:51:18 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5309126705060520387280edbd@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> <5309126705060520387280edbd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > ... > > As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely > > to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning > > and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require > > watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a > > more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting > > for cases to come to them. > > Once again, I think that's very true - but how can we get a system > where these conflicts are actually attended to that quickly? > > -- ambi We have RC patrol. Would a Mediation patrol be useful? It would be fairly simple to set up a page to allow people to post disputes they happen to come across. You can find many of them just by looking at talk pages on Special:Recentchanges. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 05:43:30 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 07:43:30 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> <5309126705060520387280edbd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49bdc74305060522433f963a70@mail.gmail.com> like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal ? Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/6/05, Stephen Bain wrote: > On 6/6/05, Rebecca wrote: > > On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > > ... > > > As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely > > > to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning > > > and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require > > > watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a > > > more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting > > > for cases to come to them. > > > > Once again, I think that's very true - but how can we get a system > > where these conflicts are actually attended to that quickly? > > > > -- ambi > > We have RC patrol. Would a Mediation patrol be useful? It would be > fairly simple to set up a page to allow people to post disputes they > happen to come across. You can find many of them just by looking at > talk pages on Special:Recentchanges. > > -- > Stephen Bain > stephen.bain at gmail.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From wikipedia at earthlink.net Mon Jun 6 07:00:08 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 00:00:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> Rebecca wrote: >On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > >> As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely >>to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning >>and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require >>watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a >>more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting >>for cases to come to them. >> >> >Once again, I think that's very true - but how can we get a system >where these conflicts are actually attended to that quickly? > > The simplest thing that comes to mind is to put the Mediation Committee in charge of the Requests for comments page. I think this would, if we can get enough mediators with enough energy, help address structural issues with both processes. There are two major complaints made about RfC. One is that the page is poorly maintained and regularly swells to an unwieldy size. The other is that it's not terribly effective, because many requests do not succeed in drawing much comment from people outside the dispute. Each of these problems also tends to exacerbate the other. If, to make mediation workable, we want it to happen earlier in the dispute resolution process, we need something that will signal the existence of a dispute to the mediators. Right now, what signal do we have available? That's right, RfC, which is itself in need of attention from mediator-types. In particular, it would be great to have lots of mediators working to solve the article content disputes on RfC. With more effort along these lines, we might see fewer content-related issues going to arbitration, and less pressure to come up with some kind of separate content arbitration. Or, if content arbitration does indeed prove necessary, their experience might help us know how to come up with better solutions when we get there. --Michael Snow From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 6 08:14:10 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:14:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050606081410.21561.qmail@web26003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Michael Snow wrote: > The simplest thing that comes to mind is to put the > Mediation Committee > in charge of the Requests for comments page. I think > this would, if we > can get enough mediators with enough energy, help > address structural > issues with both processes. > > There are two major complaints made about RfC. One > is that the page is > poorly maintained and regularly swells to an > unwieldy size. The other is > that it's not terribly effective, because many > requests do not succeed > in drawing much comment from people outside the > dispute. Each of these > problems also tends to exacerbate the other. > Well, there's a couple of use who check and prune the requests quite often, but there's a lot of active disputes at any one time so the page is always quite large :-). There's nothing to prevent anyone who wants to 'have a go' at mediation jumping in and doing it on RfC and 3rd opinion. I do it. It would be nice if more people did it, too. Perhaps the wording of the pages could be altered to encourage people to try and mediate, rather than make "you're right/he's wrong" type comments. Dan ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 11:04:15 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 21:04:15 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com> On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > Rebecca wrote: > > >On 6/6/05, Michael Snow wrote: > >> As a result, I think that for us mediation is more likely > >>to be useful much earlier in the process, as disputes are only beginning > >>and before they have really had a chance to heat up. This would require > >>watching more closely for situations where mediation can help, and a > >>more interventionist approach from the mediators, rather than waiting > >>for cases to come to them. Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem, by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a bit of help learning some skills. -- ambi From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Jun 6 11:56:07 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:56:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Sean Barret wrote, >Tony Sidaway stated for the record: > > > steven l. rubenstein said: > > > >>David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the > >>past years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and > >>Wikipedia needs a mechanism for dealing with these content-based > >>disputes. > > > > > > Why? If the disputes are irresolvable, why is it necessary to bring in a > > deus ex machina to declare a resolution? Isn't it just more honest to > > leave the irresolvable unresolved? I find this, the current way, quite > > satisfactory and if the arbcom really is accepting cases that are in the > > realm of content disputes then they should simply be more parsimonious in > > the kind of dispute they accept. > > >No dispute is irresolvable once you get past that archaic idea of NPOV >and accept OTPOV -- the One True Point of View. Sean misinterprets my position, and Tony either misunderstands it, or just doesn't agree with me. I do not believe that disputes over content are irresolvable, but I do think that there are POV warriors who insist on including content even if it comes from narrow and perhaps even disreputable sources, and deleting content that is the product of good research. In many of these cases (which, I still remind you, is only a small percentage of all content-related disputes), debates on talk pages can go on for weeks and weeks. Are these "irresolvable?" No. But a committee could review what the different sources are and how they are being presented (e.g. as mainstream authorities, as authorities taking a minority position, as popular opinion, as representing a fringe organization) and resolve the dispute by ruling on which sources are inappropriate, and by giving clear guidance on how the remaining diverse views can be represented in an NPOV way. Is this effort an unnecessary waste of time? No. Debates such as the ones I am talking about that go on for weeks, even months, waste good editors' time, during which we have a second-rate article. I just do not understand this mental block so many people have. They have no problem with a mechanism that promotes more respectful relations within a more harmonious community, yet have a problem with a mechanism that would promote a better encyclopedia. This is odd because the "better encyclopedia" is what this project is all about. Sean seems to think that all content disputes can me handled through our NPOV position, and insinuates that my (and Jguk's and Mav's) desire to have a mechanism to resolve content disputes will impose one point of view. This is nonsense for two reasons. First, I have stated explicitly that NPOV is one of the content-related policies such a committee should enforce. Second, read the NPOV policy carefully. Id does not state that "anything goes." NPOV does not require that our article on the moon state, "According to some, the moon is made of green cheese, although virtually all astronomers disagree." Don't laugh -- silly statements like this are easy to spot when we are talking about physical phenomena. But they are much harder to spot when talking about historical and cultural phenomena, which is one reason why some content disputes are protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone. Steve PS what is with this "states for the record" crap? Do conversations on the list-serve have any authority over policy (that is, are these formal or informal conversations)? Certainly, we keep a record of list-serve messages, but we are not writing for that record, we are writing for one another. And why are some quotes introduced by "X wrote" and others, "Y stated for the record?" Are Y's comments more official than X's? What is the point? Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 6 12:00:45 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 05:00:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050606120046.21636.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Michael Snow wrote: > The simplest thing that comes to mind is to put the Mediation Committee > in charge of the Requests for comments page. I think this would, if we > can get enough mediators with enough energy, help address structural > issues with both processes. What a great idea! A 'Desired outcome' section should also be added to the RfC template so that the various sides of an RfC can indicate what they want from the process. A mediator could try to help the both sides come to an agreement. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Jun 6 12:08:47 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:08:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> steven l. rubenstein said: > I do not believe that disputes over > content are irresolvable, but I do think that there are POV warriors > who insist on including content even if it comes from narrow and > perhaps even > disreputable sources, and deleting content that is the product of good > research. Arbcom can and does rule in such cases. In the Robert the Bruce case, for instance, arbcom affirmed the principle that "Removal of references from articles is generally inappropriate" by 8-0 and "It is inappropriate to remove blocks of well-referenced information which is germane to the subject from articles on the grounds that the information advances a point of view. Wikipedia's NPOV policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view" by 9-0. These were also reaffirmed in the case of Robert Blair, who was involved in the same dispute on the other side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Robert_the_Bruce http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Robert_Blair From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 12:28:23 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 06:28:23 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Sometimes we do, but sometimes we lose our nerve. Most of the arbitration committee are elected. Insisting on inclusion of unpopular points of view is not conducive to maintaining popularity. Announcing a high-minded principle is one thing, living by it - another. Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 6:08 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote: > steven l. rubenstein said: > > >> I do not believe that disputes over >> content are irresolvable, but I do think that there are POV warriors >> who insist on including content even if it comes from narrow and >> perhaps even >> disreputable sources, and deleting content that is the product of >> good >> research. >> > > > Arbcom can and does rule in such cases. In the Robert the Bruce > case, for > instance, arbcom affirmed the principle that "Removal of references > from > articles is generally inappropriate" by 8-0 and "It is > inappropriate to > remove blocks of well-referenced information which is germane to the > subject from articles on the grounds that the information advances > a point > of view. Wikipedia's NPOV policy contemplates inclusion of all > significant > points of view" by 9-0. > > These were also reaffirmed in the case of Robert Blair, who was > involved > in the same dispute on the other side. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/ > Robert_the_Bruce > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/ > Robert_Blair > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Jun 6 12:48:36 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:48:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <34324.194.72.110.12.1118062116.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Fred Bauder said: > Sometimes we do, but sometimes we lose our nerve. Most of the > arbitration committee are elected. Insisting on inclusion of > unpopular points of view is not conducive to maintaining popularity. > Announcing a high-minded principle is one thing, living by it - > another. > Well it isn't as if you were being paid, or anything. :) Seriously, I don't know why anyone serving on arbcom would be interested in serving more than a single term. It must be exhausting. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 14:19:52 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 00:19:52 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <34324.194.72.110.12.1118062116.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <34324.194.72.110.12.1118062116.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <5309126705060607196e90a871@mail.gmail.com> On 6/6/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Seriously, I don't know why anyone serving on arbcom would be interested > in serving more than a single term. It must be exhausting. Trust me, re-election is the last thing on my mind. It's just always been understood both among the arbitration committee and the community that the arbitration committee does not dictate content, because a) understanding the area involved to the necessary level is out of our league, b) concerns over ending up with OTPOV, as discussed elsewhere here, and c) a general unwillingness to spread past what we were set up to deal with - the worst users who were causing serious problems in the community. Fred has consistently tried to change this, but he's generally been opposed by the remainder of the committee, except for in one or two referencing-related cases. -- ambi From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 6 14:25:31 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:25:31 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> steven l. rubenstein was annoyed to be reminded that he had stated for the record: > NPOV does not require that our > article on the moon state, "According to some, the moon is made of green > cheese, although virtually all astronomers disagree." Don't laugh -- > silly statements like this are easy to spot when we are talking about > physical phenomena. But they are much harder to spot when talking about > historical and cultural phenomena, which is one reason why some content > disputes are protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone. Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are not silly. They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration candidates. I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to ban those that feel that it is important to record it. -- Sean Barrett | All men are frauds. The only difference sean at epoptic.com | between them is that some admit it. | I myself deny it. --H.L. Mencken From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 15:43:26 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:43:26 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> I think we are thinking about creating a committee to consider whether there is published authority for information, popular or unpopular. Beyond that it might consider the reputation and credibility of the source, but first it must pass the threshold of whether it exists at all. There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient to access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure journal is much more expensive. Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 8:25 AM, Sean Barrett wrote: > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of > a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia > and to ban those that feel that it is important to record it From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Jun 6 16:00:47 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 17:00:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Fred Bauder said: > I think we are thinking about creating a committee to consider > whether there is published authority for information, popular or > unpopular. Beyond that it might consider the reputation and > credibility of the source, but first it must pass the threshold of > whether it exists at all. There is also the question of whether it is > reasonably convenient to access it. For example, a NYT's article > might cost 2 bucks but something that requires accessing Nexus or > consulting an obscure journal is much more expensive. Well the latter problem can usually be solved by someone with a library subscription. I'm loath to sanction anyone to rate the credibility of sources; rather we should continue to treat all sources with great circumspection. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 16:06:29 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 18:06:29 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> <53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem, > by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a > bit of help learning some skills. > > -- ambi Yes, mediators definitely need to get in earlier. And it might be a good idea to allow for multi-party mediation if there's 2 distinct viewpoints being argued. Also, it was mentioned earlier that Wikipedia as a written medium isn't the optimal place for mediation. I tend to disagree. The most important aspect - the mediator "forcing" the parties to get to the bottom (and therefore the real issues) of their disagreement - should still work just as well as collaborative editing does. Collaborative editing may not be as effective as face-to-face teamwork, but it still works. And I believe that mediation, if performed before things escalate could work just as well. --Mgm From spyders at btinternet.com Mon Jun 6 16:13:00 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 17:13:00 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org><42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net><53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <001501c56ab2$9c8cc000$31449d51@hedlatora> I think theres one issue that your missing here with mediation - Most parties that get to the point of arbitration have no desire to allow mediators to get involved, and have no desire to even consider discussing the situation. ----- Original Message ----- From: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" To: "Rebecca" ; "English Wikipedia" Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 5:06 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment > Now you're talking. I think this would solve one half of the problem, > by getting in early - though I still think mediators could do with a > bit of help learning some skills. > > -- ambi Yes, mediators definitely need to get in earlier. And it might be a good idea to allow for multi-party mediation if there's 2 distinct viewpoints being argued. Also, it was mentioned earlier that Wikipedia as a written medium isn't the optimal place for mediation. I tend to disagree. The most important aspect - the mediator "forcing" the parties to get to the bottom (and therefore the real issues) of their disagreement - should still work just as well as collaborative editing does. Collaborative editing may not be as effective as face-to-face teamwork, but it still works. And I believe that mediation, if performed before things escalate could work just as well. --Mgm _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 16:23:32 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 10:23:32 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Fred Bauder said: > >> I think we are thinking about creating a committee to consider >> whether there is published authority for information, popular or >> unpopular. Beyond that it might consider the reputation and >> credibility of the source, but first it must pass the threshold of >> whether it exists at all. There is also the question of whether it is >> reasonably convenient to access it. For example, a NYT's article >> might cost 2 bucks but something that requires accessing Nexus or >> consulting an obscure journal is much more expensive. >> > > Well the latter problem can usually be solved by someone with a > library > subscription. I'm loath to sanction anyone to rate the credibility of > sources; rather we should continue to treat all sources with great > circumspection. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From anthere9 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 6 16:58:53 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:58:53 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4090.194.72.110.12.1118059727.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42A480CD.5060008@yahoo.com> Fred Bauder a ?crit: > Sometimes we do, but sometimes we lose our nerve. Most of the > arbitration committee are elected. Insisting on inclusion of unpopular > points of view is not conducive to maintaining popularity. Announcing a > high-minded principle is one thing, living by it - another. > > Fred so true... From anthere9 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 6 17:00:43 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 19:00:43 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42A4813B.10709@yahoo.com> Sean Barrett a ?crit: > steven l. rubenstein was annoyed to be reminded that he had stated for > the record: > >> NPOV does not require that our article on the moon state, "According >> to some, the moon is made of green cheese, although virtually all >> astronomers disagree." Don't laugh -- silly statements like this are >> easy to spot when we are talking about physical phenomena. But they >> are much harder to spot when talking about historical and cultural >> phenomena, which is one reason why some content disputes are >> protracted and cannot be resolved by mediation alone. > > > Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be > rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are > not silly. They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration > candidates. > > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to > ban those that feel that it is important to record it. **seconded** Anthere From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 17:09:50 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:09:50 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves, rather then leave it 'some people'. Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the source. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 17:20:12 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:20:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <001501c56ab2$9c8cc000$31449d51@hedlatora> References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net> <53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com> <001501c56ab2$9c8cc000$31449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > I think theres one issue that your missing here with mediation - Most > parties that get to the point of arbitration have no desire to allow > mediators to get involved, and have no desire to even consider discussing > the situation. I don't agree with this. It is true that there exist incurably closed minded and uncooperative people. I believe such people form only a tiny minority of the people involved in Wikipedia. We should not worry about them when deciding our arbitration and moderation procedures, because the ultimate destination for such people is ejection from our community. We need to use triage: 1. Those who want to cooperate and find a mutual solution but need an outsider to facilitate communication and to help cut away moot issues. 2. Those who are not interested in cooperation but can be reasoned with and can be convinced to accept a compromise. 3. People who can't be cured. (This group consists mostly of people who get their jollies due to disrupting wikipedia). We should only expend substantial effort working on mediation support for a lower group once the higher group has been sufficiently handled. Right now we have some users who want to help with disputes whom are very heavy handed. I think these approaches are good for class 3 users above, but if used on the first group it often turns them into the second. I think a lot of the recent grumbling about our toleration of aggressive admins is because by large they only tend to abuse #3s, which no one cares about.. quite rightly. :) From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 6 17:30:48 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:30:48 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> Fred Bauder stated for the record: > There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient > to access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but > something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure > journal is much more expensive. So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable? I guess my digging into old Soviet naval records for information about their nuclear submarines is a waste of time. The harder the original editor worked, the more likely his work will be deleted. That's ... I'm groping for the word ... smart? ... no ... oh, I have it: perverse. -- Sean Barrett | If you insist upon discussing my fiasco, I sean at epoptic.com | shall forthwith go home. --Nadreck of Palain From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 17:30:11 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:30:11 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> Message-ID: <42A48823.7020507@telus.net> Mark Pellegrini wrote: > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC > My immediate impression is that having a committee rule on content would be ruinous. Successful NPOV depends on people finding common ground even when that may be very difficult. Committee decisions on content will only please those who like to suck on frozen truthsicles. Ec From spyders at btinternet.com Mon Jun 6 17:37:34 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 18:37:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment References: <20050606054334.DF0641AC17B2@mail.wikimedia.org><42A3F478.70208@earthlink.net><53091267050606040423a9f4a5@mail.gmail.com><001501c56ab2$9c8cc000$31449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <003f01c56abe$6e685930$31449d51@hedlatora> > I think theres one issue that your missing here with mediation - Most > parties that get to the point of arbitration have no desire to allow > mediators to get involved, and have no desire to even consider discussing > the situation. I don't agree with this. It is true that there exist incurably closed minded and uncooperative people. I believe such people form only a tiny minority of the people involved in Wikipedia. We should not worry about them when deciding our arbitration and moderation procedures, because the ultimate destination for such people is ejection from our community. We need to use triage: 1. Those who want to cooperate and find a mutual solution but need an outsider to facilitate communication and to help cut away moot issues. 2. Those who are not interested in cooperation but can be reasoned with and can be convinced to accept a compromise. 3. People who can't be cured. (This group consists mostly of people who get their jollies due to disrupting wikipedia). We should only expend substantial effort working on mediation support for a lower group once the higher group has been sufficiently handled. Right now we have some users who want to help with disputes whom are very heavy handed. I think these approaches are good for class 3 users above, but if used on the first group it often turns them into the second. I think a lot of the recent grumbling about our toleration of aggressive admins is because by large they only tend to abuse #3s, which no one cares about.. quite rightly. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - I agree that it is a small majority that are un-cooperative. But it is this small majority that reach the arbitration committee, because as we know ArbCom don't deal with minor disputes. From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 17:36:34 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:36:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305060415261e7aee81@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <49bdc74305060415261e7aee81@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42A489A2.8090500@telus.net> Jack Lynch wrote: >There does need to be some sort of final say on matters of NPOV and >opinion. Concensus cannot always be achieved, and many contentious >pages are controlled by a POV lobby which alert one another when a >vote w partican potential comes along. > The problem there is more the POV lobby than the specific POV that they are supporting. Ec From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 17:49:24 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:49:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > Fred Bauder stated for the record: > > There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient > > to access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but > > something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure > > journal is much more expensive. > > So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable? I guess my > digging into old Soviet naval records for information about their > nuclear submarines is a waste of time. > > The harder the original editor worked, the more likely his work will be > deleted. That's ... I'm groping for the word ... smart? ... no ... oh, > I have it: perverse. I agree, that is a foolish metric. Now, if we have two equal sources (that is, roughly equal reliability and authority) for the same information we should choose the one which is more widely available (and of course, cost is a factor there). This is like the pruning I do on external links... sometimes I find places where someone has taken free content (Linux documentation project materials, for example), and place it on their blog or a site laden with advertising then linked it from Wikipedia. When I encounter those I change the link to point to the more authoritative source. This should not dissuade us from using a very expensive, very rare source, or even an advertising laden websource, if that is what is available for the information. That someone can verify its authenticity and authortativeness is the bar we impose. That said, it would be a shame if we wrote articles with only very expensive sources, but I don't think we are running any risk of that. :) From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 17:53:08 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 11:53:08 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <3915B1A5-D17F-456D-8827-00C775DDFAF3@ctelco.net> Aside from the question of whether you are doing original research (which, by the way, I heartily approve of and support a change in policy to accept) , a good effort to identify your source is still necessary. This is a grey area. If I go to the Saguache County Courthouse and look up documents on say the [[Baca Grant No. 4]] that would seem to be both a well documented source (book and page) and publicly available but also difficult and expensive to access and original research to boot. So pretty ambiguous in terms of our policies. Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 11:30 AM, Sean Barrett wrote: > Fred Bauder stated for the record: > > >> There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient >> to access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but >> something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure >> journal is much more expensive. >> > > So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable? I guess > my digging into old Soviet naval records for information about > their nuclear submarines is a waste of time. > > The harder the original editor worked, the more likely his work > will be deleted. That's ... I'm groping for the word ... > smart? ... no ... oh, I have it: perverse. > > -- > Sean Barrett | If you insist upon discussing my fiasco, I > sean at epoptic.com | shall forthwith go home. --Nadreck of Palain > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 17:51:34 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 10:51:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A300DE.6020708@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A300DE.6020708@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42A48D26.5090007@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > steven l. rubenstein stated for the record: > >> What we need first is a ruling by or concerning the ArbCom that it >> will consider and pass judgements on content-based disputes, or it >> will not. We just need to make this clear, one way or the other. > > The ArbComm[0] will neither consider nor pass judgement on > content-based disputes. Is that clear enough for you? There is still a distinction to be made between "judgement on content-based disputes" and "judgement on content." Ec From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Jun 6 18:00:00 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:00:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Sean Barret wrote, >Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be >rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are >not silly. They may be wrong, but they are not speedy-obliteration >candidates. > > >I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a >committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to >ban those that feel that it is important to record it. This is not a constructive comment. I am sure everyone else understood I was using a hyperbolic example just to make the point. Anyone who has done serious research in the social sciences or humanities (and this certainly doesn't require a PhD.) can recognize inaccurate assertions that people who have not done serious research probably will not recognize. This is a fact; no one would dispute that someone who has seriously researched physics can tell the difference between a good or bad explanation of the Uncertainty Principle, or the theory of Special Relativity. The same goes for articles on history, politics, culture, and so on. Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. In one of my own messages -- here or at the project page -- I pointed out that one use of such a committee is to ensure that the content is being presented in an NPOV way, or to ensure that the sources are properly represented. Anyone can assert something and cite a book. But in some cases readers need to know whether the author of that book was published by a university press, a trade press, or a vanity press, or whether the book was written by someone with a PhD. in Biblical Studies or Geology. You might think that disputes revolving around such questions would be easy to resolve, and of course, in many cases, they are. But sometimes they are not, and there is a need for some mechanism to arbitrate content. Finally, Brian reminds me that I must repeat that Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia. In an encyclopedia, accuracy is of the utmost important. Brian should not put in inaccurate content, and then protest its deletion because it is "unpopular." Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 18:06:14 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 14:06:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <3915B1A5-D17F-456D-8827-00C775DDFAF3@ctelco.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <3915B1A5-D17F-456D-8827-00C775DDFAF3@ctelco.net> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > Aside from the question of whether you are doing original research > (which, by the way, I heartily approve of and support a change in > policy to accept) , a good effort to identify your source is still > necessary. This is a grey area. If I go to the Saguache County > Courthouse and look up documents on say the [[Baca Grant No. 4]] that > would seem to be both a well documented source (book and page) and > publicly available but also difficult and expensive to access and > original research to boot. So pretty ambiguous in terms of our policies. A open invitation to original research would be a bad thing... but at the same time the prohibition against it denies the ability to print common sense to those in a field... Despite the handwaving claims to the contrary, it can be quite difficult (measured against the value of including the text) to find a citation for something that is common sense in a given field but not necessarily outside it. Fortunately, at least on en, we look the other way on original research unless there is a dispute. We need to start thinking about ways to include original research in a way which maximises the gains and minimizes the harms, and what sorts of research could be most easily included. I've been thinking about one such way which might be useful: Form a new project called Wikiviews. Wikiviews is a collaborative framework for conducting and collecting interviews with notable people. The wikiviews community would establish notability criteria to decide who is eligible for an interview for example, having an article on wikipedia about them would be a great start, but it would also be useful to interview notable professionals and hobbyists in their areas of interest. Collaborative consensus building can be used to create proposed questions. The interview is then performed and stored, and can then be used for citations in Wikipedia articles. This would give us greater ability to insert informed opinion into an article without running into many of the problems with original research since we could attach a source to those views. From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 18:04:58 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:04:58 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42A4904A.8020503@telus.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: >steven l. rubenstein said: > > >>David, this is an issue I and others have raised repeatedly over the >>past years: many irresolvable disputes center on content, and >>Wikipedia needs a mechanism for dealing with these content-based >>disputes. >> >> >Why? If the disputes are irresolvable, why is it necessary to bring in a >deus ex machina to declare a resolution? Isn't it just more honest to >leave the irresolvable unresolved? I find this, the current way, quite >satisfactory and if the arbcom really is accepting cases that are in the >realm of content disputes then they should simply be more parsimonious in >the kind of dispute they accept. > Insisting on a solution to that paradox leads to the whole cloth from which religions (including scientism) are carved. People find it very difficult to accept that a problem may have no solution or that a question may have no answer. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 18:10:27 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:10:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> Stephen Bain wrote: >On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > >>That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >>think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either party >>but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. >> >> >Absolutely. Many people see mediation as only an annoying formality to >skirt around before going to ArbCom. Mediation needs to be seen as an >end in itself. > And an uncooperative attitude in mediation could be a factor in an arbitration decision. Ec From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 18:42:22 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 12:42:22 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> Message-ID: Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation and consider how the user conducted themselves and sanction those who don't cooperate. What do we gain, what do we lose? Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 12:10 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Stephen Bain wrote: > > >> On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >> >> >>> That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >>> think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either >>> party >>> but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. >>> >>> >> Absolutely. Many people see mediation as only an annoying >> formality to >> skirt around before going to ArbCom. Mediation needs to be seen as an >> end in itself. >> >> > And an uncooperative attitude in mediation could be a factor in an > arbitration decision. > > Ec > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Jun 6 18:54:31 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 19:54:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Fred Bauder said: > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. > Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society website is an excellent reference for a description of the views of that society. From rkscience100 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 6 19:23:07 2005 From: rkscience100 at yahoo.com (Robert) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 12:23:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals In-Reply-To: <20050606172023.45B0D1190BF2@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> Sean writes: > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the > formation of a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular > content from Wikipedia and to ban those that feel that it > is important to record it. Isn't that a deliberate lie? What facts (written in NPOV format) did Larry Sanger try to censor? What facts (written in NPOV format) did Steve Rubenstein try to censor? NONE. I strongly object to this strawman attack - which borders on an ad homenim attack - on the discussion of improving Wikipedia. Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people here who unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in original research, write things that are just false and bizarre. For years many of our best contributors have been driven away due to these problems, and the Wikipedia leadership has done little to address the core problem: While we enforce rules about "playing nice", virtually no one attempts to seriously enforce our rules and policies on citing sources, verifiability, and just plain making sure that our articles do not contain flat-out bullshit. There are many people who are exceptions to this, of course, like Steve R. and JayJG. For them, following Wikipedia policy such as citing sources, verifiability, and removing original content are actually important, and not just lip-service. However people like them are working on an individual basis. That just doesn't cut it for an encyclopedia of tens of thousands of articles! For some time Steve Rubenstein and a few others have pointed out this flaw, and have made the quite reasonable suggestion that we have some sort of ArbCom to deal with content disputes. (Remember, the entire point of this project is to create reliable encyclopedia content. Everything else is an aside.) Yet at every turn people who ask for such minor and obviously useful control mechanisms are attacked with strawman criticisms, falsely accused of censorship, and are generally treated with disdain. Is it any wonder that Wikipedia still has a relatively poor reputation among many college, university and high school teachers? Until we take our primary goal seriously - dealing with content problems - Wikipedia will remain at beast a curiosity, an "encyclopedia" filled with questionable content. What's most shocking about this is that the problems we face are so easily solvable (for instance, set up volunteer ArbComs for article content) but every proposal is attacked in heated and misleading ways. Robert (RK) __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 6 19:40:59 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 13:40:59 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: But if the article is [[astrophysics]]? Fred On Jun 6, 2005, at 12:54 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote: > Fred Bauder said: > >> Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties >> often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. >> >> > > Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their > opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society > website is an > excellent reference for a description of the views of that society. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From delirium at hackish.org Mon Jun 6 20:06:03 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:06:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4904A.8020503@telus.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42A4904A.8020503@telus.net> Message-ID: <42A4ACAB.7050306@hackish.org> Ray Saintonge wrote: > People find it very difficult to accept that a problem may have no > solution or that a question may have no answer. It doesn't apply to all the disputes, but I might go further and say that some of the content disputes are an extention spilling over into our encyclopedia of real-world disputes, often between well-credentialed experts. To take just one example, the mess of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy of mind, and associated fields isn't resolved in the real world, so it would be unreasonable to suppose it will be nicely resolved in Wikipedia. Things like, does mental illness exist; if so, what is it; should it be treated with therapy or drugs or both or neither; etc.; are questions that have settled answers in some fields, unsettled ones in others, and often conflicting settled answers between fields. So you end up with people arguing "this article should say [x], because psychiatry experts agree", and others arguing "no, it should say [x] is false, because philosophers agree [x] is a prima facie illogical position", and all sides can produce volumes of peer-reviewed literature to support their position. The only real solution I see is to simply document these viewpoints. Wikipedia isn't the place to settle whether psychiatrists are pill-pushing pseudo-scientists, or psychologists are out-of-touch scientists who don't understand medicine, or philosophers should just butt out entirely, but we can document what they all say. -Mark From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 20:21:06 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 22:21:06 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4ACAB.7050306@hackish.org> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42A4904A.8020503@telus.net> <42A4ACAB.7050306@hackish.org> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, Delirium wrote: > Ray Saintonge wrote: > > > People find it very difficult to accept that a problem may have no > > solution or that a question may have no answer. > > It doesn't apply to all the disputes, but I might go further and say > that some of the content disputes are an extention spilling over into > our encyclopedia of real-world disputes, often between well-credentialed > experts. > > To take just one example, the mess of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy > of mind, and associated fields isn't resolved in the real world, so it > would be unreasonable to suppose it will be nicely resolved in > Wikipedia. Things like, does mental illness exist; if so, what is it; > should it be treated with therapy or drugs or both or neither; etc.; are > questions that have settled answers in some fields, unsettled ones in > others, and often conflicting settled answers between fields. So you > end up with people arguing "this article should say [x], because > psychiatry experts agree", and others arguing "no, it should say [x] is > false, because philosophers agree [x] is a prima facie illogical > position", and all sides can produce volumes of peer-reviewed literature > to support their position. > > The only real solution I see is to simply document these viewpoints. > Wikipedia isn't the place to settle whether psychiatrists are > pill-pushing pseudo-scientists, or psychologists are out-of-touch > scientists who don't understand medicine, or philosophers should just > butt out entirely, but we can document what they all say. > > -Mark Now, I think you make an interesting point here. "Don't assume disputes in the real world can be resolved in Wikipedia." There's a lot of issues here in Wikipedia that are not (or a lot les controversial) in the real world. Those are the ones we should try to solve first. --Mgm From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 6 20:52:38 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 21:52:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050606205238.9240.qmail@web26001.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation > and consider how > the user conducted themselves and sanction those who > don't cooperate. > What do we gain, what do we lose? > > Fred I think we'd find mediation was suddenly much more effective. I've been reading people's comments and sounding out the MC. People *want* to make it work, and there's some clear ideas that people want to try - such as assigning cases. Yes I can see there's potential problems with that but the current method is very broken - why don't we just try it and see what happens? We may find that this debate over a 'content committee' (concom?! :-) ) is rendered moot. So let's make it happen and see what the result is. Dan ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 6 21:51:34 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:51:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals In-Reply-To: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A4C566.3040108@epoptic.com> Robert stated for the record: > Sean writes: > >>I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the >>formation of a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular >>content from Wikipedia and to ban those that feel that it >>is important to record it. > > > Isn't that a deliberate lie? What facts (written in NPOV > format) did Larry Sanger try to censor? What facts > (written in NPOV format) did Steve Rubenstein try to > censor? NONE. > > I strongly object to this strawman attack - which borders > on an ad homenim attack - on the discussion of improving > Wikipedia. Good tactic: when you can't answer the point, call the person making it a liar. I am not lying when I say I am worried. I am worried about people who want to set up committees to decide what points of view will not be allowed to be represented in Wikipedia. When RK states that I am lying about being worried, he is ... guess what? -- Sean Barrett sean at epoptic.com From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Jun 6 22:08:57 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 15:08:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A22C2C.6090701@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: On Sat, 4 Jun 2005, sannse wrote: > That's what we do at the moment, look at the conduct and leave the > content to work itself out. The question is whether we are missing the > underlying problem by doing this. Are we missing the frustrations that > /lead/ to good people loosing their temper and acting badly? And would > it be better for there to be some other means, outside of the AC, to > solve these content disputes before that happens? Much of this conversation has been in generalities over hypothetical examples. One place where some kind of attention to the content would have been useful was [[2004 U.S. Presidential election controversy and irregularities]]. It was placed on VfD twice, currently has about 8 pages under Talk, & is an article that remains *very* controversial to the point that no one except POV-pushers will have anything to do with it. (I would expect after all of that work, something worth submitting to Featured Articles would be at that location.) The original conflict can be reduced with little difficulty as lying between 2 different opinions about this article: * There were no irregularities in the election, it's all partisan lies, & it's not important enough for Wikipedia to bother with it * There were irregularities, this is the undeniable evidence, & only a partisan hack would deny it Not much room for compromise, huh? While I leaned towards the second school of opinion, what troubled me was that it concerned itself with creating a base of Original Research, & not with an NPOV treatment, say: * There are people who believed that there were irregularities * This is the evidence (news reports, incidents) that convinced them that there were irregularities * This is how the story has been playing out (e.g., recounts in Ohio, Barbara Boxer challenging the results in Ohio in January of this year, etc.) I feel that this article should have been written this way because if my understanding is someday proven wrong, the materials need to be there to show later generations why people thought it was true. On the other hand, if history does prove that the election was stolen, then what Wikipedia then needs in this article is not proof that it happened, but an explanation of how the truth was suppressed. And an NPOV approach would best meet both of these needs. And that is why I believe that the ArbCom should consider in cases like this that they appoint an uninvolved experienced Wikipedian -- say someone who has written Featured Articles (preferrably those not dealing with politics) -- to insist on things like No original research, & Cite sources, & other guidelines formulated to improve Wikipedia. > > I have mixed feelings on all this - I see that there are problems, but > am not fully convinced that the majority of them won't be fixed with a > little time and a little faith in the good will of editors. I'm not > saying we ignore things until they go away, just that a proactive > solution may give disputes an emphasis that might be harmful - maybe > without intervention the eventualist approach will work in a lot of cases. Given enough time, any controversy will come to an end -- if for no other reason than the participants will all be dead. And if we don't have a date for Wikipedia 1.0, then we can afford to let these controversies rage on with a minimum of intervention. > > But that said, I realise we are in a whole new situation with the > growing Wikipedia, and maybe what worked a year ago won't do so > nowadays. And content does seem to be the key issue in many disputes > that we have looked at recently. > I agree with sannse about this: the POV-pushers have gotten craftier as Wikipedia matures. It used to be that our greatest worry was cult-like groups who had the funds to advocate their POV everywhere, & would not compromise; however, the more like a cult these groups were, the more rigid was their embrace of specific strategems.[*] However, the new batch of POV-pushers are more likely to manuever their opponents into violating Wikipedia guidelines & thereby letting the ArbCom do their work. While I have confidence that the current membership of the ArbCom won't be fooled by these tactics, I keep wondering how long we can go until one group finds the magic key that allows them to get their POV included -- to the excusion of all of their rivals. But I admit, I do have a persistent streak of pessimism in how I view everything I care about. Geoff [*] The Church of Scientology is the example that I have in mind here. Wikipedia has not been the target of a CoS campaign, most likely, because their vaunted cash box has been depleted over the years by bad investments, embezzlements, the usual gouging from investment houses, & fighting critics on the Internet. Add to that the poor public image the CoS has & their usual turn-over rate in that disfunctional organization, & it's no surprise that they'd rather ignore something like Wikipedia than directly confront it. From erik_moeller at gmx.de Mon Jun 6 22:22:18 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:22:18 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> Message-ID: <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> Mark Pellegrini: > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff. As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead. This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't destroy the village in order to save it. Erik From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 22:59:19 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 15:59:19 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > Fred Bauder stated for the record: > >> There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient to >> access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but >> something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure >> journal is much more expensive. > > So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable? I guess my > digging into old Soviet naval records for information about their > nuclear submarines is a waste of time. > > The harder the original editor worked, the more likely his work will > be deleted. That's ... I'm groping for the word ... smart? ... no ... > oh, I have it: perverse. Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No original research" rule. Ec From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 6 23:05:19 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 09:05:19 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050606205238.9240.qmail@web26001.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050606205238.9240.qmail@web26001.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5309126705060616053938f68e@mail.gmail.com> > --- Fred Bauder wrote: > > > Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation > > and consider how > > the user conducted themselves and sanction those who > > don't cooperate. > > What do we gain, what do we lose? > > > > Fred Generally, I think it's not a bad. It would make for a terrible absolute rule, though - as there's always going to be cases that will need to head straight for arbitration, just as there will always be rulelawyers who will try to stall that if they realise it is coming by "seeking mediation" in bad faith first. I've seen it before; it'll happen again, I'm sure. Now, Dan, On 6/7/05, Dan Grey wrote: > I think we'd find mediation was suddenly much more > effective. > > I've been reading people's comments and sounding out > the MC. People *want* to make it work, and there's > some clear ideas that people want to try - such as > assigning cases. Yes I can see there's potential > problems with that but the current method is very > broken - why don't we just try it and see what > happens? We may find that this debate over a 'content > committee' (concom?! :-) ) is rendered moot. > > So let's make it happen and see what the result is. We're just throwing ideas out there at the moment - reviving the mediation committee is one, a content committee is another, and there's quite a few that you haven't mentioned. *If* the mediation committee is brought back, we need to have a clear idea of what we're going to do about it - and I'm a bit confused by your statement about "assigning cases" (it sounds like exactly what we did before). -- ambi From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 6 23:22:35 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:22:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> Message-ID: <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No > original research" rule. Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? -- Sean Barrett | If you insist upon discussing my fiasco, I sean at epoptic.com | shall forthwith go home. --Nadreck of Palain From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 23:22:32 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:22:32 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> Message-ID: <42A4DAB8.1090401@telus.net> If Arb Com gains when it refuse to hear a dispute between parties who can't show where they have tried to find common ground. Some would consider the time taken for an extra step to be a loss. But there's nothing wrong with a little patience. Ec Fred Bauder wrote: > Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation and consider how > the user conducted themselves and sanction those who don't cooperate. > What do we gain, what do we lose? > > Fred > > On Jun 6, 2005, at 12:10 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> Stephen Bain wrote: >> >>> On 6/5/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >>> >>>> That's why I want to breath new life into the Mediation Committee. I >>>> think Mediation shouldn't be another step towards banning either >>>> party >>>> but a genuine effort at resolving the problem. >>> >>> Absolutely. Many people see mediation as only an annoying formality to >>> skirt around before going to ArbCom. Mediation needs to be seen as an >>> end in itself. >> >> And an uncooperative attitude in mediation could be a factor in an >> arbitration decision. >> >> Ec > From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 6 23:35:03 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:35:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals In-Reply-To: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A4DDA7.4090903@telus.net> Robert wrote: >Sean writes: > > >>I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the >>formation of a committee empowered to prohibit unpopular >>content from Wikipedia and to ban those that feel that it >>is important to record it. >> >> >I strongly object to this strawman attack - which borders >on an ad homenim attack - on the discussion of improving >Wikipedia. > Why is it ad hominem to raise serious concerns? >Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people >here who unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in >original research, write things that are just false and >bizarre. > With more insistance of citing sources the other two might just fall into place. >For years many of our best contributors have been driven >away due to these problems, and the Wikipedia leadership >has done little to address the core problem: While we >enforce rules about "playing nice", virtually no one >attempts to seriously enforce our rules and policies on >citing sources, verifiability, and just plain making sure >that our articles do not contain flat-out bullshit. > Viewed in isolation saying that something is "flat-out bullshit" is just another POV. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 7 00:05:42 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:05:42 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > >> If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the >> "No original research" rule. > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make that point. Ec From morven at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 00:21:36 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 17:21:36 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> Message-ID: <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Sean Barrett wrote: > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? > > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make > that point. It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia, is starting to mutate into something quite different. "Cite your sources" is fine. "Provide your sources," though, is not. On many obscure topics, the sources WILL be difficult to locate. Any attempt to turn this requirement into having to provide sources that can be requested from the average library or online will remove a large number of very credible but obscure sources - specialist publications, limited circulation journals, and many other documents. -Matt (User:Morven) From nicolasramke at yahoo.com Mon Jun 6 18:55:38 2005 From: nicolasramke at yahoo.com (nicolas ramke) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 11:55:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] two comments Message-ID: <20050606185538.64405.qmail@web54310.mail.yahoo.com> Hello! Listen, I have two suggestions -- 1 - make a 'printer friendly' version of articles, so one does not have to cut and past into a word file and then erase the dozens of 'hyper links' ! 2 - have your email address in plain site! It took me a long time to find this address! thank you __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From beesley at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 01:17:05 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 03:17:05 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] two comments In-Reply-To: <20050606185538.64405.qmail@web54310.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050606185538.64405.qmail@web54310.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8b722b8005060618177caedb15@mail.gmail.com> On 06/06/05, nicolas ramke wrote: > 1 - make a 'printer friendly' version of articles, so one does not have to cut and past into a word file and then erase the dozens of 'hyper links' ! There is a printer friendly version. If you are using the default "monobook" skin, then this is automatically applied when you press "print" or "print preview" in your browser. If you're using another skin, you should see a "Printable version" link. > 2 - have your email address in plain site! It took me a long time to find this address! The address for this list is now at , which, thanks to mav, is now linked via "Help/Contact us" in the sidebar which displays on all pages (unless you're using the "nostalgia" skin). Angela. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 02:55:41 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 22:55:41 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. > >But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach >the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves, >rather then leave it 'some people'. > >Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our >lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the >source. There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't imagine. Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is encyclopedic. Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find some other venue for promoting their bizarre notions. The goal is that Wikipedia become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who ever managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book. Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:00:44 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 23:00:44 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/6/05, JAY JG wrote: > > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties > > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. > > > >But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach > >the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves, > >rather then leave it 'some people'. > > > >Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our > >lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the > >source. > > There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't > imagine. Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is > encyclopedic. Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find some > other venue for promoting their bizarre notions. The goal is that Wikipedia > become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who ever > managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book. I think we're talking past each other here. Nowhere did I suggest that we need to include every idea, just that there is nothing about the fact that you can cite crazy people that lessens the advantages of citing sources. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:08:28 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:08:28 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >From: "steven l. rubenstein" > >Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just waving >a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. In one of my own >messages -- here or at the project page -- I pointed out that one use of >such a committee is to ensure that the content is being presented in an >NPOV way, or to ensure that the sources are properly represented. This turns out to be a non-trivial matter; I have run into several editors who, whether willfully or otherwise, do not accurately present the material that they are using as a source. Specifically, they will present a POV, and when challenged for a source, will cite a source. When you actually read the source you find that the information they have entered in the article simply does not match the source they are citing. One would think that this is an easy problem to solve; yet some editors often seem rather insistent on ensuring their POV is heard, regardless of whether or not they have a source that accurately represents it, and are willing to war till the end of time to get their way. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:23:22 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:23:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >Fred Bauder said: > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. > > > >Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their >opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society website is an >excellent reference for a description of the views of that society. The lunatic fringe are typically easy enough to deal with; it's the more subtle cases that are harder to judge. Why not bring up real-life, happening-today cases? For example, this sourced statement [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Banu_Qurayza&diff=14817484&oldid=14816712], which was reverted from an article on the grounds that the author didn't have a Wikipedia article on him, one article editor had never heard of him [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ABanu_Qurayza&diff=14816692&oldid=14816611], and another simply didn't feel he was "notable" [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Banu_Qurayza&diff=next&oldid=14816692] Now, Tony, how do you deal with this? Is this published author notable enough to be quoted in the article? Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:37:04 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:37:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge > >Sean Barrett wrote: > >>Ray Saintonge stated for the record: >> >>>If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No >>>original research" rule. >> >>Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records (NVR, >>DANFS, &c.) are okay? > >I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make >that point. Sounds like another strawman. Original research is not finding obscure sources and citing them, but rather drawing original conclusions. The former is nothing like the latter, unless one is deliberately intent on denigrating the Original Research policy by misrepresenting it. Jay. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 7 03:41:51 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 20:41:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals In-Reply-To: <20050606192308.82979.qmail@web20328.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050607034151.93564.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Robert wrote: > Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people > here who unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in > original research, write things that are just false and > bizarre. And the ArbCom is already charged with enforcing all Wikipedia policies, including those that are about content (such as NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability). We have in fact ruled in this area several times before but have been usually limited to cases that are fairly obvious. Spotting subtle POV, original research, or fringe ideas masquerading as more mainstream than they are takes a fair amount of pre-existing knowledge in the relevant subject area. This is something that the current ArbCom could never have. Thus my idea of having vetted panels of respected users who have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas that the ArbCom could call upon to help it distinguish what is what. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:50:21 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:50:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Matt Brown ? >On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > Sean Barrett wrote: > > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records > > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? > > > > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make > > that point. > >It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to >prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia, >is starting to mutate into something quite different. It hasn't started to mutate into anything different, though some people pretend it has. What typically happens is this: An editor sees a cited POV they strongly disagree with in some article, so they construct a novel argument to counter that POV, often even citing sources for the various facts used to construct the argument. When challenged on the grounds that they are doing Original Research, they either counter by saying each of the facts used to create the argument is properly cited, or (if they've been around Wikipedia for a while) they grumble on Wikien-l that the arguments is obvious, and that the NOR policy is being stretched to cover areas for which it was never intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be cited *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g. "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually be hard to find someone specifically stating them! Then e-mails fly back and forth on the list, eventually everything dies down for two months, rinse and repeat. Jay. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 7 03:50:29 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 20:50:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48823.7020507@telus.net> Message-ID: <20050607035030.23341.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > My immediate impression is that having a committee rule on content would > be ruinous. Successful NPOV depends on people finding common ground > even when that may be very difficult. It is not the place for the ArbCom to say things like 'human-caused global warming is real' but it *is* the place of the ArbCom to say that a certain user has violated our content-related policies (like NPOV or NOR) while editing such an article. We have done this before and will do it again. The only question is: *Do we continue to only apply this to the most obvious cases or do we try to enforce our content-related policies with the same rigor as we do our purely behavioral ones? -- mav __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 03:54:05 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 23:54:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell >On 6/6/05, JAY JG wrote: > > > > Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political >parties > > > > often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. > > > > > >But when there is a source for some fringe idea at least we can attach > > >the source, so people can judge the quality of that source themselves, > > >rather then leave it 'some people'. > > > > > >Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our > > >lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the > > >source. > > > > There is a source for every idea you can imagine, and many you can't > > imagine. Just because you can source an idea doesn't mean it is > > encyclopedic. Policy is clear on this; extreme fringe views can find >some > > other venue for promoting their bizarre notions. The goal is that >Wikipedia > > become an encyclopedia, not a collection of the POVs of everyone who >ever > > managed to put up a webpage or self-publish a book. > >I think we're talking past each other here. >Nowhere did I suggest that we need to include every idea, just that >there is nothing about the fact that you can cite crazy people that >lessens the advantages of citing sources. You said "Attaching sources doesn't require that we judge the sources, but our lack of judgement doesn't prohibit our readers from judging the source." In fact, it's our responsibility to judge sources all the time, and (despite continued claims to the contrary) it's often a very tricky to do, which is why content dispute resolution of some sort or another would be quite helpful. Jay. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 7 04:13:09 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 21:13:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> Message-ID: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Erik Moeller wrote: > I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any > content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the > community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to > dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community > procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear > conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all > arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed > upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff. The ArbCom already tries to enforce our content-related policies. What I'd like to do is have subject-area subcommittees to consult when alleged violations of our content-related polices like NPOV or NOR come before us (the ArbCom). As it is, only the most blatant POV and original research-pushing people are sanctioned due to the simple fact that the ArbCom does not know everything about everything and thus can't spot more subtle violations of our content-related polices. We have tried, but this results in cases that take months and inadequate remedies. Here is my proposal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 7 04:21:50 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 21:21:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48D26.5090007@telus.net> Message-ID: <20050607042150.24443.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > There is still a distinction to be made between "judgement on > content-based disputes" and "judgement on content." Very good point. I for one only want 'judgment on content-based disputes.' This is in fact something that is already going on, but most often, only for the most obvious cases. A group of vetted and respected people more familiar with the subject matter is needed to help the ArbCom detect less-obvious cases. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From delirium at hackish.org Tue Jun 7 16:16:12 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 12:16:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> Matt Brown wrote: >"Cite your sources" is fine. "Provide your sources," though, is not. >On many obscure topics, the sources WILL be difficult to locate. Any >attempt to turn this requirement into having to provide sources that >can be requested from the average library or online will remove a >large number of very credible but obscure sources - specialist >publications, limited circulation journals, and many other documents. > > IMO, those would only be legitimate sources to cite if the subject itself is obscure and known only to specialists. If it's a well-known subject, it would make more sense to use mainstream sources on the subject. If the obscure source is indeed important, it will at least have been cited by someone else. If, for example, you find an obscure source on the Holocaust that is not cited in any mainstream work on the Holocaust, it would be original research to begin to build an argument based on it. (If you thought mainstream Holocaust historians were ignoring some obscure but credible and important source, that would be an issue to take up with them; we're just here to report the consensus in the field, not to create it.) -Mark From morven at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 17:38:55 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 10:38:55 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> Message-ID: <42f90dc005060710384fcd7308@mail.gmail.com> On 6/7/05, Delirium wrote: > IMO, those would only be legitimate sources to cite if the subject > itself is obscure and known only to specialists. If it's a well-known > subject, it would make more sense to use mainstream sources on the > subject. If the obscure source is indeed important, it will at least > have been cited by someone else. Agreed. It's simply that some subjects are obscure enough (or at least, the scholarly analysis of them is obscure enough) that the sources would not necessarily be available through most libraries, for instance. To pick an example of personal interest, the publications of most railroad historical societies will not be in many libraries' collections. The research and scholarship involved can be first-rate, however, and quite appropriate to cite in a Wikipedia article. Furthermore, any other specialist in the field should be able to check those references without too much difficulty, even if the material is not that easily available to the general public. However, the true point of contention in this, I think, will be how citable primary sources should be, and to what degree going to primary sources is original research. Published primary sources are probably fairly uncontroversial, but what about unpublished primary sources? E.g., to pick a topic of personal interest again, is citing documents that can be found in the California Railroad Museum's collection of Southern Pacific Railroad original documents acceptable, or is going through such a collection original research? The references are available to anyone who cares to go there, but they are not published. -Matt (User:Morven) From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 7 08:52:04 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 18:52:04 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] two comments In-Reply-To: <8b722b8005060618177caedb15@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050606185538.64405.qmail@web54310.mail.yahoo.com> <8b722b8005060618177caedb15@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050607085204.GM358@thingy.apana.org.au> Angela (beesley at gmail.com) [050607 11:17]: > On 06/06/05, nicolas ramke wrote: > > 1 - make a 'printer friendly' version of articles, so one does not have to cut and past into a word file and then erase the dozens of 'hyper links' ! > There is a printer friendly version. If you are using the default > "monobook" skin, then this is automatically applied when you press > "print" or "print preview" in your browser. If you're using another > skin, you should see a "Printable version" link. Possibly this should be added to Monobook as an explicit link. Having it automagically be applied when someone prints is clever but non-obvious, and people are used to "Printable version" links on news sites, etc. - d. From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Tue Jun 7 16:46:46 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 09:46:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Jun 2005, Erik Moeller wrote: > As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last > resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead. > This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't > destroy the village in order to save it. > Voting only works if the losing side accepts the result & concedes defeat. Politians who win elections are wise to keep that in mind, & should always make an effort to at least refrain from antagonizing the losing side any further. Voting on Wikipedia to settle issues won't work because the opposing sides are usually so certain that their opinion is the right one, that they will not accept an adverse result from a vote. That any vote on Wikipedia has settled a conflict is a miracle, & proof that the people involved acted in good faith & with a lot of WikiLove. Geoff From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Tue Jun 7 16:38:19 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 09:38:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 6 Jun 2005, Sean Barrett wrote: > Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > > > Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No > > original research" rule. > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? > Ease of verification? In theory, many old US records are accessible by the Freedom of Information Act; I believe something similar exists for many national archives. Note that I wrote above the words "in theory": in practice, the US government often refuses to release copies of records, or redacts them to remove some or all information -- & sometimes not consistently. The movie _Fahrenheit 911_ has a memorable example where one document was given to a journalist with some information removed -- but not to another. (I do not have any reliable knowledge about how other governments handle releasing their records, so I won't comment on those cases.) Years ago, when this topic was raised on this list, I seem to remember that there was a consensus towards requiring all sources cited or used to be *published*. Not only did that mean that the material received some token degree of review, & did not depend on Wikipedia for dissemination into the larger public discussion (which was one reason for the No Original Research rule), but it also allowed a Wikipedia user to verify the citation for her/himself. Thus an unpublished memo from a national or corporate archive written in 1955 should not be cited; but a letter between two ancient rulers that has been translated & published as part of _The Armana Letters_ (published by John Hopkins Press, & for sale on Amazon) can be cited. I am always happily surprised at what I can access through my local public library's Interlibrary Loan services -- often at no cost to me. Of course, this requirement leads to other questions. What about rare books or ephemera? For example, if one wanted to write articles on Grunge rock in Seattle (home of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarten & other well-known bands), _The Rocket_ is an invaluable & authoritative source to cite. However, that newspaper went out of business years ago, & I wouldn't have a clue where I could find copies of specific -- or any -- issues. (It was a free weekly newspaper that could be found at all of the local record stores in Seattle & Portland.) If there is a library with a run of its issues, I doubt that they would share either the originals or a photocopy thru ILL; but then, coming thru old issues of _The Rocket_ or 16th century incunabula seems to me close to performing original research. Another question is citing untranslated, non-English sources in a English-language Wikipedia. Obviously, many experts write in languages other than English, & some topics cannot be developed beyond a stub without use of non-English sources; however, when a contributor writes an article & only cites, say, Russian or Georgian-language sources for her/his article, I have to take it on faith that not only are the references reported correstly, but that the works even exist. And I'm sure that there are other issues one could discuss. However, if we could agree that published sources -- either primary or secondary -- can be cited, but unpublished works can not be, this would solve most of the problem. Geoff From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 7 17:56:56 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 11:56:56 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005060710384fcd7308@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> <42f90dc005060710384fcd7308@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This question is presently unresolved. Interpreted literally our Original Research Policy would exclude such material, but I am gathering from conversations on this list that there is some feeling that the Original Research Policy should not apply to material of this nature. Perhaps this needs to be made clear at [[Wikipedia:No original research]]* Fred On Jun 7, 2005, at 11:38 AM, Matt Brown wrote: > However, the true point of contention in this, I think, will be how > citable primary sources should be, and to what degree going to primary > sources is original research. Published primary sources are probably > fairly uncontroversial, but what about unpublished primary sources? > E.g., to pick a topic of personal interest again, is citing documents > that can be found in the California Railroad Museum's collection of > Southern Pacific Railroad original documents acceptable, or is going > through such a collection original research? The references are > available to anyone who cares to go there, but they are not published. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 7 13:34:37 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 06:34:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Respected users who tell us what is what (was: Strawman attacks on recent proposals) Message-ID: Well, as Gomer Pyle would say: * "Surprise, surprise, surprise" Isn't this *precisely* what Larry Sanger was calling for? And wasn't this the *chief* criticism he made about Wikipedia in his famous screed? That we need *some* sort of reliable group of experts ("vetted panels of respected users who have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas" as Mav put it) to give us a reliable clue as to what is really so. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so shrill and I-told-you-so-ish about this; sorry, I'll get off my high horse now. Taking the course Mav suggests could either help us a lot or hurt us terribly. If we choose wise (and unbiased!) panels, we'll be able to add the adjective "reliable" (or "authoritative") to our main page's slogan. If we simly hold an election, chances are that voters will (deliberately or not) choose a panel which MERELY REFLECTS THEIR PREJUDICES AND BIASES. It ultimately will come down to a question of: * Who is worthy of our trust? * How do we identify and attract such people? * How can we prove to others that they merit our trust? This task might be too hard for us, with our current organization. Now don't get me wrong: I really like the people on the arbcom, and I'm not wangling for a seat on it. I'm just saying that it's very difficult for non-experts to judge the qualifications of experts. To distinguish between: A. the scrupulously honest and self-sacrificial devotees of truth (of "what is") who are as M. Scott Peck wrote, "dedicated to reality at all costs"; and, B. people who will assert that something is true (1) out of ignorant error or (2) for an ulterior motive ...to make that distinction is more than we bargained for. Jimbo and Larry set up the NPOV idea out of what I regard as a kind of philosophical and practical desperation: I realization that the only way a really huge wiki could operate successfully was to DUCK all issues of determining right and wrong, true and false, good and bad - and simply "describe fairly each point of view". Thus the term Neutral Point Of View means "not endorsing or rejecting ANY point of view". It may be that Wikipedia has served its purpose: that it has reached the end of its tether. If so, we must look to others to build upon its foundation and continue onward. Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed > -----Original Message----- > From: Daniel Mayer [mailto:maveric149 at yahoo.com] > Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 11:42 PM > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals > > > --- Robert wrote: > > Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people > here who > > unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in original research, > > write things that are just false and bizarre. > > And the ArbCom is already charged with enforcing all > Wikipedia policies, including those that are about content > (such as NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability). We have in fact ruled > in this area several times before but have been usually > limited to cases that are fairly obvious. > > Spotting subtle POV, original research, or fringe ideas > masquerading as more mainstream than they are takes a fair > amount of pre-existing knowledge in the relevant subject > area. This is something that the current ArbCom could never have. > > Thus my idea of having vetted panels of respected users who > have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas that the ArbCom > could call upon to help it distinguish what is what. > > See > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitratio n/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 7 11:50:22 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:50:22 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> Message-ID: <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Fred Bauder a ?crit: > Suppose we did require cooperation with mediation and consider how the > user conducted themselves and sanction those who don't cooperate. What > do we gain, what do we lose? > > Fred I would be happy to have a legal person give his opinion here. In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a requirement/obligation. I am a little dubious of the deep underlying significance of being punished for refusing mediation when in conflict. I also fear "refusing cooperation" in mediation would have to be a decision of the mediator... which implies a loss of neutrality... as well as requires a mandatory report of the mediator to the arbcom... possibly fueling a bad relationship between the mediator and the people in conflict. Since the relationship should be first based in confidence, I am perplex of the implications it might result to. If this is done, I hope mediators will not be *required* necessarily to report on the mediation outcome and details of cooperation or non cooperation, but that it will be at least a choice. Ant From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Jun 7 15:53:01 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 11:53:01 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607114045.032fd480@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Sean Barret wrote, >I am not lying when I say I am worried. I am worried about people who >want to set up committees to decide what points of view will not be >allowed to be represented in Wikipedia. This is indeed a straw-man argument (to give Sean the benefit of the doubt; if it is not a straw man argument, it is either a deliberate lie, or an example of un-comprehension). No one -- no one at all -- has said that they want to set up a committee to decide which points of view will not be allowed on Wikipedia. On the contrary, Jayguk has suggested a committee which will enforce NPOV, and Mav's suggested committees will obviously adhere to our NPOV policy. Sean is clouding the issue by claiming it has anything to do with NPOV. Or he believes that our NPOV policy means that anything anyone writes stays, whether it is accurate or properly sourced or not. If this is what Sean thinks, he is seriously misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting our NPOV policy and I suggest he take the time to read it. Of course, misunderstanding or misrepresentation is something Sean is well-practiced at. In reply to an earlier e-mail of mine, he wrote, "Silly statements that are so very hard to spot that they cannot be rebutted and can only be corrected by rendering them unexpressible are not silly." Again no one -- no one at all -- has ever said that false statements can be corrected "only" by rendering them "unexpressible," nor have I or anyone else ever even suggested that content should be rendered unexpressible. This is a matter of style, not content. Falsehoods can be rendered unexpressible, truths or facts can be rendered lucid, even eloquent. The proposals circulating have nothing to do with style, only with content -- which is what an encyclopedia is all about. People can "express" their personal views on talk-pages. But Sean seems to think that Wikipedia is a chat-room, not an encyclopedia. In an encyclopedia, verifiable and accurate (yes, presented in an NPOV way, as everyone agrees) really are important. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Jun 7 16:01:12 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 12:01:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Erik Moeller wrote, >I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any >content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the >community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to >dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community >procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear >conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all >arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed >upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff. > >As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last >resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead. >This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't >destroy the village in order to save it. I share Erik's concern about cabals, but I think this is an issue Mav has addressed, satisfactorally, at length. Rotating elected members with term-limits, and an appeals process, provide checks and balances. I fundamentally disagree with Erik about the community vote. We all come to Wikipedia because we offer different things -- some people know a lot about the Bible, others about Cricket, others about linux, and so on. We also all come here to learn things we do not know. I do not really understand quantum mechanics -- you really think I should vote on whether content is accurate or not? I do not know the physics literature -- you really think I can vote on the repute of a given source? There are some things I know a great deal about, and will argue my position forcefully with anyone -- and can also recognize, easily, when someone else's position is better than mine. This is far from true, however, concerning most issues at Wikipedia. I think what motivates these proposals, and Jguk's and Mav's proposals particularly, is the recognition that no one here is an expert on everything, and the community needs people to turn to for reliable, well-informed evaluations of content and disputes over content. I think this is undeniable. And a full-community vote, far from helping, will make things worse. Checks, balances, and accountability, yes. But knowledge and experience, yes too. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Jun 7 18:24:39 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 14:24:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607141533.03320508@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Matt Brown wrote some thoughtful comments, some of which I deeply disagree with: >MO, those would only be legitimate sources to cite if the subject >itself is obscure and known only to specialists. If it's a well-known >subject, it would make more sense to use mainstream sources on the >subject. Yes and no. One reason for citing sources is so that readers who want to know more (or check facts) can go to the sources. In this sense, I do agree with Matt that it is important to provide sources that anyone who is on-line and has access to Amazon.com, or access to a good library, can find. But I disagree with Matt's distinction between "obscure subject" and other subjects. A subject that is not obscure, for example the Holocaust or the Bible or the U.S. Civil War, obviously has loads of popular and easily acceptable sources we can cite. But there is always ongoing academic research, and much important and relevant information will come from relatively obscure sources. This is precisely the material we want to include in a high-quality encyclopedia, even if the cited sources are hard to find. >If the obscure source is indeed important, it will at least >have been cited by someone else. If, for example, you find an obscure >source on the Holocaust that is not cited in any mainstream work on the >Holocaust, it would be original research to begin to build an argument >based on it. Matt, this is just 100% wrong. You simply do not understand our NOR policy. It would violate our policy to "build an argument" on any source, "mainstream" as well as "obscure." But adding material, including published data, published explanations, published interpretations, is NOT "original research" if it comes from sources that are, however obscure, reputable. > (If you thought mainstream Holocaust historians were >ignoring some obscure but credible and important source, that would be >an issue to take up with them; we're just here to report the consensus >in the field, not to create it.) Again, 100% wrong. We are not here to report the consensus. As a matter of fact, one of the most important functions of our NPOV policy is to ensure that diverse views (and if they are diverse, they obviously do not represent a consensus) . We report on different views, provide the proper sources, and any context about the sources that can help readers evaluate the views being represented. "Consensus" hotonly has nothing to do with it, it is antithetical to what we stand for. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 07:58:07 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 09:58:07 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> Message-ID: On 6/7/05, Erik Moeller wrote: > Mark Pellegrini: > > The Arbitration Committee is seeking public commentary and suggestions > > pertaining to an ongoing problem: > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC > > I will state here for the record that I'm strongly opposed to any > content arbitration committee. Decisions like this should be made by the > community, not by elected or appointed representatives. The solution to > dealing with prolonged disputes is to establish clear community > procedures to make decisions, such as binding votes under clear > conditions (e.g. a discussion has been going on for X weeks, all > arguments have been summarized, all options of the vote have been agreed > upon in consensus ..). Wikipedia does not need an editorial staff. > > As I've often stated, if you absolutely rule out voting as a last > resort, you end up with clubs and cabals which make decisions instead. > This is exactly what a content committee would eventually become. Don't > destroy the village in order to save it. > > Erik > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > I never understood why so many people oppose votes. It's an easy way to see how the land lies and what the general opinion is. In my opinion that's helpful. --Mgm From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 7 08:25:09 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 01:25:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A559E5.4050208@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: Matt Brown > > ? > >> On 6/6/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: >> > Sean Barrett wrote: >> > > Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records >> > > (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? >> > >> > I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to >> make >> > that point. >> >> It disturbs me that "No original research", originally intended to >> prevent crackpot theories with no following being pushed on Wikipedia, >> is starting to mutate into something quite different. > > It hasn't started to mutate into anything different, though some > people pretend it has. What typically happens is this: An editor sees > a cited POV they strongly disagree with in some article, so they > construct a novel argument to counter that POV, often even citing > sources for the various facts used to construct the argument. When > challenged on the grounds that they are doing Original Research, they > either counter by saying each of the facts used to create the argument > is properly cited, or (if they've been around Wikipedia for a while) > they grumble on Wikien-l that the arguments is obvious, and that the > NOR policy is being stretched to cover areas for which it was never > intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be cited > *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g. > "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually > be hard to find someone specifically stating them! Then e-mails fly > back and forth on the list, eventually everything dies down for two > months, rinse and repeat. This argument sounds like its original research. :-) Ec From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 7 08:15:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 01:15:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A55790.6010003@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: Ray Saintonge >> >> Sean Barrett wrote: >> >>> Ray Saintonge stated for the record: >>> >>>> If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the >>>> "No original research" rule. >>> >>> Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records >>> (NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? >> >> I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to >> make that point. > > Sounds like another strawman. Original research is not finding > obscure sources and citing them, but rather drawing original > conclusions. The former is nothing like the latter, unless one is > deliberately intent on denigrating the Original Research policy by > misrepresenting it. And how do you propose to know that the conclusion is "original"? Ec From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 7 20:13:50 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:13:50 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A5FFFE.7080208@gmx.de> Geoff Burling: > Voting on Wikipedia to settle issues won't work because the opposing > sides are usually so certain that their opinion is the right one, > that they will not accept an adverse result from a vote. You're describing the current situation where there is no defined decision making process on equal footing with our other core policies. If one could say "This vote was held in accordance with the rules on voting in content disputes", then anyone who acts against it without good reason (e.g. fundamentally new information or arguments that would justify a new discussion) would be in violation of policy, and the traditional means of enforcing good conduct would apply. The tricky part is to define a policy that does not have a negative impact on our traditional consensus finding processes. There are good reasons why many people are skeptical about voting: - sock puppetry - voting before discussion - voting with options that influence the results - voting with overly complicated or flawed methods - voting without a way to ever question the result etc. However, an anti-voting dogma exacerbates the problem because it leads to the aforementioned club-like structures that will always be susceptible to long-term corruption, and because voting, where it *does* occur, cannot happen according to a standardized, tried and tested set of rules; instead, the same mistakes are repeated again and again, and nobody knows when a vote should be considered binding or not. Any relatively new user can be easily intimidated with a vote, while someone more familiar with our processes can easily question it. This is an undesirable imbalance. Erik From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 7 20:31:00 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:31:00 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> Steven- > I fundamentally disagree with Erik about the community vote. We all > come to Wikipedia because we offer different things -- some people know > a lot about the Bible, others about Cricket, others about linux, and so > on. We also all come here to learn things we do not know. I do not > really understand quantum mechanics -- you really think I should vote on > whether content is accurate or not? I do not know the physics > literature -- you really think I can vote on the repute of a given source? You appear to be operating under the assumption that someone not interested the least in quantum physics would participate in a vote on whether this or that study result should be included in an article about it. This does not seem very likely to me. Moreover, I am strictly in favor of a process whereby all arguments from all sides *must* be properly summarized before a binding vote can take place, so that anyone who has an interest and a basic understanding can quickly get an overview of what the arguments are. Furthermore, in many disputes, there will be two or more sides from different fields of knowledge. For example, a debate might rage about whether [[quantum physics]] should include a link to [[postmodernism]]. Should that debate be limited strictly to physicists? Should a debate about the Sokal affair be limited to postmodernists? Wikipedia has always been based on the idea that you can trust reasonable people to do the right thing, and that the unreasonable ones will be a minority that we can deal with. I think that principle should be applied here as well. Erik From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 7 20:44:47 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:44:47 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> Daniel: > The ArbCom already tries to enforce our content-related policies. What I'd like > to do is have subject-area subcommittees to consult when alleged violations of > our content-related polices like NPOV or NOR come before us (the ArbCom). As it > is, only the most blatant POV and original research-pushing people are > sanctioned due to the simple fact that the ArbCom does not know everything > about everything and thus can't spot more subtle violations of our > content-related polices. We have tried, but this results in cases that take > months and inadequate remedies. I understand that this is frustrating, and it is commendable that you are looking for a solution; this shows that you are indeed worthy arbitrators -- people of action constantly looking for ways to deal with the problems we face. However, I believe that you, Mark and other arbitrators are examining the problem *only* from your point of view as arbitrators. This is an unnecessary limitation of perspective. I think there are community-based approaches that are not as susceptible to error and corruption and that therefore should be preferred. Now that you have so cogently pointed out the problem -- it's possible to wage "wars of attrition" over articles, and the person first to explode or give up is likely to lose -- I would like us to look together for a solution that is compatible with our ideals and dreams of openness and cooperation in good faith, rather than one that takes us down the road of credentialism and hierarchy. Institutions like the ArbCom, even admins, blocks, page protection, deletion -- these are not perfect and deserve to be questioned and reconsidered. http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?DevolvePower is worth a read. Best, Erik From morven at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 21:11:39 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 14:11:39 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050607141144e891ee@mail.gmail.com> On 6/7/05, Geoff Burling wrote: > And I'm sure that there are other issues one could discuss. However, > if we could agree that published sources -- either primary or secondary -- > can be cited, but unpublished works can not be, this would solve > most of the problem. That is a position that I could stand behind. I would be opposed to a suggestion that we should limit ourselves to published sources that can be acquired through Amazon, Google and the average inter-library loan service, however. Obviously, the easier the sources can be accessed the better, but I would not rule out using rare or old books, magazines and newspapers even if not commonly archived, small publications, and foreign language works. That said, I think that outside a certain vanishingly small subset of very controversial articles, Wikipedia's problem is not the citing of hard-to-verify sources, but the absense of sources at all. Outside the context of Israel vs. Palestine, certain crackpot science theories, and a few other controversial places, I don't see much of a problem at present. And I'd rather someone cite an unpublished source than none. It's always possible that a better reference than that unpublished source may be findable by someone else, or a published source that references that unpublished one. -Matt From sean at epoptic.org Tue Jun 7 21:24:02 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 14:24:02 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607114045.032fd480@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> (rubenste@ohiou.edu) References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607114045.032fd480@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <200506072124.j57LO26K011216@orwen.epoptic.com> > ... it is either a deliberate lie, or an > example of un-comprehension... > ... > Sean is clouding the issue ... > ... > Sean ... is seriously misunderstanding or > deliberately misrepresenting our NPOV policy and I suggest he take the time > to read it. > > Of course, misunderstanding or misrepresentation is something Sean is > well-practiced at. Wow! Steven certainly has low opinions of my integrity and desire to continue improving Wikipedia. I certainly had no idea I was such a villainous blackguard. However, his venom does not change the fundamental fact that the idea of setting up committees of specialists that will control the content of articles (rather than the behavior of editors) worries me. He can deny it as often and as hatefully as he likes, but that fact remains true. -- Sean Barrett | Oh, "meltdown" is one of those annoying sean at epoptic.com | buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested | fission surplus. --C. Montgomery Burns From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 21:27:53 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 23:27:53 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Respected users who tell us what is what (was: Strawman attacks on recent proposals) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49bdc74305060714271846a354@mail.gmail.com> I hope not... You made a VERY convincing case against the content comitee there... Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/7/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Well, as Gomer Pyle would say: > > * "Surprise, surprise, surprise" > > Isn't this *precisely* what Larry Sanger was calling for? And wasn't > this the *chief* criticism he made about Wikipedia in his famous screed? > > That we need *some* sort of reliable group of experts ("vetted panels of > respected users who have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas" as Mav > put it) to give us a reliable clue as to what is really so. > > Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so shrill and I-told-you-so-ish about this; > sorry, I'll get off my high horse now. > > Taking the course Mav suggests could either help us a lot or hurt us > terribly. If we choose wise (and unbiased!) panels, we'll be able to add > the adjective "reliable" (or "authoritative") to our main page's slogan. > If we simly hold an election, chances are that voters will (deliberately > or not) choose a panel which MERELY REFLECTS THEIR PREJUDICES AND > BIASES. > > It ultimately will come down to a question of: > > * Who is worthy of our trust? > * How do we identify and attract such people? > * How can we prove to others that they merit our trust? > > This task might be too hard for us, with our current organization. Now > don't get me wrong: I really like the people on the arbcom, and I'm not > wangling for a seat on it. I'm just saying that it's very difficult for > non-experts to judge the qualifications of experts. > > To distinguish between: > > A. the scrupulously honest and self-sacrificial devotees of truth (of > "what is") who are as M. Scott Peck wrote, "dedicated to reality at all > costs"; and, > > B. people who will assert that something is true (1) out of ignorant > error or (2) for an ulterior motive > > ...to make that distinction is more than we bargained for. > > Jimbo and Larry set up the NPOV idea out of what I regard as a kind of > philosophical and practical desperation: I realization that the only way > a really huge wiki could operate successfully was to DUCK all issues of > determining right and wrong, true and false, good and bad - and simply > "describe fairly each point of view". Thus the term Neutral Point Of > View means "not endorsing or rejecting ANY point of view". > > It may be that Wikipedia has served its purpose: that it has reached the > end of its tether. If so, we must look to others to build upon its > foundation and continue onward. > > Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Daniel Mayer [mailto:maveric149 at yahoo.com] > > Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 11:42 PM > > To: English Wikipedia > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Strawman attacks on recent proposals > > > > > > --- Robert wrote: > > > Folks, we still have a major problem. There are many people > > here who > > > unfortunately refuse to cite sources, engage in original research, > > > write things that are just false and bizarre. > > > > And the ArbCom is already charged with enforcing all > > Wikipedia policies, including those that are about content > > (such as NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability). We have in fact ruled > > in this area several times before but have been usually > > limited to cases that are fairly obvious. > > > > Spotting subtle POV, original research, or fringe ideas > > masquerading as more mainstream than they are takes a fair > > amount of pre-existing knowledge in the relevant subject > > area. This is something that the current ArbCom could never have. > > > > Thus my idea of having vetted panels of respected users who > > have demonstrated knowledge in certain areas that the ArbCom > > could call upon to help it distinguish what is what. > > > > See > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitratio > n/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee > > > -- mav > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 7 22:18:21 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:18:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A55790.6010003@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge > >JAY JG wrote: > >>>From: Ray Saintonge >>> >>>Sean Barrett wrote: >>> >>>>Ray Saintonge stated for the record: >>>> >>>>>If you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No >>>>>original research" rule. >>>> >>>>Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records >>>>(NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? >>> >>>I'm not saying that they are, just that somebody is bound to try to make >>>that point. >> >>Sounds like another strawman. Original research is not finding obscure >>sources and citing them, but rather drawing original conclusions. The >>former is nothing like the latter, unless one is deliberately intent on >>denigrating the Original Research policy by misrepresenting it. > >And how do you propose to know that the conclusion is "original"? Because it can't be found in citable sources; that's what makes it original. If it weren't original, someone would have made the argument already, and you could cite them. Jay. From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 23:31:51 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 19:31:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> <42A4D547.8020601@telus.net> <42A4DABB.5030308@epoptic.com> <42A4E4D6.6070507@telus.net> <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> <42A5C84C.9020209@hackish.org> Message-ID: <98dd099a0506071631301dc9bf@mail.gmail.com> Of course, reporting consensus really relies on the ability to gauge consensus, which is pretty difficult in and of itself. Perhaps one way to avert the "sources" problem is to have a few people who are willing to look up specific sources. I'm not talking about the "fact-checking" project -- I don't have time to go over an entire article, even one on a topic I know fairly well, to check each date, fact, etc. against a source. But if someone said to me, "A user is citing X fact as being from Y book, maybe on page Z, could you check this out for me?" I'd be happy to do it over the course of a few days as my time permitted. Now this would require two things -- first, people will almost universal access to anything in mainstream print. There are a few of us around -- I have access through my overly-wealthy university to just about anything which was ever in print and then some more. Some things, such as back issues of the New York TImes, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, I can access electronically almost instantly. I can also do quick searches of dozens of scholarly journals through JSTOR. I'd be happy to use these resource to benefit Wikipedia, and have already done this with a few users (people who wanted specific newspaper articles or obituaries of relatively obscure scientists, etc.). I imagine there are many others out there with similar resources at their disposal through their vocation. The next thing needed with such people would be "trust" -- if "I" say that the fact was confirmed or not, can you trust that 1. I even bothered to look it up and 2. that I am telling the truth? Hopefully such things would be easy to red flag or double-check if there was any real dispute. The hope, of course, is that just about anything which would feature on Wikipedia would be based heavily on secondary sources (i.e. no original research) and anything not available at a major university would not likely be mainstream enough for real inclusion. Were there an organized team of people willing to double-check difficult SPECIFIC facts (again, I'm not going to spend hours on a single article) or to even skim literature/journals/reviews for ideas of consensus in a field (which is that hard to do even if one is not an expert in the field), it might relieve some of this "content" anxiety that people seem to be having. There might, of course, already be something like this, but I haven't seen it or mention of anything analogous. FF On 6/7/05, Delirium wrote: > Matt Brown wrote: > > >"Cite your sources" is fine. "Provide your sources," though, is not. > >On many obscure topics, the sources WILL be difficult to locate. Any > >attempt to turn this requirement into having to provide sources that > >can be requested from the average library or online will remove a > >large number of very credible but obscure sources - specialist > >publications, limited circulation journals, and many other documents. > > > > > IMO, those would only be legitimate sources to cite if the subject > itself is obscure and known only to specialists. If it's a well-known > subject, it would make more sense to use mainstream sources on the > subject. If the obscure source is indeed important, it will at least > have been cited by someone else. If, for example, you find an obscure > source on the Holocaust that is not cited in any mainstream work on the > Holocaust, it would be original research to begin to build an argument > based on it. (If you thought mainstream Holocaust historians were > ignoring some obscure but credible and important source, that would be > an issue to take up with them; we're just here to report the consensus > in the field, not to create it.) > > -Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Jun 7 23:46:46 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 00:46:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject) Message-ID: <21972.62.252.0.4.1118188006.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> On Jun 6, 2005, at 12:54 PM, Tony Sidaway wrote: >> >> Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their >> opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society >> website is an >> excellent reference for a description of the views of that society. >> > > But if the article is [[astrophysics]]? It doesn't matter if the article is [[Strawberry lollipop]]. The Flat Earth Society website's authority on the opinion, where it takes an official position, of the Flat Earth Society on strawberry lollipops, the Michael Jackson trial, the shape of the earth, or whatever, is pretty solid. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Jun 8 02:58:06 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:58:06 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050607234652.A4EE51AC183A@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050607234652.A4EE51AC183A@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42A65EBE.9030104@earthlink.net> Erik Moeller wrote: > Steven- > >> I fundamentally disagree with Erik about the community vote. We all >> come to Wikipedia because we offer different things -- some people >> know a lot about the Bible, others about Cricket, others about linux, >> and so on. We also all come here to learn things we do not know. I >> do not really understand quantum mechanics -- you really think I >> should vote on whether content is accurate or not? I do not know the >> physics literature -- you really think I can vote on the repute of a >> given source? > > You appear to be operating under the assumption that someone not > interested the least in quantum physics would participate in a vote on > whether this or that study result should be included in an article > about it. This does not seem very likely to me. Moreover, I am > strictly in favor of a process whereby all arguments from all sides > *must* be properly summarized before a binding vote can take place, so > that anyone who has an interest and a basic understanding can quickly > get an overview of what the arguments are. I agree that in order for a sample of community opinion (on any issue) to have value, the framework must be appropriately established in advance. But I'm afraid that a voting process with strict guidelines is not something that the different sides of most content disputes will be able to navigate together. While I have grave misgivings about content arbitration, I'm not convinced that community votes are a better solution, either. Whatever the precise details, both parties would have to cooperate fully with the vote in order to bring it off successfully. But in many situations, the participants will already have a decent sense of which position would prevail in a binding vote. This tends to become even clearer as a dispute moves toward the stage where such a vote might become plausible. The side that stands to lose will have no incentive to cooperate in satisfying the requirements for the vote to be binding. The problem with voting on questions of content is that it forces the issue. When there is an explicit push for resolution like this, those who anticipate an unfavorable result will delay, perhaps even actively obstruct the process. They will object to the vote as premature and won't put adequate effort into summarizing even their own position. They may perhaps allow the vote to proceed "under protest", but then decline to participate, and afterward dismiss the results as illegitimate because the prerequisites were not satisfied. --Michael Snow From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 05:03:43 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 15:03:43 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A4ACAB.7050306@hackish.org> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050605084756.033a9948@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <9526.62.252.0.4.1118002180.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42A4904A.8020503@telus.net> <42A4ACAB.7050306@hackish.org> Message-ID: On 6/7/05, Delirium wrote: > > The only real solution I see is to simply document these viewpoints. > Wikipedia isn't the place to settle whether psychiatrists are > pill-pushing pseudo-scientists, or psychologists are out-of-touch > scientists who don't understand medicine, or philosophers should just > butt out entirely, but we can document what they all say. Indeed, the ultimate intention of NPOV. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From swadair at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 06:05:07 2005 From: swadair at gmail.com (Stephen Adair) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 02:05:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times Message-ID: Is anyone else having terrible lag times when trying to delete articles? Quite a while back I noticed that if I don't get the confirmation screen within three seconds, I won't get it at all. If it takes longer than three seconds, what will happen instead is that it eventually times out and I get a message that the Wikipedia server didn't respond to the request. Usually, when the first try doesn't get a response within three seconds, I'll click stop and re-click confirm. The deletion usually occurs on the second or third try. Tonight has been horrible. I must have tried at least 15 times before I was able to delete [[Dermapigmentation]] (content was "tasha"). So far I've managed to delete three articles listed on [[Category:Candidates for speedy deletion]] but the rest of them are going to sit there. It is too much trouble trying to delete because of the horrible lag / time-out issue. Anyone else having the same problem? Stephen W. Adair User:SWAdair From skyring at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 06:42:18 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 16:42:18 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom a sham In-Reply-To: <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <550ccb82050607234235e14ece@mail.gmail.com> If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Evidence you will see an ArbCom hearing proceeding in the evidence-gathering stage. It was my naive belief that the process was as fair and open as need be. However, anybody knowing anything about this case will see that one party has conspicuously failed to show on the evidence page apart from a brief appearance at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FSkyring%2FEvidence&diff=14745252&oldid=14736222 I chipped him about this on the talk page, saying it looked as if he was squibbing his chance to give evidence. His response? "My views are well known to the ArbCom." http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Evidence&diff=prev&oldid=14863796 Is this *really* how it works? The whole process is a sham and it all depends on backroom deals? -- Peter in Canberra From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 8 08:06:43 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 01:06:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> Message-ID: <20050608080644.51431.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Erik Moeller wrote: > ... However, I believe that you, Mark and other > arbitrators are examining the problem *only* from your point of view as > arbitrators. This is an unnecessary limitation of perspective. I think > there are community-based approaches that are not as susceptible to > error and corruption and that therefore should be preferred. The possibility of error and corruption always exists whenever you include humans in a process. But increasing the number of vetted people involved will tend to decrease this possibility, no? The ArbCom already hears cases that involve violations of our content-related policies. Making it easier for them to cut through subtle POV and original research will be make that body work more effectively in making sure our content-related polices are followed. I don't feel that I have proposed anything that would increase the possibility of corruption and error. In fact, I feel I have made a proposal that would decrease this possibility for the current ArbCom. Other approaches can and should also be explored, but I do think what I've proposed can be part of the solution. > Now that you have so cogently pointed out the problem -- it's possible > to wage "wars of attrition" over articles, and the person first to > explode or give up is likely to lose -- Yep - this is exactly the problem. Bad behavior is bad no matter how factually correct and content policy-adhering your edits are and there should be consequences for that. *But* being factually correct and more closely adhering to our content policies should mitigate any remedy against a user while persistently not doing that should multiply any remedy against another user. If we are serious about Wikipedia being an encyclopedia first and a wiki community second, then we must take some stance similar to that. Yet, factually correctness and how closely something follows our content policies is not something the ArbCom by itself is competent to determine except in the most obvious of cases (which are much fewer and further between now). Thus my idea of having various bodies we could consult on content-related matters. > I would like us to look together > for a solution that is compatible with our ideals and dreams of > openness and cooperation in good faith, rather than one that takes us > down the road of credentialism and hierarchy. I fail to see how having a consultive body to the ArbCom would do that. They would not have any power of their own and there will be checks and balances. I'd just like to be able to ask groups of respected and vetted users who have demonstrated some competence in certain areas questions from time to time as needed. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From compufixers at tiscali.co.uk Wed Jun 8 07:59:20 2005 From: compufixers at tiscali.co.uk (compufixers) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 08:59:20 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] List of British Jews Message-ID: <004e01c56bff$fa3c1040$0100a8c0@COMPUFIXERS> Your list of British Jews OMITS: Professor Alec Boksenberg, Astronomer, Cambridge University, (Chair UK UNESCO Commission), formerly Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, who now works at the Institute of Astronomy. Jeni Barnett TV personality and presenter, currently presenting ITV1's Too Many Cooks. I wonder how many other omissions there are... - ? Gillian Younger From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 08:20:13 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:20:13 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] List of British Jews In-Reply-To: <004e01c56bff$fa3c1040$0100a8c0@COMPUFIXERS> References: <004e01c56bff$fa3c1040$0100a8c0@COMPUFIXERS> Message-ID: I'm sure there's a lot more important stuff missing from Wikipedia, but that's why it's a wiki and that's also why we've got that shiny "edit this page"-button at the top of the page. Wikipedia is a work in progress and it's quite possible the list hasn't got all famous British Jews simply because the initial creator didn't know them. Just click the link, look at how the coding is done and you can add it yourself. Thanks for pointing it out. --Mgm On 6/8/05, compufixers wrote: > Your list of British Jews OMITS: > > Professor Alec Boksenberg, Astronomer, Cambridge University, (Chair UK UNESCO Commission), formerly Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, who now works at the Institute of Astronomy. > > Jeni Barnett > TV personality and presenter, currently presenting ITV1's Too Many Cooks. > > I wonder how many other omissions there are... - ? > > Gillian Younger > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Wed Jun 8 05:43:59 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 22:43:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050607141144e891ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 7 Jun 2005, Matt Brown wrote: > On 6/7/05, Geoff Burling wrote: > > > And I'm sure that there are other issues one could discuss. However, > > if we could agree that published sources -- either primary or secondary -- > > can be cited, but unpublished works can not be, this would solve > > most of the problem. > > That is a position that I could stand behind. Well, I've convinced one more person than I thought I would. ;-) > > I would be opposed to a suggestion that we should limit ourselves to > published sources that can be acquired through Amazon, Google and the > average inter-library loan service, however. My example was intended to point out the contrast, not as a guideline. In fact, I'm amazed at how easy it is to find a title that is not listed at Amazon or Advanced Book Exchange -- a few of which I've consulted in my writings. If I had to insist on a limit, it would be only to those works listed in the catalogs of the Library of Congress & the British Library -- & maybe one or two other similar institutions. Allowing for duplicates, I estimate that gives us 50-60 million titles, most of which would be available thru the average inter-library loan service. > > Obviously, the easier the sources can be accessed the better, but I > would not rule out using rare or old books, magazines and newspapers > even if not commonly archived, small publications, and foreign > language works. Honestly, if I were to critique a given article for its sources, I am not going to get upset if they include one or two sources out of a dozen that are hard to get ahold of; it's when the article only uses such sources, & I have suspicions about the accuracy of the article. > > That said, I think that outside a certain vanishingly small subset of > very controversial articles, Wikipedia's problem is not the citing of > hard-to-verify sources, but the absense of sources at all. Outside > the context of Israel vs. Palestine, certain crackpot science > theories, and a few other controversial places, I don't see much of a > problem at present. > > And I'd rather someone cite an unpublished source than none. It's > always possible that a better reference than that unpublished source > may be findable by someone else, or a published source that references > that unpublished one. > Either case would be troubling to me. Wikipedia is supposed to be no more than a secondary work, not a place to do publish research. With the exception of facts that are either banally obvious or commonplace (e.g. "France is a country in Europe"), if you can't find a published source to cite, then you should consider whether you are writing about something that is not part of Wikipedia's scope; much as that word is dispised here, the subject may not be notable. (Of course, an objection to this would be the matter of contemporary pop culture: AFAIK, there are no books about subjects like the Lost television series, Ken Jennings, Pokemon trivia. However, these topics have enough of an audience that we should trust that the Wiki method will provide a means to keep bad information from entering the article.) From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 08:23:35 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:23:35 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, I did some deleting from that cat a while back and I had to click a grand total of 5 times on one article to get it deleted IIRC. Maybe we should mention it to the developers? --Mgm On 6/8/05, Stephen Adair wrote: > Is anyone else having terrible lag times when trying to delete > articles? Quite a while back I noticed that if I don't get the > confirmation screen within three seconds, I won't get it at all. If > it takes longer than three seconds, what will happen instead is that > it eventually times out and I get a message that the Wikipedia server > didn't respond to the request. Usually, when the first try doesn't > get a response within three seconds, I'll click stop and re-click > confirm. The deletion usually occurs on the second or third try. > > Tonight has been horrible. I must have tried at least 15 times before > I was able to delete [[Dermapigmentation]] (content was "tasha"). So > far I've managed to delete three articles listed on > [[Category:Candidates for speedy deletion]] but the rest of them are > going to sit there. It is too much trouble trying to delete because > of the horrible lag / time-out issue. > > Anyone else having the same problem? > > Stephen W. Adair > User:SWAdair > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From phil.boswell at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 09:50:41 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 10:50:41 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment References: <42f90dc0050607141144e891ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Geoff Burling" wrote in message news:Pine.LNX.4.33.0506071700550.567-100000 at joan.burling.com... [snip] > (Of course, an objection to this would be the matter of contemporary > pop culture: AFAIK, there are no books about subjects like the Lost > television series, Ken Jennings, Pokemon trivia. However, these topics > have enough of an audience that we should trust that the Wiki method > will provide a means to keep bad information from entering the > article.) Don't worry, this will all be nominated for deletion as "fancruft" anyway :-( -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 10:53:57 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 20:53:57 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom a sham In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050607234235e14ece@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050605124810.E6EF61190B6D@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A339B3.8030100@earthlink.net> <550ccb82050607234235e14ece@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <530912670506080353bb392a4@mail.gmail.com> Uh, no. It's kind of rude to jump to conclusions. There have been no backroom deals. Adam's views are only known because he's been around a long time and has made his views on editing Wikipedia and experts well known - through many a dispute and the occasional arbitration case. He's also known to not be fond of the arbitration process - hence the brevity of his "evidence". -- ambi On 6/8/05, Skyring wrote: > If you go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Evidence > you will see an ArbCom hearing proceeding in the evidence-gathering > stage. It was my naive belief that the process was as fair and open as > need be. However, anybody knowing anything about this case will see > that one party has conspicuously failed to show on the evidence page > apart from a brief appearance at > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ARequests_for_arbitration%2FSkyring%2FEvidence&diff=14745252&oldid=14736222 > > I chipped him about this on the talk page, saying it looked as if he > was squibbing his chance to give evidence. His response? "My views are > well known to the ArbCom." > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Skyring/Evidence&diff=prev&oldid=14863796 > > Is this *really* how it works? The whole process is a sham and it all > depends on backroom deals? > > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 13:55:10 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 23:55:10 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > > I would be happy to have a legal person give his opinion here. > > In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a > requirement/obligation. > I am a little dubious of the deep underlying significance of being > punished for refusing mediation when in conflict. I also fear "refusing > cooperation" in mediation would have to be a decision of the mediator... > which implies a loss of neutrality... as well as requires a mandatory > report of the mediator to the arbcom... possibly fueling a bad > relationship between the mediator and the people in conflict. > Since the relationship should be first based in confidence, I am perplex > of the implications it might result to. > In contract law (at least in Australia, and I think in the United States too) courts will find that parties have a duty to negotiate in good faith. This is somewhat of a nebulous concept, but essentially what it requires is that the parties demonstrate a genuine, honest attempt to negotiate fruitfully with other parties. They aren't required to concede any ground, or act contrary to their interests, just participate honestly. This would be the obligation facing a party to compulsory mediation, to at least attempt to negotiate an outcome, and at least be open to resolving the dispute. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 14:16:24 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 00:16:24 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content Message-ID: There's been much talk about content, and sources, and whatnot. I think alot of this debate has been caused by confusion over some of WP's fundamental policies, particularly WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. Firstly, I'd like to point out that WP:NPOV has *always* had a threshold to it. People are getting all worked up about a content cabal over nothing. Exclusion of minority opinions has always been policy. Not every theory can get in just because someone published a paper on it. Scroll down to the second heading and read the quote from Jimbo: "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not." If, out of a collection of say 100 scholarly articles, less than 5 of them represented a particular POV, that POV does not deserve inclusion. Of course people will quibble over what "minority" means, but we can always have a vote on the talk page to see whether people consider a source to be a minority source. Many of the examples discussed here are trivial and not the kind of disputes which actually happen. Re trains: it's ok to cite some not particularly well known train-related archive, as long as train buffs know about it. WP:V says: "In general, consider the sorts of people who are likely to edit the article in question: the article should be verifiable by these people. Therefore, an article on a sociology topic might include content that can only be verified by a sociologist." The problem articles are generally not the ones with little information available about them. Generally, they aren't contentious, and if they are, they probably fall under WP:V or WP:NOR, in which case they can be dealt with quite easily. No, the problem articles are the ones where one large body of people coming from one POV are confronting another large body coming from another POV. But of course it is not WP's role to solve these disputes, merely discuss them. Some people seem to forget this. If the process of WP:NPOV (weed out the minority sources) cannot arrive at a consensus set of facts, then that's fine. If we can't, then the real world probably can't either. We just present the opinions and move on. All that is necessary for POV to prevail is for good Wikipedians not to read/enforce WP:NPOV properly. Now it's late and I'm going to bed. Apologies for taking up so much inbox space. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 8 17:27:25 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 10:27:25 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A72A7D.9000400@telus.net> Geoff Burling wrote: >On Mon, 6 Jun 2005, Sean Barrett wrote: > > > >>Ray Saintonge stated for the record: >> >> >> >>>Iif you use the old Soviet records somebody is bound to bring up the "No >>>original research" rule. >>> >>> >>Why are old Soviet records "original research" while old US records >>(NVR, DANFS, &c.) are okay? >> >> >Ease of verification? > >In theory, many old US records are accessible by the Freedom of Information >Act; I believe something similar exists for many national archives. > There's a gold mine of material available before even needing FOI. For example, all US patent applications made since their big fire are available on line. In about 1970 I remember wandering in a section of university stacks where they were storing booklets received at a rapid rate from various US government agencies. There was no way that any library could keep up with maintaining a subject catalogue of this stuff. My favourite was a pamphlet from the US Army, "The Toxic Effect of Burning Chicken Feathers." >Years ago, when this topic was raised on this list, I seem to remember >that there was a consensus towards requiring all sources cited or used >to be *published*. Not only did that mean that the material received >some token degree of review, & did not depend on Wikipedia for dissemination >into the larger public discussion (which was one reason for the No Original >Research rule), but it also allowed a Wikipedia user to verify the >citation for her/himself. Thus an unpublished memo from a national or >corporate archive written in 1955 should not be cited; but a letter >between two ancient rulers that has been translated & published as >part of _The Armana Letters_ (published by John Hopkins Press, & for >sale on Amazon) can be cited. > "Years ago" is wonderfully hyperbolic considering that in most jurisdictions the project is not old enough to attend kindergarten. "Published", in most cases, is a solid objective criterion to use as a starting point. There may still be arguments about whether something really was published. Is a doctoral thesis "published" when it is simply put on University library shelves and made available through interlibrary loan? >I am always happily surprised at what I can access through my local >public library's Interlibrary Loan services -- often at no cost to me. > Half the problem faced by many of our contributors is in not knowing the extent of available resources, and how to get at them. >Of course, this requirement leads to other questions. What about rare >books or ephemera? For example, if one wanted to write articles on >Grunge rock in Seattle (home of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarten & other >well-known bands), _The Rocket_ is an invaluable & authoritative >source to cite. However, that newspaper went out of business years ago, >& I wouldn't have a clue where I could find copies of specific -- or >any -- issues. (It was a free weekly newspaper that could be found at >all of the local record stores in Seattle & Portland.) If there is a >library with a run of its issues, I doubt that they would share either >the originals or a photocopy thru ILL; but then, coming thru old >issues of _The Rocket_ or 16th century incunabula seems to me close to >performing original research. > To the extent that it can be found, protecting this ephemeral material is a big problem. Copyright permissions would be a nightmare, but in 95 years the newsprint is likely to be so crumbly as to be unusable. Maybe there's a need to be more agressive about building on-line pdf files of this stuff. There is a strong argument for considering such actions to be fair use. The fourth of the factors to be considered is the effect on the copyright holder's market. >Another question is citing untranslated, non-English sources in a >English-language Wikipedia. Obviously, many experts write in languages >other than English, & some topics cannot be developed beyond a stub >without use of non-English sources; however, when a contributor writes >an article & only cites, say, Russian or Georgian-language sources >for her/his article, I have to take it on faith that not only are >the references reported correstly, but that the works even exist. > >And I'm sure that there are other issues one could discuss. However, >if we could agree that published sources -- either primary or secondary -- >can be cited, but unpublished works can not be, this would solve >most of the problem. > It's a good starting point, as long as we don't start imposing qualifications on the published material. "Peer reviewed" is a common one that is mentioned. The problem with that is that it's a subjective judgement; determining whether a publication is peer-reviewed requires a significant exercise of POV. In theory we could go beyond the "published" criterion, but I would approach that with extreme caution. We've been known to have a few anal editors for whom ANY measure of flexibility sets us on the road to chaos and confusion. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 8 19:37:04 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 12:37:04 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A748E0.8090203@telus.net> Stephen Bain wrote: >Exclusion of minority opinions has always been >policy. Not every theory can get in just because someone published a >paper on it. > That's a drastic POV on the matter >Scroll down to the second heading and read the quote from >Jimbo: > >"If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to >substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; >If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be >easy to name prominent adherents; If a viewpoint is held by an >extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in >Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of >whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it >or not." > >If, out of a collection of say 100 scholarly articles, less than 5 of >them represented a particular POV, that POV does not deserve >inclusion. Of course people will quibble over what "minority" means, >but we can always have a vote on the talk page to see whether people >consider a source to be a minority source. > So you support the "tyranny of the majority". Of course 95 will always outvote 5. And 51 will always outvote 49. I would prefer not to be so arrogant in my use of the word "deserve". >The problem articles are generally not the ones with little >information available about them. > That much is true. >No, the problem articles are the ones where one large body of people >coming from one POV are confronting another large body coming from >another POV. > Generally yes. >But of course it is not WP's role to solve these >disputes, merely discuss them. Some people seem to forget this. If the >process of WP:NPOV (weed out the minority sources) cannot arrive at a >consensus set of facts, then that's fine. If we can't, then the real >world probably can't either. We just present the opinions and move on. > It's fair enough to say that it's not our role to solve these problems, and that we should be prepared to move on if we can't. There are many valid third party minority opinions. The principal combatants are often so caught up in their own battles that they ignore any alternative options. That's a terrible excuse for suppressing them. The "King of Hearts" represented a very important minority when he stood naked at the doors of the asylum with a bird cage in his hand. >All that is necessary for POV to prevail is for good Wikipedians not >to read/enforce WP:NPOV properly. > > i.e. behave and do what your told! No thanks! I prefer to put principles ahead of rules. Ec From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 8 20:39:49 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 13:39:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> --- Stephen Adair wrote: > Is anyone else having terrible lag times when trying > to delete > articles? Quite a while back I noticed that if I > don't get the > confirmation screen within three seconds, I won't > get it at all. If > it takes longer than three seconds, what will happen > instead is that > it eventually times out and I get a message that the > Wikipedia server > didn't respond to the request. Usually, when the > first try doesn't > get a response within three seconds, I'll click stop > and re-click > confirm. The deletion usually occurs on the second > or third try. Yes, it's been really bad the last couple of days. I have made ten attempts at some deletions and have finally given up, just put the {{delete}} header on the page for later deletion when the process actually works. Of course, when I brought it up on the Village Pump, I was ridiculed instead of given any constructive advice. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 8 20:46:29 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 13:46:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050608204629.4551.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> --- MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Yes, I did some deleting from that cat a while back > and I had to click > a grand total of 5 times on one article to get it > deleted IIRC. Maybe > we should mention it to the developers? > > --Mgm Brion Vibber knows. He was one of those abusing me on Village Pump. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ahoerstemeier at spamcop.net Wed Jun 8 21:03:38 2005 From: ahoerstemeier at spamcop.net (Andreas Hörstemeier) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 21:03:38 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion lag times References: <20050608204629.4551.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Brion Vibber knows. He was one of those abusing me on > Village Pump. Maybe he was still tired from the server movement. But as a very active speedy deletor that problem as been getting more and more annying recently, and today it has become virtually impossible to delete anything. Maybe after one hour of retrying the deletion it finally works, but that's unacceptable. But it already has a bug in bugzilla (2195) about it, it is mentioned in the Administrators Noticeboard and the Village Pump, that should be enough hint for the developers that the problem really exists. Bye, [[User:Ahoerstemeier]] From morven at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 21:42:01 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 14:42:01 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> The concern that some feel about this is not, I believe, based on their misunderstanding of Wikipedia's fundamental policies. Rather, it is about how those policies should be interpreted, enforced, and utilised. Personally, my concern is that policy interpretations based on highly contentious articles may lead to poor general rules: "Hard cases make bad law". I'm also concerned that turning policies into rigid rules, procedures, committees and the like may advantage those who like to rules-lawyer over those with less patience for minutae. Every rule set down in stone is a rule behind which a troll can hide. Or turn into a club to beat those they want to antagonize. Every time we are tempted by instruction-creep, we should think "How will this rule be abused by the ill-intentioned?" -Matt (User:Morven) From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 21:58:23 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 23:58:23 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> References: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49bdc743050608145837c0f478@mail.gmail.com> Clearly the lack of rules are ''also'' being abused by the ill intentioned. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/8/05, Matt Brown wrote: > The concern that some feel about this is not, I believe, based on > their misunderstanding of Wikipedia's fundamental policies. Rather, > it is about how those policies should be interpreted, enforced, and > utilised. > > Personally, my concern is that policy interpretations based on highly > contentious articles may lead to poor general rules: "Hard cases make > bad law". I'm also concerned that turning policies into rigid rules, > procedures, committees and the like may advantage those who like to > rules-lawyer over those with less patience for minutae. > > Every rule set down in stone is a rule behind which a troll can hide. > Or turn into a club to beat those they want to antagonize. > > Every time we are tempted by instruction-creep, we should think "How > will this rule be abused by the ill-intentioned?" > > -Matt (User:Morven) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 8 22:17:05 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 08:17:05 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> References: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050608221704.GQ358@thingy.apana.org.au> Matt Brown (morven at gmail.com) [050609 07:42]: > I'm also concerned that turning policies into rigid rules, > procedures, committees and the like may advantage those who like to > rules-lawyer over those with less patience for minutae. Yes. That's precisely my uneasy feeling about this discussion. POV pushers won't go away, they'll adapt to circumstances. If a hundred editors say Rush Limbaugh outdraws a peer-reviewed scientific paper as a reference on science, do they win the vote 100-1? Also, I've seen no plans for when such content decisions are reviewable. Never? Once you win, is the question officially fixed? > Every rule set down in stone is a rule behind which a troll can hide. > Or turn into a club to beat those they want to antagonize. > Every time we are tempted by instruction-creep, we should think "How > will this rule be abused by the ill-intentioned?" "This proposal will create a stick for idiots." i.e. an idiot stick. Yep. - d. From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 23:17:51 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:17:51 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <20050608221704.GQ358@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42f90dc0050608144257930072@mail.gmail.com> <20050608221704.GQ358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/9/05, David Gerard wrote: > Matt Brown (morven at gmail.com) [050609 07:42]: > > > I'm also concerned that turning policies into rigid rules, > > procedures, committees and the like may advantage those who like to > > rules-lawyer over those with less patience for minutae. > > > Yes. That's precisely my uneasy feeling about this discussion. POV pushers > won't go away, they'll adapt to circumstances. If a hundred editors say > Rush Limbaugh outdraws a peer-reviewed scientific paper as a reference on > science, do they win the vote 100-1? > > Also, I've seen no plans for when such content decisions are reviewable. > Never? Once you win, is the question officially fixed? > > I purposely didn't want to say a number for this reason. What I was trying to illustrate was the point in WP:V that the article in general should be verifiable by people who are likely to edit that article. So for an article on science, if a source is questionable, we ask some scientists, either literally ask some, or think like a scientist would. In either case, your example would probably be resolved in favour of the peer-reviewed paper. As for reviewable decisions, I don't think there's an answer to that, party because Wikipedia is a wiki, and is always flexible and changing. I don't believe that flexibility should be abused, or in any way twisted to be an unfair advantage. As it says at Wikipedia:Consensus, consensus should not trump NPOV (or any other policy). Sometimes it may happen, and that's a bad thing, but sometimes that's just the price of being a wiki. Too many rules (as opposed to policies for editors to follow) reduce the wikiness. The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and enforced (arbitration). -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 23:45:14 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:45:14 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050608080644.51431.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <20050608080644.51431.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/8/05, Daniel Mayer wrote: > > I would like us to look together > > for a solution that is compatible with our ideals and dreams of > > openness and cooperation in good faith, rather than one that takes us > > down the road of credentialism and hierarchy. > > I fail to see how having a consultive body to the ArbCom would do that. They > would not have any power of their own and there will be checks and balances. > I'd just like to be able to ask groups of respected and vetted users who have > demonstrated some competence in certain areas questions from time to time as > needed. You still end up with at least some level of credentialism because users would presumably have to prove their credentials before being admitted to the consultative body. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 7 04:04:17 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 00:04:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <42f90dc00506061721405e4477@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/6/05, JAY JG wrote: > it was never intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments will be > cited *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g. > "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually be > hard to find someone specifically stating them! Hm. I'm the only person in recent memory who has made such a claim, so should I be offended that you appear to be binning me in with crackpot theorists? For the record, I've never been a party to a content dispute on wikipedia. I've discussed NOR because I believe it's a fundamentally weak idea at its core but it functions as a bandaid to solve many problems *now*... but long term we need process in place to accept and reject new research in a way which keeps out most of the crackpots (or at least mitigates their harm) and doesn't break NPOV. Already wikipedia has become a better (more complete, more neutral, more verified and reviewed) corpus than some of the sources we cite, simply because our process are our contributors pretty good for some things... or alternatively, because other places are so bad. :) In any case we're weaving an odd world where wikipedia will become a default source of reliable general material... but to insert something new you must first publish it someplace less reliable. ... The point is that in the process of reinventing the encyclopedia we are also reinventing peer review. The logical conclusion is that while the encyclopedia should not be a repository for original research (because it's an encyclopedia), we will ultimately end up building such a repository because our process is superior and because we will eventually need it as a reference once we've put everyone else out of business. ;) Which is why I proposed wikiviews as a first cautious step in that direction. From saintonge at telus.net Thu Jun 9 00:09:51 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 17:09:51 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A788CF.90806@telus.net> Rick wrote: >--- Stephen Adair wrote: > > > >>Is anyone else having terrible lag times when trying >>to delete >>articles? Quite a while back I noticed that if I >>don't get the >>confirmation screen within three seconds, I won't >>get it at all. If >>it takes longer than three seconds, what will happen >>instead is that >>it eventually times out and I get a message that the >>Wikipedia server >>didn't respond to the request. Usually, when the >>first try doesn't >>get a response within three seconds, I'll click stop >>and re-click >>confirm. The deletion usually occurs on the second >>or third try. >> >> > >Yes, it's been really bad the last couple of days. I >have made ten attempts at some deletions and have >finally given up, just put the {{delete}} header on >the page for later deletion when the process actually >works. Of course, when I brought it up on the Village >Pump, I was ridiculed instead of given any >constructive advice. > > Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Ec From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 02:56:57 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 22:56:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607141533.03320508@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607141533.03320508@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <98dd099a05060819566fab7f4d@mail.gmail.com> I have to say, I disagree pretty heavily with the interpretation of both NPOV and NOR you are putting forward here. Let us take a concrete example -- say, German's wartime project to develop nuclear weapons/energy. What should the article say on the subject, in an ideal world? There are at least two separate scholarly narratives on the subject (one which says "the scientists purposely didn't built Hitler an atomic bomb" and one which says "the scientists just didn't get around to it for various reasons, but weren't taking a strong moral stance"), and while I think one is more popular than the other (the latter mentioned) among scholars, there is no clear understanding of consensus or even which has the more prominent scholars behind it (there are sharp and well-respected people behind both approaches, and of course a requisite middle ground where most people live). How to proceed? In my understanding of NPOV, the article should do a good job of representing both scholarly opinions and the evidences both cite. It should mention that there is a scholarly debate. It should perhaps mention a brief history of the debate, if germane (i.e. Heisenberg's misquoted letter in Jungk's book, Bohr's angry reply, leading all the way up up to the _Copenhagen_ play). There are, of course, more fringe theories all over the internet, as there are with anythign relating to Nazis, atomic bombs, or physics. These don't have any currency in mainstream sources and there is not even a consistent fringe conspiracy theory. As such, I don't think they should be represented in the article -- they are not "significant" POVs, which is to say, they are not "POVs significantly represented in the public understanding of this subject." If there were one overriding or popular conspiracy theory, it should get a mention commensurate with its representation in the larger community of knowledge (i.e., the Apollo moon landing conspiracy is a well-known phenomena in and of itself, so it gets it own article). That's MY understanding of NPOV, which reduces knowledge and truth statements to sociological statements -- who says what, how representative the statement is of other actors, etc. With this understanding of NPOV, then NOR falls into a similar spot (and almost becomes No Original Opinions as well). If a source is not accessible, it is likely not part of the mainstream understanding, however you define "mainstream." Obscure sources, by their very definition, are likely not part of this sociological understanding of NPOV. Again, concurring with Matt Brown, if I found something that I think was wrong about the mainstream historical account, I shouldn't try to use Wikipedia as the staging point for this new understanding -- I should try to publish it in a scholarly journal! After all, isn't that what their domain is for? That is, I should turn the statement into a "mainstream statement" (under a loose definition of mainstream), at which point it becomes potentially subject for Wikipedia inclusion. I don't think Matt Brown meant "reporting the consensus" to mean "creating a sense of consensus if there is none." I think he meant more what I mean when I say "mainstream" -- statements or understandings which have either enough "followers" (in a Latourian sense) or have generated enough "attention" to warrant inclusion. The "consensus in the field" on the German atomic bomb is a number of stories which disagree with each other, in this model -- it is not one of the stories over any other. NOR (or again, NOO) means, along with the idea that I can't present my own private "data", that I can't read a book on the subject, come to radically different conclusions than the author, and then try to have those (non-mainstream) conclusions represented in an encyclopedia article. We rely on other sources (journals, academic disciplines, communities of fringe believers) to develop their own "regimes of truth" in the Foucauldian sense -- we only report on the "truth statements" they generate, if their communities are "notable" enough to warrant inclusion. (Such notability, as always, will be somewhat arbitrary and will always be in flux, but that's not new to this question.) At least, that's how I understand the policies. FF On 6/7/05, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Matt Brown wrote some thoughtful comments, some of which I deeply disagree > with: > > >MO, those would only be legitimate sources to cite if the subject > >itself is obscure and known only to specialists. If it's a well-known > >subject, it would make more sense to use mainstream sources on the > >subject. > > Yes and no. One reason for citing sources is so that readers who want to > know more (or check facts) can go to the sources. In this sense, I do > agree with Matt that it is important to provide sources that anyone who is > on-line and has access to Amazon.com, or access to a good library, can find. > > But I disagree with Matt's distinction between "obscure subject" and other > subjects. A subject that is not obscure, for example the Holocaust or the > Bible or the U.S. Civil War, obviously has loads of popular and easily > acceptable sources we can cite. But there is always ongoing academic > research, and much important and relevant information will come from > relatively obscure sources. This is precisely the material we want to > include in a high-quality encyclopedia, even if the cited sources are hard > to find. > > >If the obscure source is indeed important, it will at least > >have been cited by someone else. If, for example, you find an obscure > >source on the Holocaust that is not cited in any mainstream work on the > >Holocaust, it would be original research to begin to build an argument > >based on it. > > Matt, this is just 100% wrong. You simply do not understand our NOR > policy. It would violate our policy to "build an argument" on any source, > "mainstream" as well as "obscure." But adding material, including > published data, published explanations, published interpretations, is NOT > "original research" if it comes from sources that are, however obscure, > reputable. > > > (If you thought mainstream Holocaust historians were > >ignoring some obscure but credible and important source, that would be > >an issue to take up with them; we're just here to report the consensus > >in the field, not to create it.) > > Again, 100% wrong. We are not here to report the consensus. As a matter > of fact, one of the most important functions of our NPOV policy is to > ensure that diverse views (and if they are diverse, they obviously do not > represent a consensus) . We report on different views, provide the proper > sources, and any context about the sources that can help readers evaluate > the views being represented. "Consensus" hotonly has nothing to do with > it, it is antithetical to what we stand for. > > Steve > > > > > Steven L. Rubenstein > Associate Professor > Department of Sociology and Anthropology > Bentley Annex > Ohio University > Athens, Ohio 45701 > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 9 04:46:53 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 00:46:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> I see absolutely no need to arbitrate, mediate, or otherwise rule on appropriate content. Attempting to do so is like trying to nail warm Jell-O to the wall. Wikipedia articles are fluid and constantly changing. Any version of an editorial board could only fix an article's state at one specific point in time, and the "approved" version would probably be long out of date by the time the ruling was formulated and agreed upon. The only real solutions are: 1. to recruit more intelligent, reasonable editors by offering a welcoming, respectful community atmosphere, 2. to cite our sources more thoroughly and properly, and let the reader decide their individual credibility 3. to recruit as many editors as possible to make use of the watchlist feature for each contended article 4. to use NPOV tags and their derivatives to warn readers of disagreements over content. Our mistakes at this time may be not giving the readers a full sense of just how much disputed Wikipedia articles can change over short time periods, and not making clear enough just what NPOV means. Perhaps we need a stronger, more explicit NPOV tag, or variants thereof, for some articles. We could also make it more clear that our readers can browse the history of any article to gain insight by reviewing its creation process. We can also slow the process of the change even more, to encourage a more thoughtful process, like was done with the introduction of the 3 revert rule, and like is done every day with temporary edit locks. But attempting to vet content through a review board of any kind is folly for a wiki encyclopedia. The active community IS the review board on a wiki. The only oversight that is proper is that which is necessary to ensure that everyone participates fairly and generally on equal terms according to behavior rules. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From stephen.bain at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 05:06:35 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 15:06:35 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: I agree completely with this. Content decisions should be made by the widest group possible. That is the fundamental nature of wiki. On 6/9/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > I see absolutely no need to arbitrate, mediate, or otherwise rule on appropriate content. > > Attempting to do so is like trying to nail warm Jell-O to the wall. Wikipedia articles are fluid and constantly changing. Any version of an editorial board could only fix an article's state at one specific point in time, and the "approved" version would probably be long out of date by the time the ruling was formulated and agreed upon. > > The only real solutions are: > 1. to recruit more intelligent, reasonable editors by offering a welcoming, respectful community atmosphere, > 2. to cite our sources more thoroughly and properly, and let the reader decide their individual credibility > 3. to recruit as many editors as possible to make use of the watchlist feature for each contended article > 4. to use NPOV tags and their derivatives to warn readers of disagreements over content. > > Our mistakes at this time may be not giving the readers a full sense of just how much disputed Wikipedia articles can change over short time periods, and not making clear enough just what NPOV means. > > Perhaps we need a stronger, more explicit NPOV tag, or variants thereof, for some articles. We could also make it more clear that our readers can browse the history of any article to gain insight by reviewing its creation process. We can also slow the process of the change even more, to encourage a more thoughtful process, like was done with the introduction of the 3 revert rule, and like is done every day with temporary edit locks. > > But attempting to vet content through a review board of any kind is folly for a wiki encyclopedia. The active community IS the review board on a wiki. > > The only oversight that is proper is that which is necessary to ensure that everyone participates fairly and generally on equal terms according to behavior rules. > > Michael Turley > User:Unfocused > > _______________________________________________ > No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. > Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From swadair at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 06:49:04 2005 From: swadair at gmail.com (Stephen Adair) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 02:49:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Wooooohoooo!!! I just went screaming through [[Category:Candidates for speedy deletion]] at high speed. Less lag than I've had in a very long time. There was a long list, but I handled almost everything, passing on just a couple. From the edit summaries left, I could see that RickK wasn't the only admin tagging articles rather than trying to delete them. I especially liked the edit summary "Garbage, but I don't wanna try 10-30 times before the delete actually works--I hope they fix this soon, or we're gonna be swamped." Someone did something, and did it right. Deletion is no longer a frustrating hassle. Stephen W. Adair User:SWAdair On 6/8/05, Rick wrote: > Yes, it's been really bad the last couple of days. I > have made ten attempts at some deletions and have > finally given up, just put the {{delete}} header on > the page for later deletion when the process actually > works. Of course, when I brought it up on the Village > Pump, I was ridiculed instead of given any > constructive advice. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Discover Yahoo! > Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! > http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 08:19:21 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 10:19:21 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: References: <20050608203949.20166.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Great to hear, SWAdair! Thanks for cleaning up that cat. --Mgm On 6/9/05, Stephen Adair wrote: > Wooooohoooo!!! I just went screaming through [[Category:Candidates > for speedy deletion]] at high speed. Less lag than I've had in a very > long time. There was a long list, but I handled almost everything, > passing on just a couple. From the edit summaries left, I could see > that RickK wasn't the only admin tagging articles rather than trying > to delete them. I especially liked the edit summary "Garbage, but I > don't wanna try 10-30 times before the delete actually works--I hope > they fix this soon, or we're gonna be swamped." Someone did > something, and did it right. Deletion is no longer a frustrating > hassle. > > Stephen W. Adair > User:SWAdair > > On 6/8/05, Rick wrote: > > Yes, it's been really bad the last couple of days. I > > have made ten attempts at some deletions and have > > finally given up, just put the {{delete}} header on > > the page for later deletion when the process actually > > works. Of course, when I brought it up on the Village > > Pump, I was ridiculed instead of given any > > constructive advice. > > > > RickK > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Discover Yahoo! > > Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! > > http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From misfitgirl at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 10:41:05 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 20:41:05 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <5309126705060903411e2bbf45@mail.gmail.com> On 6/9/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > I see absolutely no need to arbitrate, mediate, or otherwise rule on appropriate content. > > Attempting to do so is like trying to nail warm Jell-O to the wall. Wikipedia articles are fluid and constantly changing. Any version of an editorial board could only fix an article's state at one specific point in time, and the "approved" version would probably be long out of date by the time the ruling was formulated and agreed upon. > > The only real solutions are: > 1. to recruit more intelligent, reasonable editors by offering a welcoming, respectful community atmosphere, > 2. to cite our sources more thoroughly and properly, and let the reader decide their individual credibility > 3. to recruit as many editors as possible to make use of the watchlist feature for each contended article > 4. to use NPOV tags and their derivatives to warn readers of disagreements over content. > > Our mistakes at this time may be not giving the readers a full sense of just how much disputed Wikipedia articles can change over short time periods, and not making clear enough just what NPOV means. > > Perhaps we need a stronger, more explicit NPOV tag, or variants thereof, for some articles. We could also make it more clear that our readers can browse the history of any article to gain insight by reviewing its creation process. We can also slow the process of the change even more, to encourage a more thoughtful process, like was done with the introduction of the 3 revert rule, and like is done every day with temporary edit locks. > > But attempting to vet content through a review board of any kind is folly for a wiki encyclopedia. The active community IS the review board on a wiki. > > The only oversight that is proper is that which is necessary to ensure that everyone participates fairly and generally on equal terms according to behavior rules. > > Michael Turley > User:Unfocused With all respect, I think you're missing the point. Firstly, I don't believe anyone - in all the different proposals - has endorsed any form of committee that would endorse a particular revision of an article, making that point entirely redundant. But I also think this debate over a review committee is beside the issue. The problem is that we have a whole bunch of cases that are currently being heard by the arbitration committee - such as the climate change dispute, which *do* need to be dealt with, but why I - and others - believe shouldn't be dealt with by a system of paroles, bans, limitations and punishment. What Unfocused suggests is effectively just the status quo - which, in my book, is going to see good editors leave because we end up having to limit their editing rights instead of solving the blasted dispute, once it has gone on for long enough. I'm *not* necessarily in favour of any form of content committee - in fact, I think it's probably the wrong way to go about it - partly for the reasons Unfocused mentions. There *are* alternatives, however - and I urge those reading to help us out in determining how we might get around this one. Attacking a system that nobody's suggested and nobody wants really doesn't help anyone much. -- ambi From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 9 11:22:42 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 12:22:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050609112242.46753.qmail@web26004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Stephen Bain wrote: > I agree completely with this. Content decisions > should be made by the > widest group possible. That is the fundamental > nature of wiki. Isn't the problem users not following WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V? And what to do about them? Mav's idea of finding people who have a good understanding of a field, who then assess a disputed article in the light of those three core policies and report to the Arbcom (that's right, yeah Mav?) is growing on me, despite some issues, as a 'last resort'. However I think the _first_ intervention should be mediation, explaining those policies and educating users (who simply may not be aware of them) where needed. That can be done by 'amatuer' mediators like myself responding to RfCs and 3Os, or by 'official' mediators such as a revived Medcom. But I suppose that's just not going to work everytime, and we perhaps need a final, binding, resolution process. Dan ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 9 11:39:18 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 21:39:18 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05060819566fab7f4d@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607141533.03320508@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <98dd099a05060819566fab7f4d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050609113918.GS358@thingy.apana.org.au> Fastfission (fastfission at gmail.com) [050609 12:57]: > With this understanding of NPOV, then NOR falls into a similar spot > (and almost becomes No Original Opinions as well). If a source is not > accessible, it is likely not part of the mainstream understanding, No Original Opinions is a useful corollary. One really annoying form of original research is to present an idiosyncratic and novel opinion then supply a pile of references for the facts but not the opinion. Cranks have references out to *here*, but it's still original work. That's really not an encyclopedia's job. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 9 11:44:10 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 21:44:10 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <20050609114409.GT358@thingy.apana.org.au> michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) [050609 14:47]: > I see absolutely no need to arbitrate, mediate, or otherwise rule on appropriate content. > Attempting to do so is like trying to nail warm Jell-O to the wall. Wikipedia articles are fluid and constantly changing. Any version of an editorial board could only fix an article's state at one specific point in time, and the "approved" version would probably be long out of date by the time the ruling was formulated and agreed upon. Mediation is between the disputing editors; that can work well on a per-conflict basis. But I agree on the arbitration of content. That's my other concern - when does it get reviewed, if ever? - d. From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Wed Jun 8 14:50:55 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 09:50:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a > requirement/obligation. I've been in mandatory mediation twice (once on a court order, once on my request). The mediator, in both cases, had only the authority to report on what agreement, if any, was reached during the mediation. Matters discussed but not agreed upon would not be included in the report. (In one case, we agreed on most, but not all issues; in the other we agreed on nothing.) I think it's important that those acting as mediators keep the bulk of the mediation in confidence, reporting only that mediation occurred and on what was actually agreed upon, if anything, during the mediation. If either party refuses to mediate in good faith, then the mediator should simply bring mediations to a close and report back that no agreement was reached without explaining why. Kelly From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Jun 9 13:05:57 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:05:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content Message-ID: > The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an > encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The > way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support > they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. > There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus > decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and > enforced (arbitration). > > -- > Stephen Bain If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of unpopular views. * We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions are causing excessive atmospheric warming. * If a religion is branded a "cult" (and enough people share this view), then the "excluded POVs policy" would forbid ANY mention of reasons why some people think the religion is bona fide. In short, Wikipedia would become the "liberal encyclopedia", replacing the NPOV *policy* with the liberal *POV*. I don't think Jimbo would like that. Jimbo, please comment. Ed Poor From brion at pobox.com Thu Jun 9 03:45:37 2005 From: brion at pobox.com (Brion Vibber) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 20:45:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: References: <20050608204629.4551.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Andreas H?rstemeier wrote: >>Brion Vibber knows. He was one of those abusing me on >>Village Pump. > > Maybe he was still tired from the server movement. I'm sorry if I've somehow offended Rick; it is not my intention to abuse or ridicule him. For the public record, here's the exchange: == Deletion is broken == At least, partially. A couple of article I have had no problems deleting, but I have tried at least ten times on both [[Danza Slap]] and [[Ben Wyrosdick]], and keep getting an ERROR message when I attempt it. [[User:RickK|Rick]][[User talk:RickK|K]] 22:54, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC) :They sure look deleted to me. --[[User:Brion VIBBER|Brion]] 00:16, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC) At the time I posted, the linked pages had indeed been successfully deleted, indicating that the problem with that pages had apparently been resolved. There was no other detail given about the scope of the problem. Cyrius was kind enough to supply useful follow-up information that this was a wider issue: ::This has been an ongoing problem for weeks. Deletions fail to go through with resulting error pages on a regular basis. One must try, try again. If you look at the deletion history, both pages were deleted later by other admins. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 00:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC) Frustration is a natural reaction to computer problems, so I think we can cut Rick some slack for his response to someone trying to help him: :::Gee, thanks. So you just keep trying, 50, 100, 250 times before it takes? OH, and duh, how stupid I must be, to think that red links aren't deleted. Wow, I mut really be a moron. Thanks for pointing that out, that was very useful. [[User:RickK|Rick]][[User talk:RickK|K]] 06:39, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC) > But as a very active > speedy deletor that problem as been getting more and more annying recently, > and today it has become virtually impossible to delete anything. Maybe > after one hour of retrying the deletion it finally works, but that's > unacceptable. But it already has a bug in bugzilla (2195) about it, Bug 2195 was reported specifically as a browser-specific problem with Opera -- complete with a claim that there was *NO* problem with Firefox. When it was reported, I tried deleting pages with Opera and did not experience a problem, so asked for additional testing (such as other versions of Opera). I'd like to thank Andreas and everyone else who's given additional information on that report (such as that Firefox is *NOT* immune), giving us the chance to seriously look into it as an en.wikipedia.org problem instead of dismissing it as an unreproduceble problem with an old version of Opera. I haven't figured out the root problem yet, but I have localized it to one part of the deletion operation, and put in place a workaround which seems to have relieved the pressure. I'm doing some debug logging on deletions, and haven't seen any breaking halfway through in the hour-ish since I put it in place. For a permanent fix it may be necessary to do some tweaks to the archive table, where deleted pages are stored for review and possible undeletion; some loads from it are also going rather slowly and there might be an indexing or lock contention problem. > it is > mentioned in the Administrators Noticeboard and the Village Pump, that > should be enough hint for the developers that the problem really exists. Sysop hangouts on en.wikipedia.org and the wikien-l list probably should not be considered sufficient notice to the developers; not everybody's an active en.wikipedia.org sysop. I do try to skim the pumps there every couple of days, but it's only one of our many projects and the number of pump and pump-like pages has expanded dramatically in the last couple of years; don't even assume that we know of the existence of all these pages. Many of us aren't on this mailing list or don't read it regularly because 50 messages a day of "X is a vandal!" "Y is an abusive sysop!" gets real boring real fast. :) As a general rule I strongly recommend using our Bugzilla to report problems, and if you want to draw peoples' attention post to wikitech-l and/or try to get ahold of us live in #wikimedia-tech on irc.freenode.net. When you report a problem, it's best to try providing as much information as possible about where the problem is, how reproduceable it is (always, often or intermittent? mostly at peak access hours or all day?), what alternatives you've tried (different browsers? other wikis? other pages on the same wiki?), etc. It's not that we're jerks (well, not *just* that we're jerks ;) but we've got a lot of problem reports to deal with, and we're not necessarily experiencing the same set of things you're experiencing. Not everybody pounces on speedy deletes on en.wikipedia.org many times a day; a problem that's specific to one action on one site might not be getting noticed if the people who _are_ doing that aren't talking to us. Some detail is *needed* to prioritize problem reports and to investigate and solve problems that we haven't personally come across. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 9 13:38:32 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 07:38:32 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050609044653.0420A3960@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: Determining an "approved version" of an article is not contemplated under any proposal. What is contemplated is ruling on disputes regarding content which occur from time to time. In most instances resolution will be found by restating the NPOV policy as it applies to the particular matter. Fred On Jun 8, 2005, at 10:46 PM, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > the "approved" version From en.abcd at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 13:44:03 2005 From: en.abcd at gmail.com (ABCD) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:44:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion Message-ID: It has been proposed that [[Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion]] ([[WP:SFD]]) go live. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub_types_for_deletion and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Stub_types_for_deletion . ABCD From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 9 14:04:46 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 10:04:46 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/6/05, JAY JG wrote: > > it was never intended. When it is pointed out that obvious arguments >will be > > cited *somewhere*, the response is that some things are so obvious (e.g. > > "like the fact that the sun rises in the east") that it would actually >be > > hard to find someone specifically stating them! > >Hm. I'm the only person in recent memory who has made such a claim, so >should I be offended that you appear to be binning me in with crackpot >theorists? Nothing personal; you're just the latest in a long line. And the people who insist their original research isn't original aren't always crackpot theorists; more often they're fairly normal people who have some strongly held beliefs. >For the record, I've never been a party to a content dispute on wikipedia. For the record, I can't make the same claim; not by a long shot. :-) >I've discussed NOR because I believe it's a fundamentally weak idea at >its core but it functions as a bandaid to solve many problems *now*... >but long term we need process in place to accept and reject new >research in a way which keeps out most of the crackpots (or at least >mitigates their harm) and doesn't break NPOV. I think the exact opposite; that it's a brilliant policy, especially when combined with other policies, particularly NPOV. While it was intended to deal with crackpots, what it is also good at (when used properly) is from stopping highly charged articles from descending into warring opinionfests. >Already wikipedia has become a better (more complete, more neutral, >more verified and reviewed) corpus than some of the sources we cite, >simply because our process are our contributors pretty good for some >things... or alternatively, because other places are so bad. :) In >any case we're weaving an odd world where wikipedia will become a >default source of reliable general material... but to insert something >new you must first publish it someplace less reliable. I haven't seen evidence that Wikipedia is more reliable than the sources it cite; the contributer process is highly variable, and I've seen some rather absurd claims successfully defended in articles by large groups of people. >... The point is that in the process of reinventing the encyclopedia >we are also reinventing peer review. The logical conclusion is that >while the encyclopedia should not be a repository for original >research (because it's an encyclopedia), we will ultimately end up >building such a repository because our process is superior and because >we will eventually need it as a reference once we've put everyone else >out of business. ;) Which is why I proposed wikiviews as a first >cautious step in that direction. There already is a huge repository for original research that is easily and readily available. It's called the Internet, and 90% of the original research you find on there is utter crap. I'm not sure why you'd want to transfer that crap into a Wiki that has to be paid for in some way. Jay. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 9 16:02:03 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 10:02:03 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5F808424-9E1D-49FB-9BB0-197E2EAE18C6@ctelco.net> What I am suggesting, not necessarily advocating, is to take into consideration at the arbitration stage whether the user engaged in mediation in good faith. If they just messed around and stalled (or whatever) that would be reported and considered. The theory, basically is that if they have energy to repeatedly revert in order to get their way with respect to an article, they should also have the time and energy to discuss the matter in good faith or they ought to lose the privilege of editing. Fred On Jun 8, 2005, at 8:50 AM, Kelly Martin wrote: > On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > >> In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a >> requirement/obligation. >> > > I've been in mandatory mediation twice (once on a court order, once on > my request). The mediator, in both cases, had only the authority to > report on what agreement, if any, was reached during the mediation. > Matters discussed but not agreed upon would not be included in the > report. (In one case, we agreed on most, but not all issues; in the > other we agreed on nothing.) I think it's important that those acting > as mediators keep the bulk of the mediation in confidence, reporting > only that mediation occurred and on what was actually agreed upon, if > anything, during the mediation. If either party refuses to mediate in > good faith, then the mediator should simply bring mediations to a > close and report back that no agreement was reached without explaining > why. > > Kelly > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 16:04:02 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 18:04:02 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Message-ID: I'm all for keeping some things private. But how can we avoid people actively avoiding mediation so they can keep POV pushing. If someone isn't willing to mediate in good faith, I think that should be reportable. How is keeping such a thing confident helping the community? --Mgm On 6/8/05, Kelly Martin wrote: > On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > > In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a > > requirement/obligation. > > I've been in mandatory mediation twice (once on a court order, once on > my request). The mediator, in both cases, had only the authority to > report on what agreement, if any, was reached during the mediation. > Matters discussed but not agreed upon would not be included in the > report. (In one case, we agreed on most, but not all issues; in the > other we agreed on nothing.) I think it's important that those acting > as mediators keep the bulk of the mediation in confidence, reporting > only that mediation occurred and on what was actually agreed upon, if > anything, during the mediation. If either party refuses to mediate in > good faith, then the mediator should simply bring mediations to a > close and report back that no agreement was reached without explaining > why. > > Kelly > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 16:11:14 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 18:11:14 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5F808424-9E1D-49FB-9BB0-197E2EAE18C6@ctelco.net> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> <5F808424-9E1D-49FB-9BB0-197E2EAE18C6@ctelco.net> Message-ID: On 6/9/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > What I am suggesting, not necessarily advocating, is to take into > consideration at the arbitration stage whether the user engaged in > mediation in good faith. If they just messed around and stalled (or > whatever) that would be reported and considered. The theory, > basically is that if they have energy to repeatedly revert in order > to get their way with respect to an article, they should also have > the time and energy to discuss the matter in good faith or they ought > to lose the privilege of editing. > > Fred > > On Jun 8, 2005, at 8:50 AM, Kelly Martin wrote: > > > On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > > Yes, you said it much better than I did. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 9 16:29:54 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:29:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050609162955.92401.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Stephen Bain wrote: > You still end up with at least some level of credentialism because > users would presumably have to prove their credentials before being > admitted to the consultative body. Most often that will be to list a bunch of articles in the relevant field that they have substantially contributed to. Only if that person does not edit much in an area would they need to present anything that would normally be considered 'credentials.' -- mav __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 9 16:47:08 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 09:47:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5309126705060903411e2bbf45@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050609164709.75526.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rebecca wrote: > The problem is that we have a whole bunch of cases that are currently > being heard by the arbitration committee - such as the climate change > dispute, which *do* need to be dealt with, but why I - and others - > believe shouldn't be dealt with by a system of paroles, bans, > limitations and punishment. What Unfocused suggests is effectively > just the status quo - which, in my book, is going to see good editors > leave because we end up having to limit their editing rights instead > of solving the blasted dispute, once it has gone on for long enough. Exactly. All I want are groups of people that the ArbCom can consult to help it determine just who is and is not following our content-related policies like NPOV and NOR. Going back to an old example; I simply don't know enough about advanced mathematics to know if a person is pushing a POV in that area or is engaging in original research except in the most blatant of cases. It would help arbitration a great deal if the ArbCom could ask a panel of non-involved and vetted users who *could* tell one way or the other. Thus my idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/RFC#Alternate_solution_.239_by_mav._Content_subcommittee -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 17:51:59 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 03:21:59 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5 Message-ID: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 As noted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ and others, version 2.5 of the Creative Commons licenses are now recommended for all new works. In the spirit of being bold, I have created [[Template:cc-by-2.5]] and [[Template:cc-by-sa-2.5]]. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCqIG//RxM5Ph0xhMRAmf2AJ9mkctAurY5EOqbNFidL2jg6QzQ6gCgq8p8 vyniXVJBK9v33gREGSAHfeM= =fM3Z -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 9 18:12:26 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:12:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609113918.GS358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) > >One really annoying form of >original research is to present an idiosyncratic and novel opinion then >supply a pile of references for the facts but not the opinion. Cranks have >references out to *here*, but it's still original work. That's really not >an encyclopedia's job. That's *exactly* what I was complaining about, and see all the time! Jay. From tacodeposit at hotmail.com Thu Jun 9 18:15:34 2005 From: tacodeposit at hotmail.com (Taco Deposit) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 13:15:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me figure something out Message-ID: I found http://www.answers.com/topic/nuremberg-defense which is supposedly copied from Wikipedia, but I can't find any article at [[Nuremburg defense]] (or [[Nuremburg defence]]). I also couldn't find at [[Special:Log/delete]] where it had been deleted. What am I missing? TD From tacodeposit at hotmail.com Thu Jun 9 18:18:40 2005 From: tacodeposit at hotmail.com (Taco Deposit) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 13:18:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me figure something out In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Never mind, it was my spelling error. I have now created redirects. TD -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Taco Deposit Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 1:16 PM To: 'English Wikipedia' Subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me figure something out I found http://www.answers.com/topic/nuremberg-defense which is supposedly copied from Wikipedia, but I can't find any article at [[Nuremburg defense]] (or [[Nuremburg defence]]). I also couldn't find at [[Special:Log/delete]] where it had been deleted. What am I missing? TD _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From skyring at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 18:38:50 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:38:50 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Help me figure something out In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <550ccb820506091138c0ec285@mail.gmail.com> On 6/10/05, Taco Deposit wrote: > Never mind, it was my spelling error. I have now created redirects. Don't you just hate it when that happens? It's as if the act of hitting the [Send] button spurs the problem-spotting and solving imps into action. They laze around, resting on pillows of sub-cortex, chuckling amongst themselves: 'I wonder if he'll spot THAT?' Then as soon as the thing is sent, they pick up the neurophone and call Supreme Command: 'Hey ya dummy, you spelt "six" as "sex" - what is it with you, one Freudian slip after amother?' -- Pete, carefully checking his work before hitting the tit From dpbsmith at verizon.net Thu Jun 9 21:11:16 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 16:11:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brain Message-ID: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> This is NOT a big deal, but it occurred to me that I should mention it. My car had about 140,000 miles on it and I was about ready for a new one. I like Toyotas and I wanted good mileage, and I checked Consumer Reports and, for me, the choice sort of came down to a $14,000 Echo or a $22,000 Prius. A colleague at work owns _two_ Echoes and likes them. But... I had recently run across this item in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=List_of_commercial_failures&oldid=12519168 "List of commercial failures: Toyota Echo - Sales of the US version of the Yaris subcompact car fell from 50,000 in 2000 to just 3400 in 2004. Sales in Canada of both the sedan and hatchback versions remain strong." The referenced article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Vitz , says: "The initial year of almost 50,000 sales was promising, but after the Echo sold just half that many for 2003, the product was no longer stocked at dealerships. Sales for much of 2004 have reached just 3,593, with another year of production left before the product is replaced." So... I crossed the Echo off my mental list. I remember my wife saying to me at one point "Weren't you thinking about the Echo" and replying "Well, I was, but I guess it was a big flop and is probably not even available this year." As I started to get more serious about the car-shopping process I did a little more checking. As nearly as I can tell, that statement is just plain wrong. Consumer Reports said nothing about the product being replaced. As of 2005 a local Toyota dealer had them in stock, and other dealers were advertising them. There were no firesale prices to get rid of them. There is a 2005 Toyota Echo website at www.toyota.com/echo/ and a review at http://cars.about.com/od/2001/fr/ 05_echo_tst.htm that gives no hint of it being replaced or not stocked. I removed the item from the Flops article and left a query on the talk page, so far unanswered. (I suppose I should do something in the Toyota Vitz article too). I'm 99% sure it's misinformation. (Possibly a result of confusion between the sedan and hatchback models?) It's not like it ruined my life or even affected my buying decision. Hey, it was really the Prius I wanted, anyway. Having the Echo still available just meant I needed to work harder to find a rationalization for the Prius. But it does give me pause to realize that a little tidbit of Wikipedian misinformation actually got past my BS filter and lodged itself in my brain, even if only briefly. How many bits of Wikipedian misinformation have gotten past my BS filter and _stuck,_ I wonder? Oh, well, in my life I'm sure I've absorbed quite a bit of misinformation (it's dangerous to go swimming for thirty minutes after you eat... you need to drink 64 ounces of water every day... suntans are healthy... the continents don't drift...). A little bit more can't hurt. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Thu Jun 9 21:50:36 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 23:50:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brain In-Reply-To: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> References: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <49bdc7430506091450348585d8@mail.gmail.com> I own a 2000 Echo, and its a great car, btw. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/9/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: > This is NOT a big deal, but it occurred to me that I should mention it. > > My car had about 140,000 miles on it and I was about ready for a new one. I > like Toyotas and I wanted good mileage, and I checked Consumer Reports and, > for me, the choice sort of came down to a $14,000 Echo or a $22,000 Prius. A > colleague at work owns _two_ Echoes and likes them. > > But... I had recently run across this item in Wikipedia: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > title=List_of_commercial_failures&oldid=12519168 > > "List of commercial failures: Toyota Echo - Sales of the US version of the > Yaris subcompact car fell from 50,000 in 2000 to just 3400 in 2004. Sales in > Canada of both the sedan and hatchback versions remain strong." The > referenced article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Vitz , says: > > "The initial year of almost 50,000 sales was promising, but after the Echo > sold just half that many for 2003, the product was no longer stocked at > dealerships. Sales for much of 2004 have reached just 3,593, with another > year of production left before the product is replaced." > > So... I crossed the Echo off my mental list. > > I remember my wife saying to me at one point "Weren't you thinking about the > Echo" and replying "Well, I was, but I guess it was a big flop and is > probably not even available this year." > > As I started to get more serious about the car-shopping process I did a > little more checking. > > As nearly as I can tell, that statement is just plain wrong. Consumer Reports > said nothing about the product being replaced. As of 2005 a local Toyota > dealer had them in stock, and other dealers were advertising them. There were > no firesale prices to get rid of them. There is a 2005 Toyota Echo website at > www.toyota.com/echo/ and a review at http://cars.about.com/od/2001/fr/ > 05_echo_tst.htm that gives no hint of it being replaced or not stocked. > > I removed the item from the Flops article and left a query on the talk page, > so far unanswered. (I suppose I should do something in the Toyota Vitz > article too). > > I'm 99% sure it's misinformation. (Possibly a result of confusion between the > sedan and hatchback models?) > > It's not like it ruined my life or even affected my buying decision. Hey, it > was really the Prius I wanted, anyway. Having the Echo still available just > meant I needed to work harder to find a rationalization for the Prius. > > But it does give me pause to realize that a little tidbit of Wikipedian > misinformation actually got past my BS filter and lodged itself in my brain, > even if only briefly. > > How many bits of Wikipedian misinformation have gotten past my BS filter and > _stuck,_ I wonder? > > Oh, well, in my life I'm sure I've absorbed quite a bit of misinformation > (it's dangerous to go swimming for thirty minutes after you eat... you need > to drink 64 ounces of water every day... suntans are healthy... the > continents don't drift...). A little bit more can't hurt. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jwales at wikia.com Wed Jun 8 19:42:59 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:42:59 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42A74A43.4060704@wikia.com> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I never understood why so many people oppose votes. It's an easy way > to see how the land lies and what the general opinion is. In my > opinion that's helpful. A lot of people, including me, would draw a distinction between a "vote" and a "poll". A "vote" is generally considered to be binding in some fashion, whereas a "poll" is a means of generating consensus because as you put it so well, it helps us to "see how the land lies and what the general opinion is". Erik's proposal to have a binding community vote to determine what articles should say is one which I will never support. That is not to say that polls/votes can't play any role in the process, nor is it to say that we don't need to advance the state of the art in dealing with such cases. But introducing binding votes destroys some of what is most essential about the interaction between the wiki process and the generation of high quality neutral content. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Wed Jun 8 19:44:21 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:44:21 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A74A95.5020301@wikia.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: > The ArbCom already tries to enforce our content-related policies. What I'd like > to do is have subject-area subcommittees to consult when alleged violations of > our content-related polices like NPOV or NOR come before us (the ArbCom). As it > is, only the most blatant POV and original research-pushing people are > sanctioned due to the simple fact that the ArbCom does not know everything > about everything and thus can't spot more subtle violations of our > content-related polices. We have tried, but this results in cases that take > months and inadequate remedies. I think this is exactly right. I have not yet had a change to read the exact proposals, but I think it is clear that in many cases, subject-area expertise has to be introduced into our disciplinary processes in a more systematic way. --Jimbo From erik_moeller at gmx.de Thu Jun 9 23:59:42 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:59:42 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A74A43.4060704@wikia.com> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> <42A74A43.4060704@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42A8D7EE.8070709@gmx.de> Jimmy: > That is not to say that polls/votes can't play any role in the process, > nor is it to say that we don't need to advance the state of the art in > dealing with such cases. But introducing binding votes destroys some of > what is most essential about the interaction between the wiki process > and the generation of high quality neutral content. What we have here is a belief. I would like to see some arguments in support of that belief. "Binding vote" doesn't mean "cannot ever be questioned for all eternity." But there should be good reasons for doing so. And when you define these conditions and processes, the distinction between votes and polls becomes less clear, and what you think is "something you will never support" might actually turn out to be something you already support, albeit in a less formally defined manner. Erik From stephen.bain at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 00:18:37 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 10:18:37 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an > > encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The > > way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support > > they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. > > There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus > > decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and > > enforced (arbitration). > > > > -- > > Stephen Bain > > If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much > support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of > unpopular views. > > * We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of > scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) > disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions > are causing excessive atmospheric warming. > That's not what I meant. I'll quote Jimbo again (as appearing on WP:NPOV): * 1 If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents; * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not. So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1. The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them, and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under #3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority. I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From michaelturley at myway.com Fri Jun 10 00:55:37 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 20:55:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brain Message-ID: <20050610005537.BC0FF398B@mprdmxin.myway.com> It's always that last one percent that bites me in the ass, too. The Echo is a failure, and is being discontinued. http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/14/B02-58761.htm Your local dealerships are pretty good at hiding this kind of fact from their customers. Their livelihood often depends on it. Best regards,Michael TurleyUser:Unfocused --- On Thu 06/09, < dpbsmith at verizon.net > wrote:From: [mailto: dpbsmith at verizon.net]To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.orgDate: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 16:11:16 -0500 (CDT)Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brainThis is NOT a big deal, but it occurred to me that I should mention it. My car had about 140,000 miles on it and I was about ready for a new one. I like Toyotas and I wanted good mileage, and I checked Consumer Reports and, for me, the choice sort of came down to a $14,000 Echo or a $22,000 Prius. A colleague at work owns _two_ Echoes and likes them.But... I had recently run across this item in Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_commercial_failures&oldid=12519168"List of commercial failures: Toyota Echo - Sales of the US version of the Yaris subcompact car fell from 50,000 in 2000 to just 3400 in 2004. Sales in Canada of both the sedan and hatchback versions remain strong." The referenced article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Vitz , says:"The initial year of almost 50,000 sales was promising, but after the Echo sold just half that many for 2003, the product was no longer stocked at dealerships. Sales for much of 2004 have reached just 3,593, with another year of production left before the product is replaced."So... I crossed the Echo off my mental list. I remember my wife saying to me at one point "Weren't you thinking about the Echo" and replying "Well, I was, but I guess it was a big flop and is probably not even available this year."As I started to get more serious about the car-shopping process I did a little more checking. As nearly as I can tell, that statement is just plain wrong. Consumer Reports said nothing about the product being replaced. As of 2005 a local Toyota dealer had them in stock, and other dealers were advertising them. There were no firesale prices to get rid of them. There is a 2005 Toyota Echo website at www.toyota.com/echo/ and a review at http://cars.about.com/od/2001/fr/05_echo_tst.htm that gives no hint of it being replaced or not stocked.I removed the item from the Flops article and left a query on the talk page, so far unanswered. (I suppose I should do something in the Toyota Vitz article too).I'm 99% sure it's misinformation. (Possibly a result of confusion between the sedan and hatchback models?)It's not like it ruined my life or even affected my buying decision. Hey, it was really the Prius I wanted, anyway. Having the Echo still available just meant I needed to work harder to find a rationalization for the Prius.But it does give me pause to realize that a little tidbit of Wikipedian misinformation actually got past my BS filter and lodged itself in my brain, even if only briefly.How many bits of Wikipedian misinformation have gotten past my BS filter and _stuck,_ I wonder?Oh, well, in my life I'm sure I've absorbed quite a bit of misinformation (it's dangerous to go swimming for thirty minutes after you eat... you need to drink 64 ounces of water every day... suntans are healthy... the continents don't drift...). A little bit more can't hurt._______________________________________________WikiEN-l mailing listWikiEN-l at Wikipedia.orghttp://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From morven at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 01:44:06 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 18:44:06 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brain In-Reply-To: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> References: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <42f90dc005060918443872178a@mail.gmail.com> The problem with the Toyota Echo is that Toyota launched its new Scion brand, with heavy advertising, competing directly against the Echo. The Scions give you more car for the money, and a bit more style, so it's no wonder Echo sales collapsed. -Matt From misfitgirl at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 01:50:48 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:50:48 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609164709.75526.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <5309126705060903411e2bbf45@mail.gmail.com> <20050609164709.75526.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5309126705060918504260393a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/10/05, Daniel Mayer wrote: > Exactly. All I want are groups of people that the ArbCom can consult to help it > determine just who is and is not following our content-related policies like > NPOV and NOR. Going back to an old example; I simply don't know enough about > advanced mathematics to know if a person is pushing a POV in that area or is > engaging in original research except in the most blatant of cases. It would > help arbitration a great deal if the ArbCom could ask a panel of non-involved > and vetted users who *could* tell one way or the other. You mistake what I'm saying. Take the climate change dispute as an example. We *could* solve the dispute by getting in an advisory committee to tell us who is pushing a POV (which would indeed be helpful as we currently do things); but we would still be having to resolve the dispute - even though it involves some long-standing and generally perfectly good contributors - with punitive measures. It's this that I really don't like - I maintain that unless someone is a serious pest, we shouldn't be hearing their case in the first place. -- ambi From danjsn at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 01:55:17 2005 From: danjsn at gmail.com (Dan Johnson) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 21:55:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Some Wikipedian misinformation got temporarily lodged in my brain In-Reply-To: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> References: <30847956.1118351477339.JavaMail.root@vms073.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20f40805050609185570ac634f@mail.gmail.com> dpbsmith, I had little knowledge about this myself, but I asked my father, who has been a Toyota salesman for 26 years, to shed light on this subject: "Toyota itself has been wavering about whether they will continue the Echo line. Whether or not you can get an Echo depends on what part of the country you're in. They don't bring more than a handful into New England. Even information we get from the region leaves us unsure whether there will be any more. Look at a Scion xA. It's more car for less money -- same chassis, same engine, and standard equipment that would be optional on the Echo." My own searching brought up these helpful links: http://www.scionlife.com/scion/xa/ http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/14/B02-58761.htm You may wish to reinstate the "Flops" entry on the Echo; it's not a huge flop as such, so it's up to you. Cheers, Dan Johnson (User:Greentryst) ADDENDUM: I checked the list before sending this, and saw responses. Michael Turley was on the ball for the DetNews.com link, and Matt Brown wrapped it up quite nicely, but I am sending this anyway to back up their comments with a comment from a professional in the field. Wikilove! -- Dan On 6/9/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: > This is NOT a big deal, but it occurred to me that I should mention it. > > My car had about 140,000 miles on it and I was about ready for a new one. I > like Toyotas and I wanted good mileage, and I checked Consumer Reports and, > for me, the choice sort of came down to a $14,000 Echo or a $22,000 Prius. A > colleague at work owns _two_ Echoes and likes them. > > But... I had recently run across this item in Wikipedia: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > title=List_of_commercial_failures&oldid=12519168 > > "List of commercial failures: Toyota Echo - Sales of the US version of the > Yaris subcompact car fell from 50,000 in 2000 to just 3400 in 2004. Sales in > Canada of both the sedan and hatchback versions remain strong." The > referenced article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Vitz , says: > > "The initial year of almost 50,000 sales was promising, but after the Echo > sold just half that many for 2003, the product was no longer stocked at > dealerships. Sales for much of 2004 have reached just 3,593, with another > year of production left before the product is replaced." > > So... I crossed the Echo off my mental list. > > I remember my wife saying to me at one point "Weren't you thinking about the > Echo" and replying "Well, I was, but I guess it was a big flop and is > probably not even available this year." > > As I started to get more serious about the car-shopping process I did a > little more checking. > > As nearly as I can tell, that statement is just plain wrong. Consumer Reports > said nothing about the product being replaced. As of 2005 a local Toyota > dealer had them in stock, and other dealers were advertising them. There were > no firesale prices to get rid of them. There is a 2005 Toyota Echo website at > www.toyota.com/echo/ and a review at http://cars.about.com/od/2001/fr/ > 05_echo_tst.htm that gives no hint of it being replaced or not stocked. > > I removed the item from the Flops article and left a query on the talk page, > so far unanswered. (I suppose I should do something in the Toyota Vitz > article too). > > I'm 99% sure it's misinformation. (Possibly a result of confusion between the > sedan and hatchback models?) > > It's not like it ruined my life or even affected my buying decision. Hey, it > was really the Prius I wanted, anyway. Having the Echo still available just > meant I needed to work harder to find a rationalization for the Prius. > > But it does give me pause to realize that a little tidbit of Wikipedian > misinformation actually got past my BS filter and lodged itself in my brain, > even if only briefly. > > How many bits of Wikipedian misinformation have gotten past my BS filter and > _stuck,_ I wonder? > > Oh, well, in my life I'm sure I've absorbed quite a bit of misinformation > (it's dangerous to go swimming for thirty minutes after you eat... you need > to drink 64 ounces of water every day... suntans are healthy... the > continents don't drift...). A little bit more can't hurt. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 10 05:00:39 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 22:00:39 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A8D7EE.8070709@gmx.de> References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42A1FF7B.5060801@comcast.net> <42A4CC9A.8030809@gmx.de> <42A74A43.4060704@wikia.com> <42A8D7EE.8070709@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42A91E77.6050505@telus.net> Erik Moeller wrote: > Jimmy: > >> That is not to say that polls/votes can't play any role in the process, >> nor is it to say that we don't need to advance the state of the art in >> dealing with such cases. But introducing binding votes destroys some of >> what is most essential about the interaction between the wiki process >> and the generation of high quality neutral content. > > What we have here is a belief. I would like to see some arguments in > support of that belief. "Binding vote" doesn't mean "cannot ever be > questioned for all eternity." But there should be good reasons for > doing so. And when you define these conditions and processes, the > distinction between votes and polls becomes less clear, and what you > think is "something you will never support" might actually turn out to > be something you already support, albeit in a less formally defined > manner. When votes are frequent enough people soon lose track of which ones are important. The distinction between a binding vote on major policy, and a casual poll of personal preferences tend to get lost. We have _Votes_ for Deletion; we have votes whenever someone wants to become a sysop, etc., etc. A vote was announced on the AD/CE issue, but when I followed the annoucement about that I found out that the vote would not begin for a few days. I have no idea about the level of officialdom that would apply to that, and I can't spend all my wiki time looking for places to exercise my franchise. What charecterizes an important vote besides the fact that the person who starts the process says that it is. Ec From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 05:13:35 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:13:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <98dd099a05060922134b8eb042@mail.gmail.com> The idea that a NPOV policy based on "significance" (however fuzzy) would necessarily translate into one based on "majority rule" (as if only one POV could be represented in any given article, anyway) would lead to a destruction of all articles on religion and the creation of a wholly "liberal POV Wikipedia" is a pretty sad strawman... FF On 6/9/05, Stephen Bain wrote: > On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an > > > encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The > > > way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support > > > they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. > > > There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus > > > decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and > > > enforced (arbitration). > > > > > > -- > > > Stephen Bain > > > > If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much > > support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of > > unpopular views. > > > > * We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of > > scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) > > disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions > > are causing excessive atmospheric warming. > > > > That's not what I meant. I'll quote Jimbo again (as appearing on WP:NPOV): > > * 1 If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to > substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; > * If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be > easy to name prominent adherents; > * If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) > minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some > ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and > regardless of whether you can prove it or not. > > So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say > anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1. > The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them, > and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made > this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global > warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under > #3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority. > > I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that > extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. > > -- > Stephen Bain > stephen.bain at gmail.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From swadair at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 06:26:42 2005 From: swadair at gmail.com (Stephen Adair) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:26:42 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: References: <20050608204629.4551.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Thank you, Brion. The difference is amazing. Deletions occur almost instantaneously now. Out of 38 deletions tonight, I only had to retry *once* -- that is the inverse of how things were a day ago. Thank you. Stephen W. Adair User:SWAdair On 6/8/05, Brion Vibber wrote: > I haven't figured out the root problem yet, but I have localized it to > one part of the deletion operation, and put in place a workaround which > seems to have relieved the pressure. I'm doing some debug logging on > deletions, and haven't seen any breaking halfway through in the hour-ish > since I put it in place. > From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 10 06:27:59 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 23:27:59 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> Stephen Bain wrote: >On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > >>>The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an >>>encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The >>>way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support >>>they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. >>>There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus >>>decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and >>>enforced (arbitration). >>> >>>-- >>>Stephen Bain >>> >>> >>If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much >>support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of >>unpopular views. >> >>* We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of >> scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) >> disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions >> are causing excessive atmospheric warming. >> >> >That's not what I meant. I'll quote Jimbo again (as appearing on WP:NPOV): > >* 1 If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to >substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; >* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be >easy to name prominent adherents; >* If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) >minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some >ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and >regardless of whether you can prove it or not. > >So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say >anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1. >The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them, >and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made >this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global >warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under >#3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority. > So who is claiming that it is caused by aliens? It's easy to invent an argument that is supported by no-one and use that as an argument that the position is not verifiable. >I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that >extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. > This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some people who held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went around the sun were severely persecuted at one time. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 10 06:40:20 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 23:40:20 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Compulsory Mediation, Was Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050603192505.098571AC19AE@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050604212659.GN9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050604231452.GQ9978@thingy.apana.org.au> <42A49193.1070203@telus.net> <42A589FE.4050305@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42A935D4.5080908@telus.net> Kelly Martin wrote: >On 6/7/05, Anthere wrote: > > >>In real life, mediation is essentially a choice, not a >>requirement/obligation. >> >> >I've been in mandatory mediation twice (once on a court order, once on >my request). The mediator, in both cases, had only the authority to >report on what agreement, if any, was reached during the mediation. >Matters discussed but not agreed upon would not be included in the >report. (In one case, we agreed on most, but not all issues; in the >other we agreed on nothing.) I think it's important that those acting >as mediators keep the bulk of the mediation in confidence, reporting >only that mediation occurred and on what was actually agreed upon, if >anything, during the mediation. If either party refuses to mediate in >good faith, then the mediator should simply bring mediations to a >close and report back that no agreement was reached without explaining >why. > Although I largely agree with you, when only one of the parties is clearly not negotiating in good faith that should be made clear in the report. This does not mean that this should be explained in great detail. Ec From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 07:35:57 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 09:35:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> Message-ID: <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info not to be found elsewhere. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/10/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Stephen Bain wrote: > > >On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > > >>>The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an > >>>encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. The > >>>way we do that is by assessing how much (academic) support > >>>they have, in terms of the context and subject matter. > >>>There's no need for content committees, as long as consensus > >>>decisions on WP:NPOV can be acheieved (mediation) and > >>>enforced (arbitration). > >>> > >>>-- > >>>Stephen Bain > >>> > >>> > >>If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much > >>support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip of > >>unpopular views. > >> > >>* We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of > >> scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) > >> disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions > >> are causing excessive atmospheric warming. > >> > >> > >That's not what I meant. I'll quote Jimbo again (as appearing on WP:NPOV): > > > >* 1 If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to > >substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts; > >* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be > >easy to name prominent adherents; > >* If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) > >minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some > >ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and > >regardless of whether you can prove it or not. > > > >So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say > >anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1. > >The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them, > >and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made > >this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global > >warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under > >#3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority. > > > So who is claiming that it is caused by aliens? It's easy to invent an > argument that is supported by no-one and use that as an argument that > the position is not verifiable. > > >I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that > >extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. > > > This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great > scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained > their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important > criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some people who > held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went around the sun > were severely persecuted at one time. > > Ec > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 10:19:57 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 12:19:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5 In-Reply-To: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> References: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> Message-ID: Shouldn't we have multi-licencensing templates for that as well? --Mgm On 6/9/05, Alphax wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > As noted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ and others, > version 2.5 of the Creative Commons licenses are now recommended for all > new works. > > In the spirit of being bold, I have created [[Template:cc-by-2.5]] and > [[Template:cc-by-sa-2.5]]. > > - -- > Alphax > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. > Lewis > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCqIG//RxM5Ph0xhMRAmf2AJ9mkctAurY5EOqbNFidL2jg6QzQ6gCgq8p8 > vyniXVJBK9v33gREGSAHfeM= > =fM3Z > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 10:33:26 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 12:33:26 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5 In-Reply-To: References: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> Message-ID: By the way, I fail to see any difference between 2.0 and 2.5 Can some more law-savvy people explain the difference. I'm almost sure it's in the legal version of the license. --Mgm On 6/10/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Shouldn't we have multi-licencensing templates for that as well? > > --Mgm > > On 6/9/05, Alphax wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > As noted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ and others, > > version 2.5 of the Creative Commons licenses are now recommended for all > > new works. > > > > In the spirit of being bold, I have created [[Template:cc-by-2.5]] and > > [[Template:cc-by-sa-2.5]]. > > > > - -- > > Alphax > > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax > > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' > > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. > > Lewis > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > > > iD8DBQFCqIG//RxM5Ph0xhMRAmf2AJ9mkctAurY5EOqbNFidL2jg6QzQ6gCgq8p8 > > vyniXVJBK9v33gREGSAHfeM= > > =fM3Z > > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From james at jdforrester.org Fri Jun 10 12:37:52 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 13:37:52 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> Message-ID: <200506101237.j5ACbs23002009@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Friday, June 10, 2005, at 07:28, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Stephen Bain wrote: > > > On 6/9/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > [> Stephen Bain wrote:] > > > > The other point was that WP is (or wants to be) an > > > > encyclopaedia, and that some POVs have to be excluded. [Snip] > > > If the decision on excluded POVs is made on the basis of how much > > > support they have, we will quickly turn toward a regime of censorhip > > > of unpopular views. > > > > > > * We won't even be able to MENTION that a minority of > > > scientists contacted by the UN's climate panel (IPCC) > > > disagree with the "consensus" that anthropogenic emissions > > > are causing excessive atmospheric warming. > > > > > > > That's not what I meant. [Snip] > > So using your example, the majority of the IPCC adivsers say > > anthropogenic emissions cause global warming, and they come under #1. > > The minority who disagree come under #2, as long as you can name them, > > and for practical purposes, perhaps cite a source in which they made > > this claim. If just one scientist came out and said that that global > > warming is caused by aliens, for example, then that would fall under > > #3, since one scientist is a vastly limited minority. > > So who is claiming that it is caused by aliens? It's easy to invent an > argument that is supported by no-one and use that as an argument that > the position is not verifiable. OK, perhaps a different argument (and this is, as ever, subject to context): The identity of 'the God', 'a god', or 'the gods' is one that a great number of people have differing views upon. A sub-example of this is the concept of the r?le of 'the God' - a large number of people consider the Palestinian Jew "Jesus" to have been this figure. Other religions and traditions have different views - "Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie is both God the Father and God the Son", to quote our article [[God]]. Yet further ones insist that he is yet to come forth, but will do at some point - Jews, for instance (IIRC). All of these are opinions held by (at least) millions of people, and we would (and do) given them time in an article on the subject (we would probably go through them in rough descending order of believers, by past memory - this gives more prominence to widely-held opinions without prejudicing the readers' opinions of or promoting some judgement on them). OTOH, [[Sollog]] believes himself to be the son of God (AIUI, or God himself, or something), and there are very few, perhaps no, people who hold this opinions of him; thus, we would not mention his claim in the article, as it is inappropriately giving time and hence credence to a cause that does not warrant it. This, indeed, is exactly what we do do. Common sense seems to have triumphed. :-) > > I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that > > extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. > > This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great > scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained > their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important > criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some > people who held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went > around the sun were severely persecuted at one time. So? It's not our job to trumpet minor views "just in case" they turn out to be correct all along. Yes, we're "treating truth as a numbers game": it's called showing editorial judgement. Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 15:14:40 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:14:40 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050610081436c9e81f@mail.gmail.com> Nobody is talking about "truth" here. "Truth" is fought on the vanguards, in little communities which do nothing but spend their time producing "facts" and "knowledge" and "understanding", all fitting into their own sets of standards of what counts as valid and reliable ("regimes of truth"), some of which brutally disagree with each other. We don't want to play *that* game. That's not the role of an encyclopedia. We digest those battles and report on them. We sit above it all. We don't take part in that battle. You don't turn to Encyclopedia Brittanica to get cutting-edge information on the latest scientific research. You turn to it for the basics of what is reasonably established, or the range of opinions which the reasonably established people in the world consider possible. You also turn there for references to sources for further reading, if you want a more comprehensive view of things, or if you want to take part in those battles for truth. Our advantages over EB? We can update things considerably easier and faster -- if tomorrow's patent clerk becomes today's Einstein, all the better! We'll update it when it happens, but not a moment sooner. And though I *loathe* the phrase "Wikipedia is not paper" (which never called out to defend anything I find truly interesting in the world), it is worth noting that another advantage we have is that we can say a whole lot about a whole lot more. The "cut" of notability to get into WP is significantly lower than with EB -- and I think that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a cut at all. Paul Feyerabend's famous critique of the scientific method was that it -- and all "methods" -- restrained investigations into the truth, restrained the ways to which one could approach the world. On that observation, I think he was dead right. But I think he errs in thinking this a scandal: it's that way on purpose! Limiting inquiry to what are thought to be "solvable" problems at the time using "reliable" methods (however much they will be laughed at in the future) allows one to focus manpower, energy, and resources towards things which are likely to pan out. Is it a "numbers game" of truth? No more than the world already is one -- it is about who says what, how much you trust them, and one hopes that if someone starts saying something "true", it will catch on with others (though it is generally only "others in their same regime of truth"). Does it work that way in real life? Only roughly. But Wikipedia's pretension should only be to accurately summarize and report on "real life" -- never to create "real life". We need to ditch the pretension that Wikipedia is the place to negotiate "truth" -- it isn't, it never has been, it never will be. Time has shown it difficult enough to simply report on it! FF On 6/10/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great > scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained > their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important > criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some people who > held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went around the sun > were severely persecuted at one time. > > Ec > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From rowan.collins at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 15:15:38 2005 From: rowan.collins at gmail.com (Rowan Collins) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 16:15:38 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5 In-Reply-To: References: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05061008154359127a@mail.gmail.com> On 10/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > By the way, I fail to see any difference between 2.0 and 2.5 Can some > more law-savvy people explain the difference. I'm almost sure it's in > the legal version of the license. I find the creativecommons site very hard to find such information on, although I'm sure it's there. But with a bit of Googling I turned up the *beginning* of the discussion about v2.5... http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2005-May/002313.html ...and it "Drawing to a Close"... http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5457 ...but no announcement that it has "become official", although it does seem to have. Basically, it seems to be to do with electing who gets attribution - to allow collective and nominated attribution in some way. Don't ask me how, or how this relates to the cc-wiki proposal, because I've only skimmed the stuff, but the links above seem to basically explain it if you have the patience to work it out. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 10 18:16:40 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 11:16:40 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> Jack Lynch wrote: >Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and >esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info >not to be found elsewhere. > Absolutely! And I hope we can add much more. If it's verified as having been proposed by somebody (which does not mean verifying that the guy's theories make any sense), and properly sourced what more can we ask for. I just acquired a volume of "Popular Science" from1872. Wow!! Ec From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 10 19:26:09 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 12:26:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion lag times In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050610192609.36668.qmail@web60615.mail.yahoo.com> --- Stephen Adair wrote: > Thank you, Brion. The difference is amazing. > Deletions occur almost > instantaneously now. Out of 38 deletions tonight, I > only had to retry > *once* -- that is the inverse of how things were a > day ago. Thank > you. I agree. Thank you, Brion. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Andybnyork at aol.com Thu Jun 9 19:29:59 2005 From: Andybnyork at aol.com (Andybnyork at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 15:29:59 EDT Subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for a link on your license plate page Message-ID: <1e3.3d8be4c8.2fd9f2b7@aol.com> Hello! My name is Andy and am webmaster for THE PLATE HUT at _www.platehut.com_ (http://www.platehut.com) , I am interested in having a link added to your license plate page. Would you be interested in this. I apologize if I have contacted the wrong person here. Thank you very much, Andy Bernstein THE PLATE HUT From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 21:02:22 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:02:22 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Request for a link on your license plate page In-Reply-To: <1e3.3d8be4c8.2fd9f2b7@aol.com> References: <1e3.3d8be4c8.2fd9f2b7@aol.com> Message-ID: Dear Andy, Assuming you contacted me with regard to the page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License plate I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as part of policy we don't link to specific commercial sites to avoid bias. If we allow a link to one company, others will feel left out and the links section would turn into a sales list. If my assumption on the reason of your contacting me is incorrect, I'd like you to be more specific on the site you're talking about. Sincerely, MacGyverMagic, Wikipedia editor and administrator. On 6/9/05, Andybnyork at aol.com wrote: > Hello! My name is Andy and am webmaster for THE PLATE HUT at > _www.platehut.com_ (http://www.platehut.com) , I am interested in having a link added to your > license plate page. Would you be interested in this. I apologize if I have > contacted the wrong person here. > > Thank you very much, > > Andy Bernstein > THE PLATE HUT > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Fri Jun 10 21:28:22 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 14:28:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia & Original Research Message-ID: Following, & participating in, the various threads about Original Research, I've noticed that a couple of points have not been touched upon. And I think we should consider them while we are all trying to develop a consensus on this matter. 1. Original research leads to the problem that some editors think that they "own" an article. One of the exciting things about writing for Wikipedia is being able to say "I put that text there!" And while we are aware of the problems surrounding people who do not want their purple prose to be deleted, the problems can only increase if we allow people to put their own research in Wikipedia & say "Wikipedia has something I discovered." The Wiki way (as I understand it) is that one person adds their input, and another may change or add to it; the result is that the content of Wikipedia inevitably changes over time, gradually (hopefully) moving between viewpoints in search of a balance. Because original research is such a personal thing, it can only disrupt this desirable changing. 2. Original research is inevitably POV; allowing original research thus makes it easier for POV-pushers. I hope I'm not the only one who has noticed that if a person performs research & discovers a fact, they believe it to be true; they will not be receptive to permitting other POVs intrude on their research. As a tangible example, if I were to set forth my original research stating that cats are better than dogs[*], I would obviously do so only if I am convinced that it was true, & that anyone who disagreed with me were either ignorant or in denial of the obvious facts. And if we were to look at the motives of many POV-pushers, I believe that they are acting in good faith, but are under the same misconceptions that are linked to people who insist on inserting some forms of original research. 3. To write some articles with a desirable quality, it is almost impossible not to resort to what can be called, in good faith, original research. And this point makes the matter a hard one. To write about any literary work beyond the bare facts of its creation & its characters & plot easily leads to original research. After all, the Wikipedian is asked to explain perhaps the most important things about the work -- what is it about, why is it important, what does it mean -- based all too often on a personal interpretation of the primary source. I wouldn't be surprised that this is the reason why many articles about literature, music, cinema & the plastic arts are in need of more material. While in many cases there exists a usable amount of secondary literature about a work -- a prime example being the plays & poetry of William Shakespeare -- for a lot of authors who should have articles in Wikipedia, there is little or nothing. Looking at my own bookshelf, I'd be hard-pressed to think of critical literature on Craig Lesley, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Branch Cabel, Toni Morrison, L. Sprague de Camp, Harry Harrison, Hunter S. Thompson or Chinua Achebe.[**] And even some topics that should not be hard to find abundant secondary literature for -- say a history of the influence Homer's _Iliad_ had on Western Literature -- would be difficult to complete without doing research & drawing conclusions (e.g., just how far was Elias Loennrot influenced by the _Iliad_ in his compilation of _The Kalevala_?). Another instance is the creation of lists on Wikipedia; in some categories, the compilation & sorting would involve some kind of POV, whether conscious or accidental. The example I had in mind was the project of compiling a list of Mayors of Addis Ababa, the largest city in Ethiopia. I hope we can all agree that this is a list worth having in Wikipedia; but can we be assured that the people listed weren't included or excluded on an NPOV basis? Or that if there is a conflict of opinion over the order of 2 or more Mayors, that the right opinion was followed?[***] If I may be allowed to answer my own question, I think there is a way to allow original research into Wikipedia without also allowing its problems in. One way would be to present the conclusions of orignial research overtly as one, non-exclusive POV. To do this requires the use of some despised weasel-words like "based on this evidence, it appears that" or "it may be true that" or "this suggests". After all, even if the evidence screams that a given conclusion is the only conceivable one, further research or peer review may show that some of the evidence can be explained away or be shown to support an entirely different conclusion. Another approach -- & these are not exclusive -- is to admit that even though we are Neutral Point of View, sometimes because no article on Wikipedia is every truly complete we are only able to present one of many POVs. That is, the original editor adds her/his research with the full knowledge that another editor may drastically rewrite it to add other material. In a way, this is identical to current policy -- well, as I understand current policy; but this not only reinforces the idea that no one Wikipedian owns an article (avoiding issue #1 above), but also it may be useful for everyone to occasionally step back in a dispute & determine whether our arguments are based on a myopic & enthusiastic embrace of our own POV (avoiding issue #2 above). This is all meant as more material to chew on. The [[No original research]] policy helps in a lot of different ways, but clearly it has a few problems that require some tweaking with it. Geoff [*] I selected this example not necessarily because I believe it is true, QED, but because I live with 3 cats who would shred me into hamburger were I to argue the opposite opinion. Let's not debate this topic. [**] Just a selection of fiction writers from the shelf next to my desk, nothing more. [***] I've encountered a similar problem in compiling a list of the Patriarchs of Antioch -- an article I've likely left unfinished, & hampered by countless cases of umarked POV content, but at the end I grew tired of the subject, & decided it was time to leave the article for someone else to work on. From andrea.forte at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 21:53:24 2005 From: andrea.forte at gmail.com (Andrea Forte) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 17:53:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] wikimania acceptance rate? Message-ID: <7d75d405061014534966b5f1@mail.gmail.com> Hi! I hear the acceptance letters are going out for Wikimania submissions. Anyone know what the acceptance rate ended up at? Andicat From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 10 22:46:20 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:46:20 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <200506101237.j5ACbs23002009@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506101237.j5ACbs23002009@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <42AA183C.5080207@telus.net> James D. Forrester wrote: >[[Sollog]] believes himself to be the son of God (AIUI, or God >himself, or something), and there are very few, perhaps no, people who hold >this opinions of him; thus, we would not mention his claim in the article, >as it is inappropriately giving time and hence credence to a cause that does >not warrant it. This, indeed, is exactly what we do do. Common sense seems >to have triumphed. :-) > > >>>I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that >>>extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. >>> >>> >>This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great >>scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained >>their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important >>criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some >>people who held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went >>around the sun were severely persecuted at one time. >> >> >So? It's not our job to trumpet minor views "just in case" they turn out to >be correct all along. Yes, we're "treating truth as a numbers game": it's >called showing editorial judgement. > > If Sollog is the only source of evidence for his being God he has a verifiability problem. Under those circumstances being a part of a minority is moot. Ec From beesley at gmail.com Fri Jun 10 22:58:58 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 00:58:58 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] wikimania acceptance rate? In-Reply-To: <7d75d405061014534966b5f1@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d75d405061014534966b5f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8b722b8005061015581904c165@mail.gmail.com> On 10/06/05, Andrea Forte wrote: > Hi! I hear the acceptance letters are going out for Wikimania > submissions. Anyone know what the acceptance rate ended up at? We have accepted: 4 Keynotes and special invitations 35 presentations. 7 short presentations 2 after hours presentations There are 6 open and late submissions still under discussion. There are at least 3 accepted Poster/Paper only submissions. There are 19 rejected submissions. In a few cases, people sent more than one abstract, and generally only one was accepted, so the number of rejected submissions reflects this. More information about the conference can be found at http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/ Angela. From james at jdforrester.org Fri Jun 10 23:31:04 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 00:31:04 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42AA183C.5080207@telus.net> Message-ID: <200506102331.j5ANV54R025950@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> [BTW, please don't strip attributions; it makes understanding who said what ('blame' ;-)) significantly harder.] On Friday, June 10, 2005 11:46 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > James D. Forrester wrote: > > > [[Sollog]] believes himself to be the son of God [Snip] > If Sollog is the only source of evidence for his being God he has a > verifiability problem. Under those circumstances being a part of a > minority is moot. The Christians are the only source of "evidence" that their words about a "the God" are true; similarly, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Celtic tribes of South-West Wales, etc. ad infinitum, or at least to the limit of human imagination of the supernatural, which is almost as vast. Don't be obtuse. :-) Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From saintonge at telus.net Sat Jun 11 03:09:17 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:09:17 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <200506102331.j5ANV54R025950@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506102331.j5ANV54R025950@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <42AA55DD.1000405@telus.net> James D. Forrester wrote: >Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>James D. Forrester wrote: >> >> >>>[[Sollog]] believes himself to be the son of God >>> >>> >[Snip] > > >>If Sollog is the only source of evidence for his being God he has a >>verifiability problem. Under those circumstances being a part of a >>minority is moot. >> >> >The Christians are the only source of "evidence" that their words about a >"the God" are true; similarly, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the >Ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Celtic tribes of South-West Wales, etc. ad >infinitum, or at least to the limit of human imagination of the >supernatural, which is almost as vast. Don't be obtuse. :-) > > Sounds like a good enough reason to eliminate all articles about God. :-) Ec From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sat Jun 11 20:08:19 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:08:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links Message-ID: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> We had an email asking why we override browser defaults to underline links. I've asked about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css , but am not sure how much that is watched. Any comments would be most helpful there. (and yes, I know this can be changed in preferences, but that's not a help for the large number of non-logged in readers we have) --sannse From spyders at btinternet.com Sat Jun 11 20:34:10 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:34:10 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <001f01c56ec4$eccd73a0$a8479d51@hedlatora> It may be a colourblindness issue for red links. If your colourblind you wouldn't be able to determine a red link from normal text. ----- Original Message ----- From: "sannse" To: Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 9:08 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links > We had an email asking why we override browser defaults to underline > links. I've asked about this at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css , but am not > sure how much that is watched. Any comments would be most helpful there. > > (and yes, I know this can be changed in preferences, but that's not a > help for the large number of non-logged in readers we have) > > --sannse > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 11 21:06:30 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 23:06:30 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links In-Reply-To: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: I assume it was done because a lot of people hate a bunch of underlines in their text. Personally, it doesn't really bother me, and I can change it in my preferences anyway, so we might as well change it for outsiders. --Mgm On 6/11/05, sannse wrote: > We had an email asking why we override browser defaults to underline > links. I've asked about this at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css , but am not > sure how much that is watched. Any comments would be most helpful there. > > (and yes, I know this can be changed in preferences, but that's not a > help for the large number of non-logged in readers we have) > > --sannse > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Sat Jun 11 21:07:15 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 17:07:15 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] wikimania acceptance rate? (update) Message-ID: <742dfd06050611140776effbac@mail.gmail.com> Submissions were generally good, and we tried to accept as many submissions as we could. Due to time constraints, a number of presentations could only be accepted as short presentations. == Presentations == 8 of 10 workshops and tutorials were accepted. Another two tutorials were specifically requested. Of around 65 other submissions, we have accepted 44: 27 as presentations 15 as short presentations / part of a panel discussion Two fun submissions will be part of a late-night program, along with the wikitrivia finals and virtual mud-wrestling. (ok, the mudwrestling is still a point of contention) ----- This comes to around 25 hours of presentations and workshops, spread across the three days of the conference. == Hacking Days == Another dozen ideas have been submitted from various wiki developer groups (XWiki, Twiki, PurpleWiki, Confluence, Craowiki, TING?) about tools and hacks to present during the Hacking Days leading up to the conference. == Proceedings online == Serious submissions, including those we were not able to accept as speakers, will be invited to have a paper included in the online proceedings. Last-minute posters and papers (particularly for breaking developments) are being accepted for another few weeks. == Unofficial calendar == Finally, attendees and those planning to take part via skype/IRC are invited to schedule their own gatherings and specialized workshops : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania:Presenters#Unofficial_calendar SJ > We have accepted: > 4 Keynotes and special invitations > 35 presentations. > 7 short presentations > 2 after hours presentations > > There are 6 open and late submissions still under discussion. > There are at least 3 accepted Poster/Paper only submissions. > > There are 19 rejected submissions. In a few cases, people sent more > than one abstract, and generally only one was accepted, so the number > of rejected submissions reflects this. > > More information about the conference can be found at > http://wikimania.wikimedia.org/ > > Angela. From fastfission at gmail.com Sat Jun 11 21:38:14 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 17:38:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia & Original Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <98dd099a05061114382409279f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/10/05, Geoff Burling wrote: > 3. To write some articles with a desirable quality, it is almost > impossible not to resort to what can be called, in good faith, > original research. And this point makes the matter a hard one. > This is all meant as more material to chew on. The [[No original > research]] policy helps in a lot of different ways, but clearly > it has a few problems that require some tweaking with it. Yes and no. Yes -- NOR and NPOV cannot be understood as strictly logical rules, as all entries (and some more than other) involve some forms of individual interpretation, or at least selection of some approaches out of others, etc. No -- I'm not sure they require tweaking because of this. In the 19th-century, scientists went through what is now considered a "crisis of objectivity" -- they became increasingly insecure about their ability to be "objective" (for a variety of reasons; increasing influence of scientific opinion in public life, increasing concerns about science and religion, discovery of phenomena such as systematic observation errors, i.e. the "personal equation", etc.) and began to frantically assert their objectivity in various ways (i.e. by relying on mechanical representation over "interpretation", etc.). A number of philosophers (i.e. Kuhn) have pointed out that the idea of an "objective observation" is contradictory -- if it is an observation, there must be an observer, and all observers are, to some degree, subjective. Objectivity cannot be achieved in a philosophically rigorous sense -- indeed, it never has been. So what purpose does the concept serve? It is an ethos more than anything else, a quasi-religious stricture about proper conduct and goals. The desire not to mislead, the desire to report only as things are and not what you want them to be, etc. and so forth. When it gets violated in some obvious way, it is held up as an example of "what not to do." Otherwise it pushes things along, and sometimes (often?) falters, because humans are fallible and the world is not a logical machine. But Wikipedia articles are remarkable for their process, not their conclusions*, and the same thing could probably be said of science as well -- many conclusions of today's scientific work will be seen as woefully inadequate in a few decades, but that doesn't mean we should disregard them today; the system of knowledge production makes them the most reliable knowledge we have. So yes, ultimate NPOV and NOR is not possible. And never will be. But I think changing the rules to more heavily reflect this would not be helpful -- it would only encourage those who want to emphasize their policies against notions of NOR and NPOV, and as goals they are very good. As someone I respect once said, all of the world is built up on various constructions. But the Three Little Pigs well shows that not all constructions are as good as others. Similarly, all entries are built up on some inherent POV. But some POV is more nuanced and neutral than others. Let's keep our lofty goals, even if we know they won't satisify the analytical philosophers. They make a nice ethos. FF *Which is why I think having hard-copies is so counter-intuitive, though I can understand why some people would want one -- i.e. slow internet connections, more interested in using it as a tool to learn with than a tool to edit with, etc. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 12 03:32:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 23:32:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <200506101237.j5ACbs23002009@mail-relay-3.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: >From: "James D. Forrester" > >The identity of 'the God', 'a god', or 'the gods' is one that a great >number >of people have differing views upon. A sub-example of this is the concept >of >the r?le of 'the God' - a large number of people consider the Palestinian >Jew "Jesus" to have been this figure. Other religions and traditions have >different views - "Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie is both God the >Father and God the Son", to quote our article [[God]]. Yet further ones >insist that he is yet to come forth, but will do at some point - Jews, for >instance (IIRC). This is getting a bit off topic, but Jews are not waiting for God to come forth, since they already believe they have received a great deal of revelation from him. Rather, they are waiting for the Messiah. Your confusion probably arises from the fact that Christianity equates the two. >All of these are opinions held by (at least) millions of >people, and we would (and do) given them time in an article on the subject >(we would probably go through them in rough descending order of believers, >by past memory - this gives more prominence to widely-held opinions without >prejudicing the readers' opinions of or promoting some judgement on them). >OTOH, [[Sollog]] believes himself to be the son of God (AIUI, or God >himself, or something), and there are very few, perhaps no, people who hold >this opinions of him; thus, we would not mention his claim in the article, >as it is inappropriately giving time and hence credence to a cause that >does >not warrant it. This, indeed, is exactly what we do do. Common sense seems >to have triumphed. :-) Exactly; those who claim that every single thing that everyone has said on a subject must be included in an article on that subject, so long as the statement can be cited, are trying to build some soft of general knowledge/trivia repository, not an encyclopedia. > > > I've never said that only one POV should be represented, only that > > > extreme minority POVs shouldn't be. > > > > This is still treating truth as a numbers game. Sometimes great > > scientific discoveries have come from people who stubbornly maintained > > their opinions on a discovery. Verifiability is a more important > > criterion than being the position of a small minority. Some > > people who held the ridiculous minority notion that the earth went > > around the sun were severely persecuted at one time. > >So? It's not our job to trumpet minor views "just in case" they turn out to >be correct all along. Yes, we're "treating truth as a numbers game": it's >called showing editorial judgement. Exactly. Jay. From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sun Jun 12 10:23:39 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 11:23:39 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links In-Reply-To: <001f01c56ec4$eccd73a0$a8479d51@hedlatora> References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> <001f01c56ec4$eccd73a0$a8479d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <42AC0D2B.8090903@tiscali.co.uk> David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > It may be a colourblindness issue for red links. If your colourblind you > wouldn't be able to determine a red link from normal text. Yes, there are problems with forcing in the other direction too, so surely it's best to leave it to browser preferences? --sannse From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sun Jun 12 10:24:58 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 11:24:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links In-Reply-To: References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <42AC0D7A.6030603@tiscali.co.uk> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I assume it was done because a lot of people hate a bunch of > underlines in their text. Personally, it doesn't really bother me, and > I can change it in my preferences anyway, so we might as well change > it for outsiders. > > --Mgm Wrong way round - we currently force underlining for everyone who hasn't logged in and changed their preferences - that is, the majority of people who use Wikipedia --sannse From rowan.collins at gmail.com Sun Jun 12 17:14:59 2005 From: rowan.collins at gmail.com (Rowan Collins) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 18:14:59 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links In-Reply-To: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05061210145b6a35a3@mail.gmail.com> On 11/06/05, sannse wrote: > We had an email asking why we override browser defaults to underline > links. I've asked about this at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css , but am not > sure how much that is watched. Any comments would be most helpful there. As I understand it: * some people voted, a long time ago, to keep underlines (or, rather, "use browser default") - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote * when 1.3 came out, with the spangly new MonoBook skin, it included non-underlined links, and people complained - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.3_comments_and_bug_reports/Archive#Underlining_of_links * the skin as distributed with the software still has them non-underlined by default (underline on hover), and indeed most Wikimedia projects leave them as such, but "by popular demand", the English Wikipedia overrides this in its global stylesheet Whether that makes it the *right* thing to do, I've no idea. [On a technical note, I can't quite work out how the user preference toggle for this works, but it might be cleaner to have this set as a default preference rather than explicit in the stylesheet] -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sun Jun 12 18:17:22 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:17:22 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] CSS and underlined links In-Reply-To: <9f02ca4c05061210145b6a35a3@mail.gmail.com> References: <42AB44B3.1040806@tiscali.co.uk> <9f02ca4c05061210145b6a35a3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42AC7C32.5020302@tiscali.co.uk> ah, that's helpful Rowan - it was that meta page that I couldn't find. Many thanks --sannse Rowan Collins wrote: > On 11/06/05, sannse wrote: > >>We had an email asking why we override browser defaults to underline >>links. I've asked about this at >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.css , but am not >>sure how much that is watched. Any comments would be most helpful there. > > > As I understand it: > * some people voted, a long time ago, to keep underlines (or, rather, > "use browser default") - > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Link_style_vote > > * when 1.3 came out, with the spangly new MonoBook skin, it included > non-underlined links, and people complained - > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.3_comments_and_bug_reports/Archive#Underlining_of_links > > * the skin as distributed with the software still has them > non-underlined by default (underline on hover), and indeed most > Wikimedia projects leave them as such, but "by popular demand", the > English Wikipedia overrides this in its global stylesheet > > Whether that makes it the *right* thing to do, I've no idea. > > [On a technical note, I can't quite work out how the user preference > toggle for this works, but it might be cleaner to have this set as a > default preference rather than explicit in the stylesheet] > From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:33:00 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:33:00 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42AC71CC.7060208@wikia.com> Sean Barrett wrote: > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to > ban those that feel that it is important to record it. I don't think that's what we are discussing. There are dedicated POV warriors who know how to stay within our behavior rules, and they camp out on articles to make sure they continue to say the same POV things. This is a bannable offense, as well it should be. But it is quite difficult for the ArbCom to assess by themselves. Usually we have been able to deal with this by focussing strictly on behavioral issues (3 revert rule, for example, or the fact that many POV warriors have other personality problems that give us other reasons to ban them). Slim Virgin very astutely identified this problem a few months back: there are people who can write in a pseudo-NPOV way about complete nonsense, and when other editors -- who are not experts in the area -- are asked to come and help, they have a very hard time sorting out what is going on. I see no problem with empowering the ArbCom in such cases to call on some outside opinions to help understand the facts of the case. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:35:19 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:35:19 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <42A48848.8020108@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42AC7257.90509@wikia.com> Sean Barrett wrote: > Fred Bauder stated for the record: > >> There is also the question of whether it is reasonably convenient to >> access it. For example, a NYT's article might cost 2 bucks but >> something that requires accessing Nexus or consulting an obscure >> journal is much more expensive. > > > So material from an "obscure" journal is less acceptable? I guess my > digging into old Soviet naval records for information about their > nuclear submarines is a waste of time. I think Fred made a tiny error in using the word "Obscure" here, but his basic point is certainly valid. A physics journal published by Harvard University and widely consulted and cited by physicists is a valid source -- an obscure website published by the Flat Earth Society is not. Assessing whether or not sources are valid is well within our range of competence in most cases. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:37:06 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:37:06 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just > waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. In one of > my own messages -- here or at the project page -- I pointed out that one > use of such a committee is to ensure that the content is being presented > in an NPOV way, or to ensure that the sources are properly represented. > Anyone can assert something and cite a book. But in some cases readers > need to know whether the author of that book was published by a > university press, a trade press, or a vanity press, or whether the book > was written by someone with a PhD. in Biblical Studies or Geology. You > might think that disputes revolving around such questions would be easy > to resolve, and of course, in many cases, they are. But sometimes they > are not, and there is a need for some mechanism to arbitrate content. I fully and totally agree with every bit of this. And I repeat very very firmly that I will never support _popular voting_ as a substitute for doing this kind of serious work to get things right. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:39:07 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:39:07 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42AC733B.3040407@wikia.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > Fred Bauder said: > >>Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties >>often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. >> > > Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their > opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society website is an > excellent reference for a description of the views of that society. Strawman argument. No one is suggesting that we can't refer to such source _for a description of their views_. What we must say, if we are to be serious at all, is that the views of the flat earth society are totally inappropriate for a serious article on serious scientific views of the world. This case is easy, but other cases are not so easy. It will be quite useful for us to have some mechanisms to fairly and seriously assess such matters. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:46:34 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:46:34 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> Erik Moeller wrote: > You appear to be operating under the assumption that someone not > interested the least in quantum physics would participate in a vote on > whether this or that study result should be included in an article about > it. This does not seem very likely to me. Nor to me. But this is one of the problems. Most of us aren't interested in pedophilia. Pedophiles are. Let's hold a vote on what the pedophilia articles should so, a vote on which references are valid, and see what happens. Instead what we should do is use serious judgment to determine how to find out which references are valid, and rely on those judgments. We can consult with psychologists and sociologists and get an idea of whether or not a particular user is acting in good faith or just citing crackpot sources to push a POV. > Wikipedia has always been based on the idea that you can trust > reasonable people to do the right thing, and that the unreasonable ones > will be a minority that we can deal with. I think that principle should > be applied here as well. Indeed, I think that no one really questions this. The real question is whether a formal voting process is the right way to deal with it. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:48:30 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:48:30 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> Erik Moeller wrote: >I think > there are community-based approaches that are not as susceptible to > error and corruption and that therefore should be preferred. And I think it is a serious mistake to suggest that his approach is not "community-based". "Community-based" means a lot more than "hold a vote". --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Sun Jun 12 17:50:03 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 19:50:03 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050609164709.75526.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050609164709.75526.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42AC75CB.9010002@wikia.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: > Exactly. All I want are groups of people that the ArbCom can consult to help it > determine just who is and is not following our content-related policies like > NPOV and NOR. Going back to an old example; I simply don't know enough about > advanced mathematics to know if a person is pushing a POV in that area or is > engaging in original research except in the most blatant of cases. It would > help arbitration a great deal if the ArbCom could ask a panel of non-involved > and vetted users who *could* tell one way or the other. I think this is very well stated. --Jimbo From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 13 01:45:47 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 18:45:47 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42ACE54B.5030808@epoptic.com> Jimmy Wales stated for the record: > steven l. rubenstein wrote: > >>Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just >>waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. > > I fully and totally agree with every bit of this. > > --Jimbo Wow. I am such scum. Let this be a lesson to me. -- Sean Barrett | Of course, misunderstanding or misrepresentation sean at epoptic.com | is something Sean is well-practiced at. | --Associate Professor Steven L. Rubenstein From erik_moeller at gmx.de Mon Jun 13 02:15:17 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:15:17 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42ACEC35.3080201@gmx.de> Jimmy: > Nor to me. But this is one of the problems. Most of us aren't > interested in pedophilia. Pedophiles are. Let's hold a vote on what > the pedophilia articles should so, a vote on which references are valid, > and see what happens. > > Instead what we should do is use serious judgment to determine how to > find out which references are valid, and rely on those judgments. We > can consult with psychologists and sociologists and get an idea of > whether or not a particular user is acting in good faith or just citing > crackpot sources to push a POV. Thanks for giving me such a nice example to work with. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rind_et_al. This is perhaps the only scientific study (a meta-analysis of existing studies) that was condemned by the US House of Representatives. It concluded that, contrary to mainstrean opinion, child sexual abuse does not necessarily cause pervasive harm in later life. Many "experts" would characterize Rind et al. as a "crackpot source". Now, there has been, over the last 25 years, a gigantic amount of hysteria about child sexual abuse in the United States. Thousands of innocent individuals have been accused of abuse in a wave of allegations, mostly based on the pseudoscientific theory that memories of abuse are "repressed" and have to be recovered by "trained therapists" in special "repressed memory therapy" which involves suggestive questioning, hypnosis, "scenario exploration", and drugs. Respected anti-pseudoscience organizations such as CSICOP have tried to alert people to this problem. Good starting points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Ritual_Abuse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder An excellent book on the topic is "Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria" by Richard Ofshe and Ethan Watters: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0520205839 Also highly recommended: "Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex" by Judith Levine: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0816640068 (With a foreword by Jocelyn Elders, the former US Surgeon General who was fired by Bill Clinton because she said about masturbation that "it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.") Suffice it to say that there was and, to some extent, continues to be an entire "therapy industry" that profited massively from creating "child sexual abuse" claims (including the most bizarre allegations of murder and torture you can imagine). Some of these "trained experts" have now moved on to "therapize" victims of abductions by extraterrestrials. What does this have to do with Rind et al.? Many of the same people who work in that industry have massively attacked the Rind study. There were methodological problems with it (particularly from a European point of view, where "child abuse" typically refers to acts with children under 14, while in the US, it often refers to persons under 18), but many of the criticisms were simply very vile personal attacks against the authors of the study. Of course, pedophiles near and far have trumpeted Rind et al. as evidence that child abuse is not harmful. To some extent, they are correct: The ridiculous assumption that a 16-year-old cannot decide to have sex and will be instantly traumatized when they do so deserves to be questioned. The age of consent is something that needs to be carefully examined on the basis of scientific evidence. To exclude individual scientists who challenge the emotional mainstream as "crackpots" is not a good way to do this. I am absolutely confident that if a pedophilia or child abuse related article was brought before the ArbCom, and they consulted with an "expert" on child sexual abuse, the chances are pretty good that said expert falls into the group of questionable psychologists described above, and that they would strongly recommend to entirely ban any mention of Rind et al. from child abuse related articles. A villified user would be positioned against a trusted and respected expert. They wouldn't stand a chance. Such a decision would be highly POV and absolutely incorrect. It is questionable whether a democratic process would lead to a better result, but at least someone quoting Rind et al. would not be treated as a crackpot by some committee which decides the dispute. At least they would have a chance to submit their arguments to the whole community on equal footing with everyone else, and the community would have a chance to read all arguments and *judge for themselves* which ones are plausible. Hence, the child sexual abuse / pedophilia example is an *excellent* reason not to delegate any kind of authority to credentialed experts. Credentialed experts are largely responsible for creating the hysteria around this topic, and many of them made a lot of money by doing so. *Especially* in cases where a topic is highly emotionalized, making decisions based on "expert opinion" is the wrong thing to do, because the expert is very likely to be biased one way or another. And I absolutely challenge the notion that, if a decision were made in a democratic process, nobody would be interested. In fact, I believe that an emotional topic like pedophilia, if properly announced, would attract a very large number of commenters and voters. Yes, there are pedophiles on Wikipedia. That doesn't mean that everything they say is wrong by default, and that we need some expert to tell us so. We can deal with these people on our own. As some have pointed out, this is a choice between credentialism and open community processes. If we choose credentialism, then we implicitly assume that experts can be trusted to do the right thing. But history shows that this is a very, very dangerous assumption to make. Open processes are the only way that we can reliably challenge experts when they happen to be wrong. Erik From erik_moeller at gmx.de Mon Jun 13 02:18:21 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:18:21 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> Jimmy Wales: > "Community-based" means a lot more than "hold a vote". Absolutely. A vote must only be held under very rigid, community-centric conditions which require and reward rational discourse and consensus seeking. That is to say, the current practice of holding votes willy-nilly if you can get away with it needs to be stopped, and a proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our highest ideals. Erik From david at nohat.net Mon Jun 13 07:13:55 2005 From: david at nohat.net (David Friedland) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 00:13:55 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English Message-ID: I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and listing particular offenders here. Do we have a policy on this? Should we? My opinion is that we should not allow or least sternly frown upon discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. Is this racist/anti-nationalist/Anglo-centric? I don't know. I like to consider myself open-minded, but there is something very ominous to me about discussions in foreign languages on the English Wikipedia. Of course, probably the vast majority of such discussions are completely innocuous, but the rest of us have no way of knowing that unless we know what the discussions are about. There is little more frustating that having a conversation (in some cases which is clearly about you) hidden in plain sight. Of course I am symphathetic to users whose first language is not English and for whom discussing in English may be difficult. However, I am hesitant to extend such sympathy to being permissive of non-English discussion on the English Wikipedia, which is, after all, written in English. In the cases I have seen, the editors who are discussing in a foreign language have demonstrated elsewhere that they are competent writers of English, so it seems especially pernicious when they "lapse" into another language, as though they are hiding something. The policy question is what to do about users who insist on carrying out discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. Users who discuss in other languages should be invited to translate their discussion (and remove the discussion in the original language to discourage responses in the original language) or have them removed. We should not remove such discussions summarily, of course, but after a set period of time given to the user to remove their discussion, informing them on their user page, etc. The policy should not apply to user pages and user talk pages, but non-English discussion on those pages should at least be strongly discouraged. It creates an atmosphere of distrust. We don't permit articles in foreign languages, so why should we permit discussion in foreign languages? Please commence with the vilifying of me for being an insensitive Anglo-centric asshole. - David [[User:Nohat]] From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 07:28:54 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:28:54 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So far I've only seen discussion in other languages in the user namespace. Exactly how common do you think this is? --Mgm On 6/13/05, David Friedland wrote: > I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages > other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and > listing particular offenders here. > > Do we have a policy on this? Should we? > > My opinion is that we should not allow or least sternly frown upon > discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. > > Is this racist/anti-nationalist/Anglo-centric? I don't know. I like to > consider myself open-minded, but there is something very ominous to me > about discussions in foreign languages on the English Wikipedia. Of > course, probably the vast majority of such discussions are completely > innocuous, but the rest of us have no way of knowing that unless we know > what the discussions are about. There is little more frustating that > having a conversation (in some cases which is clearly about you) hidden > in plain sight. > > Of course I am symphathetic to users whose first language is not English > and for whom discussing in English may be difficult. However, I am > hesitant to extend such sympathy to being permissive of non-English > discussion on the English Wikipedia, which is, after all, written in > English. In the cases I have seen, the editors who are discussing in a > foreign language have demonstrated elsewhere that they are competent > writers of English, so it seems especially pernicious when they "lapse" > into another language, as though they are hiding something. > > The policy question is what to do about users who insist on carrying out > discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. > Users who discuss in other languages should be invited to translate > their discussion (and remove the discussion in the original language to > discourage responses in the original language) or have them removed. We > should not remove such discussions summarily, of course, but after a set > period of time given to the user to remove their discussion, informing > them on their user page, etc. > > The policy should not apply to user pages and user talk pages, but > non-English discussion on those pages should at least be strongly > discouraged. It creates an atmosphere of distrust. > > We don't permit articles in foreign languages, so why should we permit > discussion in foreign languages? > > Please commence with the vilifying of me for being an insensitive > Anglo-centric asshole. > > - David [[User:Nohat]] > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 08:05:40 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:05:40 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/13/05, David Friedland wrote: > Do we have a policy on this? Should we? > > My opinion is that we should not allow or least sternly frown upon > discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. In general, I disagree with you. For practical reasons writing in other languages is already 'discouraged' if by no other means than the simple fact that few others will understand it in most places. If anything at all needs to be done, I'd suggest that someone leave a polite reminder that this is the English Wikipedia, most english-first-languagers are notoriously monolingual, and that the peanut gallery would really like a translation. :) I, for one, have been glad that speaking in foreign languages is permitted, because it is the only way I've been able to work with others when I've made the effort to contribute media I created to non-english wikipedias. If you're concerned about conspiracy, I'm afraid that the situation is already beyond hope: Those that would wish to hide their conversations from you could do so far more effectively by communicating via private mailing lists or wikis. ... They could even use the 'email this user' feature, unless you suggest that we disable it as well. :) If you're worried that someone is making fun of you, then end your worries: As you've pointed out, few people can read the material... so you've been releaved of any need to defend yourself. From delirium at hackish.org Mon Jun 13 09:29:18 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 05:29:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> Gregory Maxwell wrote: >If anything at all needs to >be done, I'd suggest that someone leave a polite reminder that this is >the English Wikipedia, most english-first-languagers are notoriously >monolingual, and that the peanut gallery would really like a >translation. :) > > Even of those us who didn't learn English as a first language would appreciate a translation, unless it happens to be in our first language, which in my case (modern Greek) it almost never is. -Mark From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 13:12:38 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:12:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> References: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> Message-ID: <2f33f2d4050613061275bec70a@mail.gmail.com> Myself a non-native speaker of English, I fully agree that diskussions on en WP should be held in English. However, IMO the policy should not be that posting in other languages than English would be "not allowed or sternly frowned upon". Rather, efforts to write in English should be encouraged. I.e., don't say "don't write in foreign languages". Say "explain what you mean in english, and if you quote sources in other languages please translate. If you find doing so difficult, please try and find someone who can translate for you" and then gently point them to the relevant Babel user category as a means to find people to ask. I have myself recently translated a quotation in Swedish, used to support a point of view, on an article talk page. I can happily do so again, if someone thinks (s)he has a good source to support his/her opinion but is not brave or confident enough to translate it to English - and finds the matter important enough to take the trouble to go ahead and ask me. If it was not important enough to take the trouble, then (s)he needn't post it. I hope, though, that I can write a short sentence,like "hi, cool to see you active at the English version as well" in Swedish on a user talk page without offending anyone. (I did once, and got a comment from him that people might not like it.) /~~~~ On 6/13/05, Delirium wrote: > Gregory Maxwell wrote: > > >If anything at all needs to > >be done, I'd suggest that someone leave a polite reminder that this is > >the English Wikipedia, most english-first-languagers are notoriously > >monolingual, and that the peanut gallery would really like a > >translation. :) > > > > > Even of those us who didn't learn English as a first language would > appreciate a translation, unless it happens to be in our first language, > which in my case (modern Greek) it almost never is. > > -Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 13 14:28:30 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 10:28:30 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42AD980E.3020507@wikia.com> Jimmy Wales wrote: > steven l. rubenstein wrote: > >>Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just >>waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. In one of >>my own messages -- here or at the project page -- I pointed out that one >>use of such a committee is to ensure that the content is being presented >>in an NPOV way, or to ensure that the sources are properly represented. >>Anyone can assert something and cite a book. But in some cases readers >>need to know whether the author of that book was published by a >>university press, a trade press, or a vanity press, or whether the book >>was written by someone with a PhD. in Biblical Studies or Geology. You >>might think that disputes revolving around such questions would be easy >>to resolve, and of course, in many cases, they are. But sometimes they >>are not, and there is a need for some mechanism to arbitrate content. > > > I fully and totally agree with every bit of this. I realize that I made a mistake by agreeing to every bit of a very long paragraph. I do not think Sean is "waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem" -- I think he has serious and genuine concerns, concerns which I think are not compelling given the nature of the proposal under consideration. No one _has_ mentioned unpopular content, but nonetheless it is of course very worthwhile to ask the very legitimate question of whether some proposal new rule would lead to the outcome of unpopular content being banned. Sean is right to raise those concerns. I apologize to Sean. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 13 14:50:24 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 10:50:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42ACE54B.5030808@epoptic.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> <42ACE54B.5030808@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42AD9D30.2050105@wikia.com> Sean Barrett wrote: > Jimmy Wales stated for the record: > >> steven l. rubenstein wrote: >> >>> Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just >>> waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. >> >> >> I fully and totally agree with every bit of this. >> >> --Jimbo > > > Wow. I am such scum. Let this be a lesson to me. I sent, under separate cover, an apology for quoting that bit. But for the record, Sean has presented here a highly edited quote of what I wrote. I quoted a very long paragraph from Steven, virtually all of which I agreed with. I made a mistake by leaving in this line. Someone finding Sean's post here might assume (if they didn't check the history) that I was agreeing with the assessment of Sean's part in this discussion as "waving a red herring". I don't, and I apologize to Sean for inadvertantly also quoting this bit. I don't appreciate my words being edited down in this fashion, which I feel might confuse people. But nonetheless the blame rests squarely on my shoulders for writing such a dramatic statement without properly checking _every bit of this_. That was wrong of me. --Jimbo From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 13 14:52:44 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:52:44 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AD980E.3020507@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> <42AD980E.3020507@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42AD9DBC.5040600@epoptic.com> Jimmy Wales stated for the record: > Jimmy Wales wrote: > I apologize to Sean. I accept without reservation. I overreacted; though I want to claim that the original accusations didn't bother me, they obviously did, and then what I mistook as a swipe from a very unexpected quarter upset me more than it should. You'd think an arbiter would have thicker skin, wouldn't you? I need to work on my calluses. Thank you, Jimbo, and I will continue to enthusiastically support Wikipedia in any way I can. -- Sean Barrett | Follow your dream! Unless it's the one where you're sean at epoptic.com | at work in your underwear during a fire drill. From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 13 14:54:09 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 10:54:09 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42ACEC35.3080201@gmx.de> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> <42ACEC35.3080201@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42AD9E11.1010400@wikia.com> Erik Moeller wrote: > As some have pointed out, this is a choice between credentialism and > open community processes. This totally mischaracterizes what this is about. It's a choice between voting and reasoned discourse. Both are community processes. --Jimbo From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 15:10:51 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:10:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AD9E11.1010400@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> <42ACEC35.3080201@gmx.de> <42AD9E11.1010400@wikia.com> Message-ID: On 6/13/05, Jimmy Wales wrote: > Erik Moeller wrote: > > As some have pointed out, this is a choice between credentialism and > > open community processes. > > This totally mischaracterizes what this is about. It's a choice between > voting and reasoned discourse. Both are community processes. A good point to bring up is the sort of participants that each of those methods will bring... Votes are far more likely to bring around the fear and emotion driven, reactionary, and mob mentality crowds than something that actually requires time and thought. But the problem with things requiring time and thought is that often it discourages so many people that the decision is ultimately made by a small group with a special interest.. and many of the more neutral people are too disinterested or two annoyed from dealing with the click that they avoid it. Which is one of the things about a number of our voting processes.. they are not strictly votes but rather the interpretation of a poll by a trusted member of our community who must answer for his or her call if it comes into question. I'd like to see more of that, and less implying that it's actually a vote. From erik_moeller at gmx.de Mon Jun 13 16:26:12 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:26:12 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AD9E11.1010400@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050607115426.03155950@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A60404.9040607@gmx.de> <42AC74FA.9010808@wikia.com> <42ACEC35.3080201@gmx.de> <42AD9E11.1010400@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42ADB3A4.8050401@gmx.de> Jimmy Wales: > Erik Moeller wrote: > >>As some have pointed out, this is a choice between credentialism and >>open community processes. > > > This totally mischaracterizes what this is about. It's a choice between > voting and reasoned discourse. Well, if this is your definition of "reasoned discourse", then you may be right. This is exactly the kind of "reasoned discourse" that I would expect if content disputes are handled on a regular basis by the ArbCom. "You're wrong. Go away." I am absolutely against a simplistic voting model without discussion and fallback options and you know it. Erik From abesokolov at hotmail.com Mon Jun 13 16:58:53 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:58:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction Message-ID: Geni wrote: 172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases... I did not "lose" my adminship due to an Arbcom case. Instead, admin abilities were removed from my account apparently at the advice of Michael Snow, after the Arbcom did not even bother to review Netolitic and Silverback's spurious charges against me. [http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023903.html]. I am not particularly interested in having them restored (nor am I even interested in returning as a regular editor), if the arbitrators are actually concerned about following their own rules and procedures in a transparent manner, they should reopen the case before allowing a user to be sanctioned without reference to process. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From abesokolov at hotmail.com Mon Jun 13 17:01:03 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:01:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Correction Message-ID: Geni wrote: 172 and Guanaco have both lost their adminship due to arbcom cases... I did not "lose" my adminship due to an Arbcom case. Instead, admin abilities were removed from my account apparently at the advice of Michael Snow, after the Arbcom did not even bother to review Netolitic and Silverback's spurious charges against me. [http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-May/023903.html]. I am not particularly interested in having them restored (nor am I even interested in returning as a regular editor). But if the arbitrators are actually concerned about following their own rules and procedures in a transparent manner, they should reopen the case before allowing a user to be sanctioned without reference to process, regarless of my level of activity. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From rkscience100 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 13 18:06:43 2005 From: rkscience100 at yahoo.com (Robert) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:06:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 42 In-Reply-To: <20050613142845.6D40B1AC17B8@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050613180644.14509.qmail@web20327.mail.yahoo.com> Erik writes: > I am absolutely confident that if a pedophilia or child > abuse related article was brought before the ArbCom, and > they consulted with an "expert" on child sexual abuse, > the chances are pretty good that said expert falls into > the group of questionable psychologists described > above, and that they would strongly recommend to entirely > ban any mention of Rind et al. from child abuse related > articles. Erik, this is a valid concern, and precisely the sort of thing that we need to look for. But your very well-written letter here sort of shows that your concerns are not a string rebuttal to Jimmy Wale's point: You proved that Wikipedia articles already expose these "experts" as crackpots! Any fair ArbCom on such subjects would _not_ base its decisions on such subjects by listening to the views of people who make bizarre claims of child abuse, child rape and child kidnapping for *profit*, as these "psychological experts" do. They have created a virtual industry in which they have claimed that *millions* of American children are raped, and even claim that hundreds of thousands of American citizens practice "Satanic Ritual Abuse" on children. I agree with all your points about how these self-appointed experts are dishonest, and have built their careers by maligning others through ad homenim attacks. I just think that our articles already show this. And I am glad that people like you are helping us build articles on these topics! People like you can help the ArbCom select geunine experts, rather than those self-appointed experts for profit. Robert (RK) __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 13 18:34:11 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:34:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050613183411.615.qmail@web60615.mail.yahoo.com> --- MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > So far I've only seen discussion in other languages > in the user namespace. > Exactly how common do you think this is? > > --Mgm It's been happening quite a bit lately on article Talk pages, especially between a certain few Users who are pushing a particular national agenda. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From anthere9 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 13 18:39:58 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:39:58 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English References: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> <2f33f2d4050613061275bec70a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42ADD2FE.30901@yahoo.com> Habj a ?crit: > Myself a non-native speaker of English, I fully agree that diskussions > on en WP should be held in English. However, IMO the policy should not > be that posting in other languages than English would be "not allowed > or sternly frowned upon". Rather, efforts to write in English should > be encouraged. I.e., don't say "don't write in foreign languages". Say > "explain what you mean in english, and if you quote sources in other > languages please translate. If you find doing so difficult, please > try and find someone who can translate for you" and then gently point > them to the relevant Babel user category as a means to find people to > ask. Nod. I think this is a very gentle approach. I like it :-) ant From dpbsmith at verizon.net Mon Jun 13 20:34:35 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:34:35 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English Message-ID: <19589737.1118694875528.JavaMail.root@vms061.mailsrvcs.net> >I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages >other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and >listing particular offenders here. Offenders? >Do we have a policy on this? Should we? >My opinion is that we should not allow or least sternly frown upon >discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. Why? Every day, thousands of discussions take place on Wikipedia of which I have no knowledge, because I don't read them. If I were actively engaged in editing a page, AND other people were conducting discussions which I could not understand, AND the result of those discussions were edits that I did not agree with, AND THEN they refused to engage with me in genuine discussions in English of the points in dispute-- then, sure, I'd take it to RfC. If they're editing a page written in English, there's a reasonable presumption that they know enough English to talk to me, so refusal to do so can be reasonable interpreted as "failure to engage." But my beef would be "failure to engage," not "discussion amongst themselves in a language I don't understand." Besides, bad as they are, the automated translation services such as babelfish.altavista.com are usually good enough to at least understand the subject being discussed in a foreign language, and tell whether it's actually germane to anything I need to know about. (We allow Cabal members to communicate with each other via secret code words and steganography in Wikipedia images, so how is this different?) From sjfrisch at nethere.com Mon Jun 13 19:02:37 2005 From: sjfrisch at nethere.com (Sondra Frisch) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 12:02:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Beatles music videos? Message-ID: <42ADD84D.6070800@nethere.com> Are there any single music videos of The Beatles??? If so, where could I find them? Sondra From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Jun 13 21:11:47 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:11:47 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050613164128.03127fc0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Sean Barrett wrote, >Jimmy Wales stated for the record: > > > Jimmy Wales wrote: > > > I apologize to Sean. > >I accept without reservation. I overreacted; though I want to claim >that the original accusations didn't bother me, they obviously did, and >then what I mistook as a swipe from a very unexpected quarter upset me >more than it should. > >You'd think an arbiter would have thicker skin, wouldn't you? I need to >work on my calluses. > >Thank you, Jimbo, and I will continue to enthusiastically support >Wikipedia in any way I can. >-- > Sean Barrett | Follow your dream! Unless it's the one where you're > sean at epoptic.com | at work in your underwear during a fire drill. Obviously Sean took offense at my stating he was waving a red-herring. I wrote in strong terms because I wanted to make a strong point. I apologize to Sean for using intemperate language. To make my position clear, "for the record," I do not believe that the proposals being floated will in any way threaten our NPOV policy, or lead to any content being deleted on the grounds that it is unpopular. I do not think that people should raise these concerns as objections to the attempt to develop a mechanism for either enforcing content-related policies, or for ensuring that content is accurate (or for both). I do believe that the people who are developing different proposed mechanisms are not intending to censor content on the grounds that it is unpopular, or that would violate our NPOV policy. I do believe that as we decide which proposal is most likely to be effective, it is important that we be vigilant in ensuring that the mechanism to be put in place explicitly states that one function is to ensure compliance with our NPOV policy, and that the procedures involved in such a mechanism focus on enforcing our content-related policies and ensuring the quality (primarily meaning that the claims of any article are accurate, that when an article, to comply with NPOV, must provide conflicting claims, that its account of the conflicts are accurate, that articles provide accurate accounts of the contexts in which such claims have been made, and that articles provide not only verifiable claims and provide sources (thus complying with two other content-related policies), that it also provides enough information, accurate and unbiased, about the source (e.g. relevant information of the author of the source, including but not limited to the person's education, current institutional affiliation, and (only in such cases where this is really relevant and appropriate to the article) religious and political affiliations, and relevant information about the source (e.g. internet, book or article? Popular magazine, newspaper, scholarly journal or archive?) And relevant information about the publication (e.g. is it peer-reviewed; is it a university press or trade press; does the publishing institution have an explicit religious or political affiliation? Is the archive of a scholarly institution (university or university or public library; a business; a religious institution; a political party or movement). These are the criteria I would use in selecting a proposal, and the issues I hope the mechanism will help police. People may share only some of these criteria, or may have others of their own. I agree that it is important that such criteria be used in selecting and developing a proposal. But I do object to flat out rejections of attempts to devise such a mechanism. Let's all think creatively, as many have, about how to develop the best, the most appropriate, and the most effective mechanism. If at the end it turns out that we cannot come up with a mechanism that the vast majority, if not virtually all, of regular contributors can agree fits their criteria, well, okay -- then we won't adopt that mechanism. But at least we will have tried. My only intention was to encourage people to be creative and constructive first, and be critical only of specific proposals once they have been formulated -- and even then, try to be constructively critical, looking for ways that we can solve the specific problem with the mechanism. Like I said, if in the end we discover that is impossible, that all the constructive attempts n the world cannot lead to a good mechanism, well, okay, at that point we give up, reminding ourselves that it was worth trying. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 21:17:29 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 23:17:29 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <42ADD2FE.30901@yahoo.com> References: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> <2f33f2d4050613061275bec70a@mail.gmail.com> <42ADD2FE.30901@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Yep, I agree. That's the best approach. Try it the friendly way, before imposing policies. --Mgm On 6/13/05, Anthere wrote: > > > Habj a ?crit: > > Myself a non-native speaker of English, I fully agree that diskussions > > on en WP should be held in English. However, IMO the policy should not > > be that posting in other languages than English would be "not allowed > > or sternly frowned upon". Rather, efforts to write in English should > > be encouraged. I.e., don't say "don't write in foreign languages". Say > > "explain what you mean in english, and if you quote sources in other > > languages please translate. If you find doing so difficult, please > > try and find someone who can translate for you" and then gently point > > them to the relevant Babel user category as a means to find people to > > ask. > > > Nod. I think this is a very gentle approach. I like it :-) > > ant > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 21:25:06 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:25:06 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Beatles music videos? In-Reply-To: <42ADD84D.6070800@nethere.com> References: <42ADD84D.6070800@nethere.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05061314256a355a87@mail.gmail.com> Dear Sondra, The place to ask general inquiries is at the Wikipedia Reference Desk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk Hope they can help you out, FF On 6/13/05, Sondra Frisch wrote: > Are there any single music videos of The Beatles??? If so, where could I > find them? > Sondra > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From beesley at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 22:03:38 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:03:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> On 13/06/05, David Friedland wrote: > I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages > other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and > listing particular offenders here. > > Do we have a policy on this? Should we? I don't see a need for a policy. It's a wiki, so anyone is free to add translations, or even replace the original text with English. I regularly leave messages on talk pages and user talk pages in English on the non-English wikis ( or for example). Should I be banned from communicated in those places? Or should people assume good faith rather than assuming distrust and simply ask me to find someone to translate it if they feel a need to read those messages? Angela. From timwi at gmx.net Mon Jun 13 22:12:10 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 23:12:10 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? Message-ID: Hi, I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no say anyway. Is this really how things are going now? Articles on topic X follow a certain style while articles on topic Y follow a completely different style? Case in question: So far it seemed to me that Wikipedia uses brackets after article titles *only* when they are required for disambiguating between otherwise identical article titles. Hence, there is the title [[Cher (d?partement)]] but not [[Haute-Corse (d?partement)]]. However, the Star Trek WikiProject has now randomly decided that this rule needs to go, and all articles on Star Trek episodes must have an extra parenthesis showing what series it's an episode of, even though most of the titles are unique as they are. Hence, [[Hide and Q]] is a redirect to [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], and all links to such pages unnessarily look like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. Add to this the fact that outside of Star Trek fandom, readers aren't likely to know what TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT mean anyway. What is everybody's opinion on this? Timwi From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 13 22:41:06 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:41:06 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42AE0B82.5090304@epoptic.com> Timwi stated for the record: > and all links to such pages > unnessarily look like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. > > What is everybody's opinion on this? That redirect is indeed unnecessary, since [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|]] (the "pipe trick") would do just as well ... or poorly. -- Sean Barrett | Non curo. Nullo metro compositum est. sean at epoptic.com | Si metrum non habet, non est poema. From shimgray at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 23:10:43 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:10:43 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 13/06/05, Timwi wrote: > > Hi, > > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > say anyway. > > Is this really how things are going now? Articles on topic X follow a > certain style while articles on topic Y follow a completely different style? > > Case in question: So far it seemed to me that Wikipedia uses brackets > after article titles *only* when they are required for disambiguating > between otherwise identical article titles. Hence, there is the title > [[Cher (d?partement)]] but not [[Haute-Corse (d?partement)]]. > > However, the Star Trek WikiProject has now randomly decided that this > rule needs to go, and all articles on Star Trek episodes must have an > extra parenthesis showing what series it's an episode of, even though > most of the titles are unique as they are. Hence, [[Hide and Q]] is a > redirect to [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], and all links to such pages > unnessarily look like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. > > Add to this the fact that outside of Star Trek fandom, readers aren't > likely to know what TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT mean anyway. > > What is everybody's opinion on this? [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies]] has a lot of discussion on this; the project was a crash project to create a standard useful stub article for every UK constituency in about three weeks (which succeeded), and (mostly) went with a policy of naming every page [[Constituency (UK Parliament constituency)]] (or Scottish Parliament, as the case may be). There was a bit of heated debate at the time, which was mostly dealt with by the reasonable enough "look, can we come back to this after the election?" The current debate is down at the bottom of that page; one point which may be of use in your context is the idea of standard redirects. ie - whatever page "Hide and Q" ends up at, have a redirect page at Hide and Q (TNG episode). This means that if you're writing an article and want to link to it you don't have to go and check if it's listed as "Hide and Q", or "Hide and Q (episode)", or "Hide and Q (Star Trek episode)"... which is often one of the reasons to use standard page titles, for linking simplicity. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 13 23:49:02 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:49:02 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5309126705061316491076324f@mail.gmail.com> > Case in question: So far it seemed to me that Wikipedia uses brackets > after article titles *only* when they are required for disambiguating > between otherwise identical article titles. Hence, there is the title > [[Cher (d?partement)]] but not [[Haute-Corse (d?partement)]]. I think you've picked a pretty bad example here. It's hardly a hard and fast rule, and there's many circumstances when it's been seen as *much* easier for the parties involved to auto-disambiguate, as with US and Australian towns. > However, the Star Trek WikiProject has now randomly decided that this > rule needs to go, and all articles on Star Trek episodes must have an > extra parenthesis showing what series it's an episode of, even though > most of the titles are unique as they are. Hence, [[Hide and Q]] is a > redirect to [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], and all links to such pages > unnessarily look like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. This could, indeed, be a problem, if there were any "rule" in the first place that they "randomly decided" needed to go. I can't see any problem with it, if that's the consensus of the editors involved - they're the ones who generally have to link to the articles. > Add to this the fact that outside of Star Trek fandom, readers aren't > likely to know what TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT mean anyway. As long as they're covered by an appropriate redirect, I really don't see the issue at all. -- ambi From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 13 23:56:41 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:56:41 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42AE1D39.8000509@epoptic.com> Andrew Gray stated for the record: > On 13/06/05, Timwi wrote: > >>What is everybody's opinion on this? > > ie - whatever page "Hide and Q" ends up at, have a redirect page at > Hide and Q (TNG episode). This means that if you're writing an article > and want to link to it you don't have to go and check if it's listed > as "Hide and Q", or "Hide and Q (episode)", or "Hide and Q (Star Trek > episode)"... which is often one of the reasons to use standard page > titles, for linking simplicity. Similarly, WikiProject Ships includes the hull number or pennant number in every ship's name, regardless of whether the ship's name is unique or not. The article is [[USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)]], even though [[USS Ronald Reagan]] (or even [[USS Reagan]]) would not be ambiguous. -- Sean Barrett | Non curo. Nullo metro compositum est. sean at epoptic.com | Si metrum non habet, non est poema. From gdr at pobox.com Mon Jun 13 22:58:00 2005 From: gdr at pobox.com (Gdr) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 23:58:00 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? Message-ID: <35dcea93856a6e0f4d34dacd46bfc934@pobox.com> Timwi wrote: > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > say anyway. This has always been the case. Specialities need their own naming schemes because the problems of naming and disambiguation are different. For example, European monarchs, European nobility, popes, cardinals and patriarchs all have their own naming schemes that differ from the Wikipedia standard; see [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)]]. Military ships have their own naming scheme, because so many ships share names; see [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)]]. So I think it's reasonable for Star Trek articles to have their own specialized naming conventions. However, if you're concerned that they are departing too much from standard conventions, you need to "bring them into the fold" by integrating the Star Trek conventions into the Manual of Style in the way that other specialized conventions have been integrated. > Case in question: So far it seemed to me that Wikipedia uses brackets > after article titles *only* when they are required for disambiguating > between otherwise identical article titles. Hence, there is the title > [[Cher (d?partement)]] but not [[Haute-Corse (d?partement)]]. > Add to this the fact that outside of Star Trek fandom, readers aren't > likely to know what TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT mean anyway. I agree that the abbreviations are not likely to be understood by many readers. But compare this case with an article like [[USS Nassau (CVE-16)]]. Who except a naval enthusiast understands what "CVE-16" means? But "CVE-16" is universally used by naval historians, the experts in the field, to identify this ship. So if the experts in the field of Star Trek universally use "TOS" to refer to the original series, then we should at least consider deferring to them. (But if they don't, then you certainly have a case for changing the convention.) From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 01:49:32 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:49:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior Message-ID: I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me of using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr. Furthermore, she has blocked editing of Feces article for content reasons, and admits it on the talk:feces page - quote: "If any regular editor wants to edit, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll unprotect." I'm pretty sure that the role of a sysop is NOT to pre-screen edits. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 01:56:02 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:56:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Furthermore, she has blocked editing of Feces article for content reasons, > and admits it on the talk:feces page - quote: "If any regular editor wants > to edit, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll unprotect." I'm pretty > sure that the role of a sysop is NOT to pre-screen edits. A fairly standard way of dealing with socks without haveing to use range blocks and the like -- geni From slimvirgin at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 02:29:53 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:29:53 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b050613192937fe8a3f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/13/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me of > using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr. [[User:Eyeon]] has been causing trouble around a number of articles for some time, including [[Feces]], where she's trying to insert a photograph of a human turd against the wishes of the editors on the page. She's has already been blocked twice for 3RR on that page, once by me, and several editors have said her behavior is troll-like. Today, Eyeon and two new accounts, Niglet and Fecologist, started reverting at [[Feces]] to the version with the photograph. Eyeon and Fecologist reverted six times in 10 hours. I therefore blocked Eyeon for a 3RR violation, and blocked the two new accounts indefinitely as sockpuppets created to violate 3RR. I also protected the page in case Eyeon turned up with more sockpuppets, and to give the other editors a rest from having to revert. I've made it clear on the talk page that I'll unprotect if the other editors want to edit. Eyeon has e-mailed me several times insisting the new accounts were not controlled by her, and requesting an IP check. I wonder about the value of that, as she may have asked friends to set up the accounts for her, which would still make them sockpuppets. I've put a request for advice as to how to proceed on [[WP:AN/I]]. If anyone here has ideas, or feels I should assume good faith and unblock, please let me know. Sarah From stacey.nj at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 02:34:51 2005 From: stacey.nj at gmail.com (Stacey Greenstein) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:34:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: <4cc603b050613192937fe8a3f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b050613192937fe8a3f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <986f0405061319341e4682a6@mail.gmail.com> I think you have proceeded with the correct course of action. Good job! UtherSRG On 6/13/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > > On 6/13/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > > I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me > of > > using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr. > > [[User:Eyeon]] has been causing trouble around a number of articles > for some time, including [[Feces]], where she's trying to insert a > photograph of a human turd against the wishes of the editors on the > page. She's has already been blocked twice for 3RR on that page, once > by me, and several editors have said her behavior is troll-like. > > Today, Eyeon and two new accounts, Niglet and Fecologist, started > reverting at [[Feces]] to the version with the photograph. Eyeon and > Fecologist reverted six times in 10 hours. I therefore blocked Eyeon > for a 3RR violation, and blocked the two new accounts indefinitely as > sockpuppets created to violate 3RR. I also protected the page in case > Eyeon turned up with more sockpuppets, and to give the other editors a > rest from having to revert. I've made it clear on the talk page that > I'll unprotect if the other editors want to edit. > > Eyeon has e-mailed me several times insisting the new accounts were > not controlled by her, and requesting an IP check. I wonder about the > value of that, as she may have asked friends to set up the accounts > for her, which would still make them sockpuppets. I've put a request > for advice as to how to proceed on [[WP:AN/I]]. If anyone here has > ideas, or feels I should assume good faith and unblock, please let me > know. > > Sarah > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From stephen.bain at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 02:49:57 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:49:57 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/14/05, Timwi wrote: > > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > say anyway. > > Is this really how things are going now? Articles on topic X follow a > certain style while articles on topic Y follow a completely different style? > I would congratulate the WikiProjects for doing the sensible thing and avoiding any possible ambiguity before it can occur. Taking your example, it might be "easier" to put Hide and Q at [[Hide and Q]]. But someone looking for that episode will either follow a link there or type it into the search box, either way they'll find it. And people who come across it randomly will know from the title exactly what it is. An episode of TNG, even though they don't know what TNG is. I agree with Gdr, specialities have their own naming conventions, for very good reasons. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From stephen.bain at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 03:00:54 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:00:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom and content in real life Message-ID: Here's an interesting RFAr I came across: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Climate_change_dispute ArbCom are still working on a decision, but the proposed decision so far is quite interesting, as it relates strongly to the ongoing RfC over the Arbitration process. Although the decision is not yet final, I think the principles so far proposed are very good ones (and well supported by precedent). The findings of fact section is very interesting also. Without wanting to interfere with the judicial process, I thought I'd pose the question - how does the community percieve this response to a content related dispute by the ArbCom? Personally I believe that the proposed decisions are very good, but I would be interested to see what other people think. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Tue Jun 14 05:30:23 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:30:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> Timwi wrote: > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > say anyway. I've recently come across a couple of examples of something like this this too, on Wikiproject Cricket. directly contains all subcategories of Category:Cricket in it, for use by wikiproject members who want a list of categories to search when categorizing new aticles. My attempts to either replace this with a plain old list page or to move the category tags into talk pages (in accordance with the category guidelines suggesting that "meta" categories should go on talk pages) were vigorously opposed by Wikiproject members. I let the issue lie for a few months since it didn't seem in any way urgent and monitoring the category's usage over that time has been useful. More recently, there's been a bunch of arguing over the usage of transclusion in articles relating to , in this case articles on individual cricket matches are being transcluded into larger articles that group them on various different criteria. I've been arguing that instead of transclusions they should be ordinary links, since this is the practice with other similar groups of articles on Wikipedia (and other reasons I won't go into here. I raised the issue at and was told there was also previous discussion at ). I'm more worried about this one because subst:ing the transcluded article text could result in a very difficult situation to reverse if it turns out to be a bad approach. Wikiprojects are excellent for bringing standardized style and organization to subject areas, but I find it trouble when this starts going in a different direction from the style and organization of Wikipedia as a whole. Wikipedia is supposed to be a general reference work, people will be reading it for all manner of different subject areas and if each subject area is organized differently it'll make it harder to follow (as well as looking more like a hodgepodge). I'm not sure that there needs to be a policy specifically about this, though; in theory it should be enough that Wikipedia's general style guide applies to all articles. In practice, it can be difficult to go against the desires of organized voting blocks like this because by definition they're more interested in these particular articles than other editors are. Not sure how to balance these things out. Perhaps we could start some sort of "WikiProject Wikipedia" dedicated to improving consistency and organization throughout the project as a whole? Seems kind of redundant, somehow. From stephen.bain at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 05:37:23 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:37:23 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> Message-ID: On 6/14/05, Bryan Derksen wrote: > Timwi wrote: > > > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > > say anyway. > > I've recently come across a couple of examples of something like this > this too, on Wikiproject Cricket. > directly > contains all subcategories of Category:Cricket in it, for use by > wikiproject members who want a list of categories to search when > categorizing new aticles. My attempts to either replace this with a > plain old list page or to move the category tags into talk pages (in > accordance with the category guidelines suggesting that "meta" > categories should go on talk pages) were vigorously opposed by > Wikiproject members. I let the issue lie for a few months since it > didn't seem in any way urgent and monitoring the category's usage over > that time has been useful. > > More recently, there's been a bunch of arguing over the usage of > transclusion in articles relating to > , in > this case articles on individual cricket matches are being transcluded > into larger articles that group them on various different criteria. I've > been arguing that instead of transclusions they should be ordinary > links, since this is the practice with other similar groups of articles > on Wikipedia (and other reasons I won't go into here. I raised the issue > at > > and was told there was also previous discussion at > ). > I'm more worried about this one because subst:ing the transcluded > article text could result in a very difficult situation to reverse if it > turns out to be a bad approach. > > Wikiprojects are excellent for bringing standardized style and > organization to subject areas, but I find it trouble when this starts > going in a different direction from the style and organization of > Wikipedia as a whole. Wikipedia is supposed to be a general reference > work, people will be reading it for all manner of different subject > areas and if each subject area is organized differently it'll make it > harder to follow (as well as looking more like a hodgepodge). I'm not > sure that there needs to be a policy specifically about this, though; in > theory it should be enough that Wikipedia's general style guide applies > to all articles. In practice, it can be difficult to go against the > desires of organized voting blocks like this because by definition > they're more interested in these particular articles than other editors > are. Not sure how to balance these things out. Perhaps we could start > some sort of "WikiProject Wikipedia" dedicated to improving consistency > and organization throughout the project as a whole? Seems kind of > redundant, somehow. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > I agree with your concerns with these cricket articles. It's fair enough for specialist WikiProjects to override global *guidelines*, things like naming conventions are the best example, but overriding global *policy*, like Wikipedia:Subpages, etc, is a Bad Thing. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 06:03:18 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:03:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <98dd099a05061323035eadea6f@mail.gmail.com> Well whatever the case, 24 hours of not editing a page on feces isn't going to be the end of the world, is it? "Pre-screening" -- also known as coming to some sort of agreement before getting into or continuing a revert war -- is often an essential way of keeping articles from getting, um, crapped up in the process of disagreement. If a user can't be bothered to discuss changes beforehand with other editors before insisting on re-inserting and reverting contentious information, I think that's a good sign of a problem. FF On 6/13/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me of > using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr. > Furthermore, she has blocked editing of Feces article for content reasons, > and admits it on the talk:feces page - quote: "If any regular editor wants > to edit, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll unprotect." I'm pretty > sure that the role of a sysop is NOT to pre-screen edits. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 06:14:06 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 02:14:06 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> This is a rather specific comment, but I heavily support this sort of thing for works of fiction in general. I think making it VERY explicit -- i.e. in the title of an article -- that a given description of events is a work of imagination rather than some sort of factual account is always a good idea. It would be easy enough to have the link [[Hide and Q]] be a redirect to [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], which it probably is, if there is no need for a disambig. But I understand that might be the pet peeve of a historian! One of the most humorous things I ever came across in Wikipedia edit histories and talk pages -- I think in the article on [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] -- was somebody who had, quite earnestly and accidentally, used an image from "The Onion" as an illustration (it was from their fake "old newspaper" style bits they run, with a picture of the Nagasaki mushroom cloud and the headline "U.S. BOMBS THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF JAPAN" or something like that). Some discussion ensued over it being a good illustration when finally, a week or so later, realized that "The Onion" is a humor magazine and not actually a historical news source, and removed it. Embarassment and apologies all around! Good reading for me, a year or two in the future. I don't present this as representative, but it is, in a sense, akin to the confusion I'd hope to dispel. I realize, however, that my desire to "mark" all cartoon characters with little badges of (cartoon character) might be seen as some sort of horrible realist segregation scheme... which it might be, honestly. Hmm. FF On 6/13/05, Timwi wrote: > > Hi, > > I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > say anyway. > > Is this really how things are going now? Articles on topic X follow a > certain style while articles on topic Y follow a completely different style? > > Case in question: So far it seemed to me that Wikipedia uses brackets > after article titles *only* when they are required for disambiguating > between otherwise identical article titles. Hence, there is the title > [[Cher (d?partement)]] but not [[Haute-Corse (d?partement)]]. > > However, the Star Trek WikiProject has now randomly decided that this > rule needs to go, and all articles on Star Trek episodes must have an > extra parenthesis showing what series it's an episode of, even though > most of the titles are unique as they are. Hence, [[Hide and Q]] is a > redirect to [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], and all links to such pages > unnessarily look like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. > > Add to this the fact that outside of Star Trek fandom, readers aren't > likely to know what TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT mean anyway. > > What is everybody's opinion on this? > > Timwi > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From david at nohat.net Tue Jun 14 07:37:05 2005 From: david at nohat.net (David Friedland) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:37:05 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> References: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Angela, I thought about precisely the situation you describe when I composed my original message. Obviously someone who is trying to communicate with users on a wiki that's in a language they don't command should be welcomed in trying to communicate in whatever way they can. My concern is with users who have demonstrated elsewhere that they have a perfectly adequate command of written English but who deliberately choose to not use English on certain article talk and Wikipedia project pages. Clearly, legislating against it is not popular here. But I think we should discourage such behavior because it's clearly intentionally exclusionary. There is a point at which good faith can longer be assumed. For example, let's say a pair of editors repeatedly revert a change I make to an article, then post some messages in a foreign language to the article talk pages as well as to their own user talk pages and the "Xyz Wikipedians' notice board". Some of these messages clearly contain my user name. How should one respond to something like that? By politely asking that they translate their messages to English? I'll start by posting machine translations and requesting that they be cleaned up enough to be intelligible. I doubt I'll get very far, though, because these editors are already on a campaign to defame me elsewhere on Wikipedia. Here's to assuming good faith! :-) - David Angela wrote: > On 13/06/05, David Friedland wrote: > >>I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages >>other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and >>listing particular offenders here. >> >>Do we have a policy on this? Should we? > > > I don't see a need for a policy. It's a wiki, so anyone is free to add > translations, or even replace the original text with English. > > I regularly leave messages on talk pages and user talk pages in > English on the non-English wikis > ( or > for > example). Should I be banned from communicated in those places? Or > should people assume good faith rather than assuming distrust and > simply ask me to find someone to translate it if they feel a need to > read those messages? > > Angela. From david at nohat.net Tue Jun 14 07:44:07 2005 From: david at nohat.net (David Friedland) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:44:07 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: <986f0405061319341e4682a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b050613192937fe8a3f@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405061319341e4682a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Stacey Greenstein wrote: > I think you have proceeded with the correct course of action. Good job! > > UtherSRG > Hear, hear! User:Eyeon is an archetypal troll, making edits in bad faith to test Wikipedians' patience under the guise of superficially reasonable argument. I would have blocked him myself long ago for being a vandal, but I had already become deeply involved in the [[feces]]-storm. I must say, though, that unwatching that page has dramatically improved my quality of life over the past couple days. - David [[User:Nohat]] From timwi at gmx.net Tue Jun 14 08:45:06 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:45:06 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Fastfission wrote: > I think making it VERY explicit -- i.e. in the title of an article -- > that a given description of events is a work of imagination rather > than some sort of factual account is always a good idea. But that's what categories are for. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 14 11:05:40 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:05:40 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English References: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42AEBA04.8010205@yahoo.com> David Friedland a ?crit: > Angela, > > I thought about precisely the situation you describe when I composed my > original message. Obviously someone who is trying to communicate with > users on a wiki that's in a language they don't command should be > welcomed in trying to communicate in whatever way they can. > > My concern is with users who have demonstrated elsewhere that they have > a perfectly adequate command of written English but who deliberately > choose to not use English on certain article talk and Wikipedia project > pages. > > Clearly, legislating against it is not popular here. But I think we > should discourage such behavior because it's clearly intentionally > exclusionary. There is a point at which good faith can longer be assumed. > > For example, let's say a pair of editors repeatedly revert a change I > make to an article, then post some messages in a foreign language to the > article talk pages as well as to their own user talk pages and the "Xyz > Wikipedians' notice board". Some of these messages clearly contain my > user name. > > How should one respond to something like that? By politely asking that > they translate their messages to English? > > I'll start by posting machine translations and requesting that they be > cleaned up enough to be intelligible. I doubt I'll get very far, though, > because these editors are already on a campaign to defame me elsewhere > on Wikipedia. > > Here's to assuming good faith! :-) > > - David Hi David But reading your answer to Angela, I feel that you are not so much talking of a general trend, but rather of a couple of very specific situations, which involves yourself. Am I wrong ? If so, perhaps the issue can be solved by a *rule* but rather by finding someone (in particular of their language) to talk to him/them and see where the problem relies ? ant From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 11:38:08 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:38:08 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> I thought categories were for rational organization? In any event, I don't consider categories very explicit -- at least in the Monobook skin, they are at the BOTTOM of the page, the LAST thing available to the reader. I like my nonsense to be labeled in a bright neon sign, if possible. But I understand this to be a somewhat undefendable bias of sorts. FF On 6/14/05, Timwi wrote: > Fastfission wrote: > > I think making it VERY explicit -- i.e. in the title of an article -- > > that a given description of events is a work of imagination rather > > than some sort of factual account is always a good idea. > > But that's what categories are for. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 14 12:32:29 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:32:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper sysop behavior In-Reply-To: <4cc603b050613192937fe8a3f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050614123229.23381.qmail@web26010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: including [[Feces]], where she's > trying to insert a > photograph of a human turd against the wishes of the > editors on the > page. To be fair, that's not strictly true. The Talk page has gone to a rather lame vote, but even discounting any possible sock-puppets, editors seem fairly evenly split on the issue. Dan ___________________________________________________________ Does your mail provider give you FREE antivirus protection? Get Yahoo! Mail http://uk.mail.yahoo.com From dpbsmith at verizon.net Tue Jun 14 12:41:36 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:41:36 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English Message-ID: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> People can and do have "private" discussions about articles via email. Is there any rule prohibiting this? Is there rule against discussing articles on this mailing list (knowing full well that not all Wikipedians subscribe to this list?) Is there any rule that forbids any discussion of an article anywhere except on that article's Talk page? If the answer to the above is "no," then what possible objection can there be to non-English discussions on a talk page? These discussions are _more_ public and accessible than _any_ of the above. From timwi at gmx.net Tue Jun 14 13:59:02 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:59:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Fastfission wrote: > I thought categories were for rational organization? But that is exactly what you're trying to use the article title for. Or what else do you mean by rational organisation? > at least in the Monobook skin, they are at the BOTTOM of the page Right, so of course we must move them into the article titles, rather than just simply modifying the Monobook skin so that they're at the top, like I've always advocated (and indeed achieved with my user CSS/JS). Timwi From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 14 14:17:56 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:17:56 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) Message-ID: I've changed the "subject line" on purpose. This is *not* really about the propriety of sysop behavior. I have seen the same thing several times (innumerable times!) since joining Wikipedia almost 4 years ago. It's called "gaming the system". You want a certain thing (for some selfish reason), so you accuse the responsible folks of impropriety. Whereupon they "assume good faith" and take your claim at face value, while you're laughing up your sleeve as you tie everyone in knots. The real issue is POLICY about images. How much do we want to shock our readers? Are we trying to re-educate them, change their attitude, enlighten them, cleanse their brains of impurities wrought by a misguided culture? I thought we were just supposed to be a reference book. When the facts are clear, we lay them out for you. What you do with the info is up to you. When the facts are not clear, we describe the controversy over "what's what". Again, what conclusions you draw after that is up to you. We're not supposed to try and change your mind. The responsible ones among us *know* we're not supposed to use the Wikipedia for advocacy. (If we ever slip into it, we always appreciate the "good catch".) But there are POV pushers still. /A chorus of shocked gasps fills the room/ *You shouldn't make such a big deal out of poo. Here's some in your face, get used to it, it's real, it's here; nothing to make a fuss over. That is prescriptive. It's an attempt to change attitudes. If we need images of human feces or dog turds or horse manure, why not create a sidebare article called [[Images of feces]]? A link or two in the article won't offend too many people. Uncle Ed From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 14:41:24 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:41:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/14/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > *You shouldn't make such a big deal out of poo. Here's some in your > face, get used to it, it's real, it's here; nothing to make a fuss over. > > That is prescriptive. It's an attempt to change attitudes. > > If we need images of human feces or dog turds or horse manure, why not > create a sidebare article called [[Images of feces]]? A link or two in > the article won't offend too many people. Hogwash. When you systematically remove informative content that your personal system of values deems as offensive or unethical you force the encyclopedia to adopt your bias: By removing content that is considered by some to be 'wrong' because it is considered to be 'wrong' we make the statement that the encyclopedia considers the content is wrong and therefor present a non neutral point of view. There are plenty of people who would be sufficently shocked by our mentioning of matters sexual or outside a single religion, so when we are done removing useful images because some people are offended do we then begin to delete articles about 'wrong' subjects? The question for exclusion should be based on the images ability to inform. We should exclude content that has no value to teach. This does not mean we should include every potentially informative image, but rather we should select the most informative subset and of the remaining equally most informative results we should select the ones which best satisfy secondary artistic and editorial criteria. So for example, perhaps a particular image of feces is considered especially disgusting but someone has found an image of equal informative ability that most consider less disgusting. Thus decision between the two images is an editorial judgement and does not interact with NPOV. I do not advocate that 'majority shock' should be encouraged or the risk of which intentionally ignored, but rather that because of NPOV all decisions of taste should take a secondary role by only being used to decide among multiple choices of substantially equally informative value. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to feces, and would like to stay that way :), so I can't fairly gauge what the informative ability of a given image is... But I strongly object to how you've framed the argument. From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 14:58:38 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:58:38 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05061407582862cd05@mail.gmail.com> > But that is exactly what you're trying to use the article title for. Or > what else do you mean by rational organisation? Taxonomy. Titles are for the "species" or even "sub-species" level of information, to use a biological metaphor, whereas categories can be used for a wide variety of classification -- from the very broad to the very specific. Additionally, categories are a much fuzzier type of classification -- they can include information from widely different types of domains. What I'm arguing for is using some sort of way to clearly and instantly designate fictional content from non-fictional (one could imagine a less intrusive "fiction" template that would do the same thing, if designed well). I see these as being separate functions with separate effects. (Again, I'm not really making a major point of this; I think it would probably be an unpleasant precedent to actually start labeling all titles in a very literal fashion, and would loathe to clutter up non-fiction works with (non-fiction) in their title.) > Right, so of course we must move them into the article titles, rather > than just simply modifying the Monobook skin so that they're at the top, > like I've always advocated (and indeed achieved with my user CSS/JS). Well, I disagree with this, for informational as well as aesthetic purposes, and think it in any event it is a separate discussion from the point I am trying to make. I think labeling something as fiction is of a higher level of importance than labeling all of the other various sets it could fall into, and the purpose of doing so would be quite different from the purpose of categories. FF From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 15:21:48 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:21:48 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I saw someone adding a whole buch of inclusions of a feces image a while back. What bothered me about it was mostly the size of the image. In some articles the images was larger than the text itself. That, and I really don't think such an image has added value in case of the article on South Park's Mr. Hankey (in which he's depicted himself). --Mgm On 6/14/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/14/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > *You shouldn't make such a big deal out of poo. Here's some in your > > face, get used to it, it's real, it's here; nothing to make a fuss over. > > > > That is prescriptive. It's an attempt to change attitudes. > > > > If we need images of human feces or dog turds or horse manure, why not > > create a sidebare article called [[Images of feces]]? A link or two in > > the article won't offend too many people. > > Hogwash. > > When you systematically remove informative content that your personal > system of values deems as offensive or unethical you force the > encyclopedia to adopt your bias: By removing content that is > considered by some to be 'wrong' because it is considered to be > 'wrong' we make the statement that the encyclopedia considers the > content is wrong and therefor present a non neutral point of view. > > There are plenty of people who would be sufficently shocked by our > mentioning of matters sexual or outside a single religion, so when we > are done removing useful images because some people are offended do we > then begin to delete articles about 'wrong' subjects? > > The question for exclusion should be based on the images ability to > inform. We should exclude content that has no value to teach. This > does not mean we should include every potentially informative image, > but rather we should select the most informative subset and of the > remaining equally most informative results we should select the ones > which best satisfy secondary artistic and editorial criteria. > > So for example, perhaps a particular image of feces is considered > especially disgusting but someone has found an image of equal > informative ability that most consider less disgusting. Thus decision > between the two images is an editorial judgement and does not interact > with NPOV. I do not advocate that 'majority shock' should be > encouraged or the risk of which intentionally ignored, but rather > that because of NPOV all decisions of taste should take a secondary > role by only being used to decide among multiple choices of > substantially equally informative value. > > I'm pretty clueless when it comes to feces, and would like to stay > that way :), so I can't fairly gauge what the informative ability of a > given image is... But I strongly object to how you've framed the > argument. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Tue Jun 14 16:44:12 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:44:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05061407582862cd05@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05061407582862cd05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42AF095C.209@shaw.ca> Fastfission wrote: >Well, I disagree with this, for informational as well as aesthetic >purposes, and think it in any event it is a separate discussion from >the point I am trying to make. I think labeling something as fiction >is of a higher level of importance than labeling all of the other >various sets it could fall into, and the purpose of doing so would be >quite different from the purpose of categories. > > > I disagree, but this whole subthread is a digression from the main point. You're suggesting that Wikipedia have a global guideline or policy of putting a parenthetical comment in the titles of articles about fictional things (In addition to Timwi's objection, the presence of a parenthetical phrase in a title would then have two completely different possible meanings which is IMO a bad idea) but the original subject was Wikiprojects that decide to disregard global Wikipedia policies in favor of their own "local" ones. If this suggestion were to be adopted as policy, what would we do about WikiProject Wormhole X-treme when it decides that _their_ policy is never to use parentheses in the titles of articles relating to that show? From phil.boswell at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 15:32:43 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:32:43 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? References: Message-ID: "Timwi" wrote in message news:d8l02r$h92$1 at sea.gmane.org... [heavy snippage...this paragraph should be representative I hope] > However, the Star Trek WikiProject has now randomly decided that this rule > needs to go, and all articles on Star Trek episodes must have an extra > parenthesis showing what series it's an episode of, even though most of > the titles are unique as they are. Hence, [[Hide and Q]] is a redirect to > [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)]], and all links to such pages unnessarily look > like this: [[Hide and Q (TNG episode)|Hide and Q]]. > What is everybody's opinion on this? For me, this goes to the "principle of least astonishment". The titles of many episodes are common phrases. It is not unlikely that someone might link to that phrase. It is a good thing that the default target for such a link is **not** a TV episode which happens to use it. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 14 15:41:05 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:41:05 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysopbehavior) Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Gregory Maxwell [mailto:gmaxwell at gmail.com] > > Hogwash. > > When you systematically remove informative content that your > personal system of values deems as offensive or unethical you > force the encyclopedia to adopt your bias: By removing > content that is considered by some to be 'wrong' because it > is considered to be 'wrong' we make the statement that the > encyclopedia considers the content is wrong and therefor > present a non neutral point of view. Who's talking about systematic removal of information? It's going to be one click away, in [[Images of poo]] or whatever you want to call it. Don't give me shit about hiding content. Oops, I mean don't accuse me of hiding shit. Hmm. I seem to be running a bit of a potty mouth today. Sorry. Ed Poor From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Tue Jun 14 17:05:42 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:05:42 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42AF0E66.2080500@shaw.ca> Phil Boswell wrote: >For me, this goes to the "principle of least astonishment". > >The titles of many episodes are common phrases. It is not unlikely that >someone might link to that phrase. It is a good thing that the default >target for such a link is **not** a TV episode which happens to use it. > > But in those cases wouldn't it be more appropriate to actually have an article about the common phrase? That way the normal disambiguation state kicks in and a parenthetical is warranted. Other episodes with titles that aren't common phrases wouldn't be disambiguated, but they also wouldn't be astonishing so they wouldn't need a special rule like this. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 16:06:15 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:06:15 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysopbehavior) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/14/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Who's talking about systematic removal of information? It's going to be > one click away, in [[Images of poo]] or whatever you want to call it. > Don't give me shit about hiding content. > Oops, I mean don't accuse me of hiding shit. > Hmm. I seem to be running a bit of a potty mouth today. Sorry. :) Well certainly it's silly to make the image huge, but out standard should be to match the style of wikipedia... and it's not normal to put basic images of a subject on their own page... It is useful for some subjects to have a gallery page on the commons, because sometimes people want to see many images... but this doesn't mean we don't include pictures in the article as well. Now, which pictures go in the gallery vs the article should be decided based on ability to inform, and only if they are equal do we decide on risk of offense. The existance of a gallery page doesn't give us the ability to violate NPOV by deciding based on our point of view over the more objective criteria of informativeness and encyclopedic merit. From phil.boswell at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 17:16:45 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:16:45 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? References: <42AF0E66.2080500@shaw.ca> Message-ID: "Bryan Derksen" wrote in message news:42AF0E66.2080500 at shaw.ca... > Phil Boswell wrote: >>For me, this goes to the "principle of least astonishment". >>The titles of many episodes are common phrases. It is not unlikely that >>someone might link to that phrase. It is a good thing that the default >>target for such a link is **not** a TV episode which happens to use it. > But in those cases wouldn't it be more appropriate to actually have an > article about the common phrase? That way the normal disambiguation state > kicks in and a parenthetical is warranted. Other episodes with titles that > aren't common phrases wouldn't be disambiguated, but they also wouldn't be > astonishing so they wouldn't need a special rule like this. Bryan he speak good sense :-) Yes, I absolutely agree. The point being that if the link to such a common phrase comes up "blue", editors will assume that such an article already exists, whereas if it comes up "red" they might be inclined to go and write it. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From avenier at venier.net Tue Jun 14 17:25:49 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:25:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> References: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <42AF131D.5070006@venier.net> Consider it Wikiquette then. Compare with a social situation where all those present share a language. For a few of the participants to suddenly switch to a language understood by only some to make private comments is quite simply rude. Of course, these same people could excuse themselves and have a private conversation or contact each other later to discuss matters in private ... socially this is more acceptable. Likewise, brash whispering in such a situation is more likely to offend than a discreet word in private later. It may indeed be objectionable, but is probably a matter of manners, not policy. dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: >People can and do have "private" discussions about articles via email. Is >there any rule prohibiting this? > >Is there rule against discussing articles on this mailing list (knowing full >well that not all Wikipedians subscribe to this list?) > >Is there any rule that forbids any discussion of an article anywhere except >on that article's Talk page? > >If the answer to the above is "no," then what possible objection can there be >to non-English discussions on a talk page? These discussions are _more_ >public and accessible than _any_ of the above. >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From avenier at venier.net Tue Jun 14 17:45:01 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 12:45:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> Message-ID: <42AF179D.1040909@venier.net> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Jack Lynch wrote: > >> Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and >> esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info >> not to be found elsewhere. >> > Absolutely! And I hope we can add much more. If it's verified as > having been proposed by somebody (which does not mean verifying that > the guy's theories make any sense), and properly sourced what more > can we ask for. What ever happened to [[WP:WIN#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information]]? I thought that was official policy. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 19:18:32 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:18:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anyone there? Message-ID: I have received no response to my inquiry, so I am repeating it here. I have been wrongly accused of using sockpuppets to circumvent the 3rr. I have been suspended, as have two others who share my views. Furthermore, the sysop has blocked edits to the page in violation of the adminship rules - for CONTENT REASONS, and she admits it at the bottom of talk:feces. I demand due process. I want an investigation. Do an IP check. Give me a call, 918-313-7160. Call the others who are blocked. This is an abuse of adminship. Me: Eyeon. Purported sockpuppets: Niglet and Fecologist. Admin: SlimVirgin. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu Tue Jun 14 19:58:21 2005 From: rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu (Richard Rabinowitz) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:58:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: fyi (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 23:23:12 EDT From: SR51 at aol.com To: rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu Subject: Fwd: fyi From rowan.collins at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 19:59:40 2005 From: rowan.collins at gmail.com (Rowan Collins) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 20:59:40 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anyone there? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05061412597344496d@mail.gmail.com> On 14/06/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > I have received no response to my inquiry, so I am repeating it here. You sent a post to a mailing list without subscribing to that list; replies *were* sent, but to the list, without explicitly sending a copy to your address, as I am now doing. This is normal on a list of this kind, since it is assumed that everyone is subscribed, and it thus acts as a kind of "forum" collecting and redistributing everyone's messages. To see the replies you missed, see the mailing list's archive at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-June/thread.html#24644 -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 20:21:09 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:21:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] talk:feces In-Reply-To: <9f02ca4c05061412597344496d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Please check the talk:feces page before deciding if SlimVirgin has behaved properly. She has misrepresented the situation. At Talk:Feces, we have THOROUGHLY discussed the issue, and public opinion is in FAVOR of including the image. 16 to 10. Furthermore, if you read her 'pre-screening' message, it is not intended to let consensus emerge. It is intended to exclude me from contributing. Read her words at talk:feces. The 24 hours is not the end of the world for me. But SlimVirgin has PERMANENTLY blocked two newbies. As far as Wiki editing goes, it IS the end of the world for them. >Well whatever the case, 24 hours of not editing a page on feces isn't >going to be the end of the world, is it? "Pre-screening" -- also known >as coming to some sort of agreement before getting into or continuing >a revert war -- is often an essential way of keeping articles from >getting, um, crapped up in the process of disagreement. If a user >can't be bothered to discuss changes beforehand with other editors >before insisting on re-inserting and reverting contentious >information, I think that's a good sign of a problem. >FF On 6/13/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: >>I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me of >>using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr.> >>Furthermore, she has blocked editing of Feces article for content reasons, > >and admits it on the talk:feces page - quote: "If any regular editor >wants > >to edit, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll unprotect." I'm pretty > >sure that the role of a sysop is NOT to pre-screen edits.> _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 20:40:27 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:40:27 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Due process ignored, two newbies banned permanently, admin blocks for content Message-ID: >[[User:Eyeon]] has been causing trouble around a number of articles >for some time, including [[Feces]], where she's trying to insert a >photograph of a human turd against the wishes of the editors on the >page. This is NOT TRUE. If you check the Talk:Feces page, it is clear that public opinion is AGAINST censoring the image. Even the poll has 16 in favor of inlining, 10 in favor of linking, and ONE in favor complete censorship. Unfortunately, this ONE is one of SlimVirgin's fellow admins. >She's has already been blocked twice for 3RR on that page, once >by me, and several editors have said her behavior is troll-like. The first time, I learned of the rule. The second time, I included a DIFFERENT, more acceptable image, but SlimVirgin ignored that distinction. >Today, Eyeon and two new accounts, Niglet and Fecologist, started >reverting at [[Feces]] to the version with the photograph. Eyeon and >>Fecologist reverted six times in 10 hours. I therefore blocked Eyeon >for a 3RR violation, and blocked the two new accounts indefinitely as >sockpuppets created to violate 3RR. They are not my sockpuppets, and one has been around longer than I have. >I also protected the page in case >Eyeon turned up with more sockpuppets, and to give the other editors a >rest from having to revert. I've made it clear on the talk page that >I'll unprotect if the other editors want to edit. She is abusing her position to control the content of the page, in violation of her terms of adminship, and against the prevailing opinion of the editors on the page. >Eyeon has e-mailed me several times insisting the new accounts were >not controlled by her, and requesting an IP check. I wonder about the >value of that, as she may have asked friends to set up the accounts >for her, which would still make them sockpuppets. That's absurd. Why would I lobby friends on this issue? Public opinion was already in my court. And is there no due process? Call me. 918-313-7160. I have nothing to hide. Call the others, if you haven't completely discouraged them. >I've put a request >for advice as to how to proceed on [[WP:AN/I]]. If anyone here has >ideas, or feels I should assume good faith and unblock, please let me >know. The request you put up is biased to get the response you want. You have misrepresented my behavior, you have blocked me from responding. Of course you will get support for your actions. Admins, CHECK the talk:feces page. When my name is slurred, CHECK the footnotes. If something looks wrong, ASK ME to explain. It's awful when an admin can ban people's contributions without due process, permanently block two newbies, and block edits on a page in violation of the prevailing opinion. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 14 20:58:36 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:58:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20050614205836.52791.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> --- dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: > People can and do have "private" discussions about > articles via email. Is > there any rule prohibiting this? > > Is there rule against discussing articles on this > mailing list (knowing full > well that not all Wikipedians subscribe to this > list?) > > Is there any rule that forbids any discussion of an > article anywhere except > on that article's Talk page? > > If the answer to the above is "no," then what > possible objection can there be > to non-English discussions on a talk page? These > discussions are _more_ > public and accessible than _any_ of the above. Well, for one thing, it's rude. And it's especially troublesome when one of the people involved is a sysop. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/stayintouch.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 14 21:00:17 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:00:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050614210018.53964.qmail@web60615.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > If we need images of human feces or dog turds or > horse manure, why not > create a sidebare article called [[Images of > feces]]? A link or two in > the article won't offend too many people. > > Uncle Ed [[Images of feces]] is currently on VfD. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From smoddy at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 21:12:05 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 22:12:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: <20050614210018.53964.qmail@web60615.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050614210018.53964.qmail@web60615.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I don't feel that including an image of human feces is inappropriate. Having it huge and then plastered all over tangentially-related articles is vandalism, and Eyeon should note that _that_ is a perfectly valid reason for being blocked. Sam On 6/14/05, Rick wrote: > --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > > If we need images of human feces or dog turds or > > horse manure, why not > > create a sidebare article called [[Images of > > feces]]? A link or two in > > the article won't offend too many people. > > > > Uncle Ed > > [[Images of feces]] is currently on VfD. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Yahoo! Mail > Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: > http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 14 21:13:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:13:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d4050613061275bec70a@mail.gmail.com> References: <42AD51EE.6030002@hackish.org> <2f33f2d4050613061275bec70a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42AF4868.1080404@telus.net> Habj wrote: >Myself a non-native speaker of English, I fully agree that diskussions >on en WP should be held in English. However, IMO the policy should not >be that posting in other languages than English would be "not allowed >or sternly frowned upon". Rather, efforts to write in English should >be encouraged. I.e., don't say "don't write in foreign languages". Say >"explain what you mean in english, and if you quote sources in other >languages please translate. If you find doing so difficult, please >try and find someone who can translate for you" and then gently point >them to the relevant Babel user category as a means to find people to >ask. > >I have myself recently translated a quotation in Swedish, used to >support a point of view, on an article talk page. I can happily do so >again, if someone thinks (s)he has a good source to support his/her >opinion but is not brave or confident enough to translate it to >English - and finds the matter important enough to take the trouble to >go ahead and ask me. If it was not important enough to take the >trouble, then (s)he needn't post it. > While it is very helpful to translate sources, one cannot escape the fact that the source was in another language, and if someone is to verify that source it will be in that original language. Translated book or article titles are very unsatisfactory because reversing the translation may not lead to the correct source. Ec From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 21:43:57 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 23:43:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <20050614205836.52791.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> References: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> <20050614205836.52791.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2f33f2d405061414431f757661@mail.gmail.com> On 6/14/05, Rick wrote: > Well, for one thing, it's rude. And it's especially > troublesome when one of the people involved is a > sysop. This sounds more and more like a specific case. Have you tried to talk to him or her about it? /Habj From stacey.nj at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 21:55:38 2005 From: stacey.nj at gmail.com (Stacey Greenstein) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:55:38 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] talk:feces In-Reply-To: References: <9f02ca4c05061412597344496d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <986f040506141455d7234a5@mail.gmail.com> Hardly. No ban by an admin is truely permanent. Any other admin can revert the ban at any time. UtherSRG On 6/14/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > > Please check the talk:feces page before deciding if SlimVirgin has behaved > properly. She has misrepresented the situation. > > At Talk:Feces, we have THOROUGHLY discussed the issue, and public opinion > is > in FAVOR of including the image. 16 to 10. > > Furthermore, if you read her 'pre-screening' message, it is not intended > to > let consensus emerge. It is intended to exclude me from contributing. Read > her words at talk:feces. > > The 24 hours is not the end of the world for me. But SlimVirgin has > PERMANENTLY blocked two newbies. As far as Wiki editing goes, it IS the > end > of the world for them. > > > >Well whatever the case, 24 hours of not editing a page on feces isn't > >going to be the end of the world, is it? "Pre-screening" -- also known > >as coming to some sort of agreement before getting into or continuing > >a revert war -- is often an essential way of keeping articles from > >getting, um, crapped up in the process of disagreement. If a user > >can't be bothered to discuss changes beforehand with other editors > >before insisting on re-inserting and reverting contentious > >information, I think that's a good sign of a problem. > > >FF > > On 6/13/05, Jane Halliwell > > wrote: > >>I am user:Eyeon. Sysop:SlimVirgin has wrongly suspended me, accusing me > of > >>using sockpuppets (user:niglet and user:fecologist) to get around 3rr.> > >>Furthermore, she has blocked editing of Feces article for content > reasons, > > >and admits it on the talk:feces page - quote: "If any regular editor > >wants > > >to edit, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll unprotect." I'm > pretty > > >sure that the role of a sysop is NOT to pre-screen edits.> > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 14 21:54:15 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 14:54:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AD9D30.2050105@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> <42ACE54B.5030808@epoptic.com> <42AD9D30.2050105@wikia.com> Message-ID: <42AF5207.2090207@telus.net> Jimmy Wales wrote: >Sean Barrett wrote: > > >>Jimmy Wales stated for the record: >> >> >>>steven l. rubenstein wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Moreover, no one has mentioned "unpopular" content and Sean is just >>>>waving a red herring to distract us from a serious problem. >>>> >>>> >>>I fully and totally agree with every bit of this. >>> >>>--Jimbo >>> >>> >>Wow. I am such scum. Let this be a lesson to me. >> >> >Someone finding Sean's post here might assume (if they didn't check the >history) that I was agreeing with the assessment of Sean's part in this >discussion as "waving a red herring". I don't, and I apologize to Sean >for inadvertantly also quoting this bit. > It's the mixed metaphor that does it. When people switch from waving red flags to waving red herrings the world has indeed become a more dangerous place. :-) Ec From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 22:03:59 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:03:59 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering Message-ID: SlimVirgin has misrepresented the situation. The photo was never larger than 250px - the same size as the other two photos. If you note on the talk:feces page, nobody ever objected to the size of photo. However, I REDUCED the size of the photos from 250px to 200px. Me. I did. Just for better layout. And the image was not 'plastered all over tangential' articles. It was added to defecation and one other. In those cases, other editors simply removed the picture, and I deferred to their judgement and did not re-post it. Is this vandalism? Jane >I don't feel that including an image of human feces is inappropriate. >Having it huge and then plastered all over tangentially-related >articles is vandalism, and Eyeon should note that _that_ is a >perfectly valid reason for being blocked. > >Sam _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From shebs at apple.com Tue Jun 14 23:01:07 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:01:07 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AF5207.2090207@telus.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606134702.033aac28@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42AC72C2.6040300@wikia.com> <42ACE54B.5030808@epoptic.com> <42AD9D30.2050105@wikia.com> <42AF5207.2090207@telus.net> Message-ID: <42AF61B3.20808@apple.com> Ray Saintonge wrote: >> > It's the mixed metaphor that does it. When people switch from waving > red flags to waving red herrings the world has indeed become a more > dangerous place. :-) "And now - you must cut down the mightiest metaphor in the forest - wiiiiiith A RED HERRING!!!" :-) Stan From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Tue Jun 14 23:10:35 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 18:10:35 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New evidence of abuse by SlimVirgin Message-ID: This is SlimVirgin's block of me from yesterday: >23:45, 13 Jun 2005, SlimVirgin blocked Eyeon (expires 23:45, 14 Jun 2005) >(contribs) (3RR violation at Feces using sockpuppets) Now today, 96 minutes before the block is to expire, she has blocked my IP address: >22:09, 14 Jun 2005, SlimVirgin blocked #24943 (expires 22:09, 15 Jun 2005) >(Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Eyeon". The >reason given for Eyeon's block is: "'''3RR violation at Feces using >sockpuppets'''".) If you look at her user contributions, this is her ONLY contribution since: >10:58, 14 Jun 2005 The timing is unmistakeable. She actually made a special effort to get online shortly before my suspension would be lifted - for the sole purpose of extending my suspension. She knew yesterday that #24943 was me, having suspended me (in error) in the past. (#24943 is not a sock puppet; it is my IP address, which I edited under before I got an account, and I still use occasionally when I just forget to log in.) Here, she is abusing her adminship to extend my suspension another day, which she still refuses to admit was a mistake to begin with. In the meantime, my name continues to be smeared on the discussion boards, and I am unable to respond. My suspension should be lifted and SlimVirgin should recuse herself. Is there no admin around who can see what's going on? SlimVirgin is abusing her position to control content. Jane _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Jun 14 23:20:51 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:20:51 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New evidence of abuse by SlimVirgin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05061416207bc9a9d9@mail.gmail.com> On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > This is SlimVirgin's block of me from yesterday: > > >23:45, 13 Jun 2005, SlimVirgin blocked Eyeon (expires 23:45, 14 Jun 2005) > >(contribs) (3RR violation at Feces using sockpuppets) > > Now today, 96 minutes before the block is to expire, she has blocked my IP > address: > > >22:09, 14 Jun 2005, SlimVirgin blocked #24943 (expires 22:09, 15 Jun 2005) > >(Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Eyeon". The > >reason given for Eyeon's block is: "'''3RR violation at Feces using > >sockpuppets'''".) This is the autoblock. When someone who is blocked tries to log in, the block8ing software automatically blocks thier IP address for 24 hours. This is to encorage people to actually just go away for 24 hours, calm down and think on why revert warring is bad! > > The timing is unmistakeable. She actually made a special effort to get > online shortly before my suspension would be lifted - for the sole purpose > of extending my suspension. No she never. > > She knew yesterday that #24943 was me, having suspended me (in error) in the > past. (#24943 is not a sock puppet; it is my IP address, which I edited > under before I got an account, and I still use occasionally when I just > forget to log in.) No it's not #24943 is a number assigned to you by the wikisoftware to hide your IP adress from people viewing the blocklog. Admins are not able to view logged in users IPs. I'm going to go and unblock you manually now. Theresa From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Tue Jun 14 23:23:15 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:23:15 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanted - help desk helpers Message-ID: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> Now that the info-en email address is on the "contact us" pages, the amount of mail is increasing, and we need more help. We are looking for a long-standing contributor with a good knowledge of the English Wikipedia and its policies and procedures. You should also have a working knowledge of other projects. You need to have infinite patience to reply to the same newbie questions time after time, and a friendly and helpful style of writing. Most important is the ability not to laugh at people who write to tell us we have a massive security hole - an edit link on each page!!!11!. Being active on IRC is an advantage - it makes a real difference to be able to talk over the tricky ones sometimes. Pay is at the usual Wikipedia rate of lots of good feeling and all the cookies you can eat. Hopefully there will be a big rush of applicants for this wonderful job, and I will ask those volunteering to answer a few mails to see if you have the style we are looking for. Jimbo will have the final say though. Please mail me directly rather than replying to the list if you are interested. Thanks, sannse p.s. I lied about the cookies From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 15 00:57:11 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:57:11 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: <42AF0E66.2080500@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <42AF7CE7.4060402@shaw.ca> Phil Boswell wrote: >Yes, I absolutely agree. The point being that if the link to such a common >phrase comes up "blue", editors will assume that such an article already >exists, whereas if it comes up "red" they might be inclined to go and write >it. > > Ah, I see - I'd thought you were arguing that _all_ episode titles should be disambiguated because some of them might be ambiguous. I certainly have no problem with disambiguating episode titles where an actual ambiguity exists, even preemptively disambiguating them before the other article exists isn't a bad idea. It was the idea of putting disambiguation parentheticals on all episode articles without exception that I had a problem with. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 14 23:44:26 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:44:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> References: <8b722b80050613150332431deb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42AF6BDA.40100@telus.net> Angela wrote: >On 13/06/05, David Friedland wrote: > > >>I have noted an increase of discussion on English Wikipedia in languages >>other than English lately. For now, I'll forgo naming languages and >>listing particular offenders here. >> >>Do we have a policy on this? Should we? >> >> >I don't see a need for a policy. It's a wiki, so anyone is free to add >translations, or even replace the original text with English. > >I regularly leave messages on talk pages and user talk pages in >English on the non-English wikis >( or > for >example). Should I be banned from communicated in those places? Or >should people assume good faith rather than assuming distrust and >simply ask me to find someone to translate it if they feel a need to >read those messages? > Comments in a language that I do not understand absolve me from making responses that I do not understand. :-) Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 15 00:18:03 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:18:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42AF179D.1040909@venier.net> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> <42AF179D.1040909@venier.net> Message-ID: <42AF73BB.5020005@telus.net> Andrew Venier wrote: > Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> Jack Lynch wrote: >> >>> Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and >>> esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info >>> not to be found elsewhere. >> >> Absolutely! And I hope we can add much more. If it's verified as >> having been proposed by somebody (which does not mean verifying that >> the guy's theories make any sense), and properly sourced what more >> can we ask for. > > What ever happened to > [[WP:WIN#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information]]? > I thought that was official policy. I said nothing about being indiscriminate with the various available nutcases. Ec From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 15 00:33:52 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:33:52 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> Message-ID: <20050615003351.GG358@thingy.apana.org.au> Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050613 12:17]: > That is to say, the current practice of holding votes > willy-nilly if you can get away with it That is a stunningly accurate description of how it actually seems to occur on en:, yes. > needs to be stopped, and a > proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our > highest ideals. I'm not quite sure how. Requiring all straw polls to be registered? - d. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Wed Jun 15 00:51:45 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:51:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! Message-ID: These are her words, at the bottom of talk:feces: 'As for page protection, I won't unprotect it at your request, but I'll do so if any other regular editor wants to edit.' This is an abuse of power. She is attempting to control the content of the article, pretending not to take a side in an content dispute, while everything she does favors the pro-censorship minority. Her behavior is a hell of a lot more offensive than any photo. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From slimvirgin at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 01:06:29 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 19:06:29 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> On 6/14/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > These are her words, at the bottom of talk:feces: > > 'As for page protection, I won't unprotect it at your request, but I'll do > so if any other regular editor wants to edit.' > I have no intention of feeding User:Eyeon (Jane Halliwell) over her accusations of censorship at [[Feces]], or her conspiracy theory about me being in control of the autoblocker. I'll say only this for the benefit of other editors who don't know the situation. Apart from the provocative editing at Feces, Eyeon has created nonsense articles e.g. [[Dieter Manisprechensie]], now deleted, about a non-existent philosopher, and a quick check through the contribs shows efforts to be provocative in several articles and talk pages, including [[Penis removal]] by inserting another image intended to shock. Feces is protected only against further attempts by Eyeon to cause trouble. If the regular editors on the page want to edit it, whether to include the image or not, I'll unprotect it. I'm not censoring the image. I'm stopping the trolling. Sarah From avenier at venier.net Wed Jun 15 01:46:31 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 20:46:31 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] My views on policies and debates over content In-Reply-To: <42AF73BB.5020005@telus.net> References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> <42AF179D.1040909@venier.net> <42AF73BB.5020005@telus.net> Message-ID: <42AF8877.4070305@venier.net> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Andrew Venier wrote: > >> Ray Saintonge wrote: >> >>> Jack Lynch wrote: >>> >>>> Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and >>>> esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info >>>> not to be found elsewhere. >>> >>> >>> Absolutely! And I hope we can add much more. If it's verified as >>> having been proposed by somebody (which does not mean verifying that >>> the guy's theories make any sense), and properly sourced what more >>> can we ask for. >> >> >> What ever happened to >> [[WP:WIN#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information]]? >> I thought that was official policy. > > > I said nothing about being indiscriminate with the various available > nutcases. > > Ec "If it's verified as having been proposed by somebody... and properly sourced" is a standard that many, many nutjobs can meet. Worthiness to be included in an encyclopedia is "what more we can ask for." From t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au Wed Jun 15 03:57:09 2005 From: t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au (Tim Starling) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:57:09 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: slimvirgin wrote: > I'm not censoring the image. I'm stopping the trolling. You can't stop trolling, only push it from one place to another. Not that that's a bad thing, by all means spread the load. And it's better if we can keep it away from the articles. Jane Halliwell wrote: > Her behavior is a hell of a lot more offensive than any photo. Hi Jane! LOL -- Tim Starling From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 04:12:39 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 00:12:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/14/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > Feces is protected only against further attempts by Eyeon to cause > trouble. If the regular editors on the page want to edit it, whether > to include the image or not, I'll unprotect it. I'm not censoring the > image. I'm stopping the trolling. Shouldn't you be taking this to arbcom rather than unilaterally taking complex measures to control what a user is permitted to edit? From stephen.bain at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 04:27:40 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:27:40 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > The question for exclusion should be based on the images ability to > inform. We should exclude content that has no value to teach. This > does not mean we should include every potentially informative image, > but rather we should select the most informative subset and of the > remaining equally most informative results we should select the ones > which best satisfy secondary artistic and editorial criteria. I think this is the correct approach. There's no problem with having informative images, even if they are of human faeces. But there's no reason why we cannot also take into account that certain people have certain sensitivities, and choose an image that is more appropriate. The image in question (a particularly sticky-looking poo) was chosen for its particularly disgusting quality. It was intended to offend, not to educate. We wouldn't tolerate intentionally offensive prose, and we should not tolerate intentionally offensive images. -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 04:35:03 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:35:03 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5309126705061421355772b5c3@mail.gmail.com> Please, save us the trouble. Let us deal with more worthy cases - people who are actually editing in good faith. Some people are just asking to be banned - sending these people to the arbitration committee just wastes our time, their time, and the time of those that have to provide evidence. -- ambi On 6/15/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/14/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > > Feces is protected only against further attempts by Eyeon to cause > > trouble. If the regular editors on the page want to edit it, whether > > to include the image or not, I'll unprotect it. I'm not censoring the > > image. I'm stopping the trolling. > > Shouldn't you be taking this to arbcom rather than unilaterally taking > complex measures to control what a user is permitted to edit? > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From mapellegrini at comcast.net Wed Jun 15 05:00:19 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 01:00:19 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! Message-ID: <42AFB5E3.5020109@comcast.net> /Please, save us the trouble. Let us deal with more worthy cases - people who are actually editing in good faith. Some people are just asking to be banned - sending these people to the arbitration committee just wastes our time, their time, and the time of those that have to provide evidence. -- ambi/ Hallelujah and Amen. --Mark From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 07:51:01 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:51:01 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanted - help desk helpers In-Reply-To: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> References: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: I would be willing to take on a few questions every once in a while. If you need some examples of my style. You can check the help desk questions I've answered so far. -Mgm On 6/15/05, sannse wrote: > Now that the info-en email address is on the "contact us" pages, the > amount of mail is increasing, and we need more help. > > We are looking for a long-standing contributor with a good knowledge of > the English Wikipedia and its policies and procedures. You should also > have a working knowledge of other projects. You need to have infinite > patience to reply to the same newbie questions time after time, and a > friendly and helpful style of writing. Most important is the ability > not to laugh at people who write to tell us we have a massive security > hole - an edit link on each page!!!11!. > > Being active on IRC is an advantage - it makes a real difference to be > able to talk over the tricky ones sometimes. > > Pay is at the usual Wikipedia rate of lots of good feeling and all the > cookies you can eat. > > Hopefully there will be a big rush of applicants for this wonderful job, > and I will ask those volunteering to answer a few mails to see if you > have the style we are looking for. Jimbo will have the final say though. > > Please mail me directly rather than replying to the list if you are > interested. > > Thanks, > > sannse > > p.s. I lied about the cookies > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 07:57:42 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:57:42 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Eyeon and SlimVirgin Message-ID: Can't you two just agree to disagree? SlimVirgin, don't call Eyeon a troll or someone with sockpuppets until you get some evidence from a developer and Eyeon, don't immediately assume SlimVirgin is editing in bad faith. After all, SlimVirgin does have a point about the deleted article and similar editing styles. --Mgm From phil.boswell at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 08:21:19 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 09:21:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: My views on policies and debates over content References: <42A932EF.6060203@telus.net> <49bdc74305061000357de9d912@mail.gmail.com> <42A9D908.5050505@telus.net> <42AF179D.1040909@venier.net><42AF73BB.5020005@telus.net> <42AF8877.4070305@venier.net> Message-ID: "Andrew Venier" wrote in message news:42AF8877.4070305 at venier.net... > Ray Saintonge wrote: >> Andrew Venier wrote: >>> Ray Saintonge wrote: >>>> Jack Lynch wrote: >>>>> Additionally, I, and assumably many others, read encyclopedias, and >>>>> esp. the wikipedia, as a source of extremely obscure and bizarre info >>>>> not to be found elsewhere. >>>> Absolutely! And I hope we can add much more. If it's verified as >>>> having been proposed by somebody (which does not mean verifying that >>>> the guy's theories make any sense), and properly sourced what more can >>>> we ask for. >>> What ever happened to >>> [[WP:WIN#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information]]? >>> I thought that was official policy. >> I said nothing about being indiscriminate with the various available >> nutcases. > "If it's verified as having been proposed by somebody... and properly > sourced" is a standard that many, many nutjobs can meet. Worthiness to be > included in an encyclopedia is "what more we can ask for." If it's the kind of nut-job-ness that the average person is likely to be taken in by, then we have a responsibility to at least mention it, together with (presumably ample) evidence that the guy **is** a nut-job and why people should **not** be taken in. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Wed Jun 15 12:31:21 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 07:31:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On agreeing to disagree Message-ID: No IP check is being performed. SlimVirgin doesn't care about evidence. She has said she will ignore the results of an IP check, and she said she will continue to ban me from editing this article for 'being disruptive'. I am being denied due process. Should I just 'agree' to stay banned? Meanwhile, public support for my edit has swelled to 18 to 10 to 2 to 1 on the talk:feces page (four categories of votes.) It is not 'disruptive' to revert a minority's censorship three times a day. It is not 'sockpuppetry' when others also take a stand. >Can't you two just agree to disagree? SlimVirgin, don't call Eyeon a troll >or someone with sockpuppets until >you get some evidence from a developer and Eyeon, don't immediately >assume SlimVirgin is editing in bad faith. After all, SlimVirgin does >have a point about the deleted article and similar editing styles. > >--Mgm _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 15 12:39:54 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:39:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <42AFB5E3.5020109@comcast.net> References: <42AFB5E3.5020109@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20050615123954.GH358@thingy.apana.org.au> Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050615 15:01]: > /Please, save us the trouble. Let us deal with more worthy cases - > people who are actually editing in good faith. Some people are just > asking to be banned - sending these people to the arbitration > committee just wastes our time, their time, and the time of those that > have to provide evidence. -- ambi/ > Hallelujah and Amen. I'll just third that. This is what the AC means when we answer clarification requests by saying "Just shoot them." Admins don't need the AC to tell them how to deal with blatant trolling. If in doubt, run it past [[WP:AN/I]], taking care to ign^Waccord appropriate notice to the peanut gallery. This is an encyclopedia, not a gallery of breaching experiments. - d. From theresaknott at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 13:35:45 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:35:45 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On agreeing to disagree In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050615063516d82dba@mail.gmail.com> On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > No IP check is being performed. SlimVirgin doesn't care about evidence. She > has said she will ignore the results of an IP check, and she said she will > continue to ban me from editing this article for 'being disruptive'. IP checks are not the be all and end all. If I wanted to start a sockpuppet account I could easily do it through a different ISP than my regular one. > I am being denied due process. Should I just 'agree' to stay banned? Whether you agree to it or not, the article is likely to remain protected for a short while. I'd just edit some other articles for the time being. Why is this one so important to you? Theresa From morven at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 13:43:31 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 06:43:31 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanted - help desk helpers In-Reply-To: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> References: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <42f90dc005061506433ea1af86@mail.gmail.com> I would be willing to help out with the emails. I have been a en.wikipedia contributor for a couple of years, am an administrator, and spend most of my life in front of a computer ;) Love the chance to help out a bit more. -Matt (User:Morven) From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 15:31:18 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:31:18 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On agreeing to disagree In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > No IP check is being performed. SlimVirgin doesn't care about evidence. She > has said she will ignore the results of an IP check, and she said she will > continue to ban me from editing this article for 'being disruptive'. > Where did SlimVirgin say that? I'd like some links; diffs if possible. --Mgm From smoddy at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 15:57:31 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:57:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Um, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mr._Hankey&diff=14680800&oldid=14680706 That is vandalism, without any doubt. I think SlimVirgin was within her rights. Harsh, but arguably fair. Sam On 6/14/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > SlimVirgin has misrepresented the situation. The photo was never larger than > 250px - the same size as the other two photos. If you note on the talk:feces > page, nobody ever objected to the size of photo. However, I REDUCED the size > of the photos from 250px to 200px. Me. I did. Just for better layout. And > the image was not 'plastered all over tangential' articles. It was added to > defecation and one other. In those cases, other editors simply removed the > picture, and I deferred to their judgement and did not re-post it. Is this > vandalism? > > Jane > > >I don't feel that including an image of human feces is inappropriate. > >Having it huge and then plastered all over tangentially-related > >articles is vandalism, and Eyeon should note that _that_ is a > >perfectly valid reason for being blocked. > > > >Sam > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From slimvirgin at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 16:18:05 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 10:18:05 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On agreeing to disagree In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b05061509187da5bfe1@mail.gmail.com> On 6/15/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > > No IP check is being performed. SlimVirgin doesn't care about evidence. She > > has said she will ignore the results of an IP check, and she said she will > > continue to ban me from editing this article for 'being disruptive'. > > > > Where did SlimVirgin say that? I'd like some links; diffs if possible. > > --Mgm I'd like to see some diffs too. I also note that [[User:SlimVirgin's Left Boob]] and [[User:SlimVirgin's Right Buttock]] have been complaining of admin abuse on WP:AN/I. No relation, I'm sure, to Eyeon, Niglet, and Fecologist. Sarah From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Wed Jun 15 17:11:02 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 18:11:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wanted - help desk helpers In-Reply-To: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> References: <42AF66E3.7030909@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <42B06126.2010303@tiscali.co.uk> Many thanks to all those who replied. We decided to choose the first two who applied as there were so many good people to choose from. We may expand the team further in the future (almost certainly if the workload keeps going up) but for now, we have added JamesF and Mindspillage. Thanks again to everyone who volunteered --sannse sannse wrote: > Now that the info-en email address is on the "contact us" pages, the > amount of mail is increasing, and we need more help. > > We are looking for a long-standing contributor with a good knowledge of > the English Wikipedia and its policies and procedures. You should also > have a working knowledge of other projects. You need to have infinite > patience to reply to the same newbie questions time after time, and a > friendly and helpful style of writing. Most important is the ability > not to laugh at people who write to tell us we have a massive security > hole - an edit link on each page!!!11!. > > Being active on IRC is an advantage - it makes a real difference to be > able to talk over the tricky ones sometimes. > > Pay is at the usual Wikipedia rate of lots of good feeling and all the > cookies you can eat. > > Hopefully there will be a big rush of applicants for this wonderful job, > and I will ask those volunteering to answer a few mails to see if you > have the style we are looking for. Jimbo will have the final say though. > > Please mail me directly rather than replying to the list if you are > interested. > > Thanks, > > sannse > > p.s. I lied about the cookies > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 18:46:11 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:46:11 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <740c3aec0506151146136b2d2f@mail.gmail.com> > not to educate. We wouldn't tolerate intentionally offensive prose, > and we should not tolerate intentionally offensive images. Only in the last 20th century there has happened hundreds of massacres that a textual description of would make anyone sick to their stomach. Should we not tolerate someone writing or reciting this? Loose the word "intentionally" because noone can accurately guess someon else intent. Loose the word "offensive" because not everyone takes offense. What you are left with is a picture of shit in an article about shit. You have heard it lots that Wikipedia is not a "vehicle of free speech". But Wikipedia is not a vehicle for the morale conservatists to present their opinion as the truth. -- mvh Bj?rn From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 18:49:54 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:49:54 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <740c3aec0506151149449b8918@mail.gmail.com> > Feces is protected only against further attempts by Eyeon to cause > trouble. If the regular editors on the page want to edit it, whether > to include the image or not, I'll unprotect it. I'm not censoring the > image. I'm stopping the trolling. Since there is currently an ongoing vote on the talk page, in which the alternative in favour of using the image has a lead, for fairness, I'd like to see the page restored to the verion in which the image is included. It is customary to let the option that has the majority opinion behind it be the protected version. -- mvh Bj?rn From delirium at hackish.org Wed Jun 15 18:52:14 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:52:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0506151149449b8918@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec0506151149449b8918@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B078DE.7060209@hackish.org> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: >Since there is currently an ongoing vote on the talk page, in which >the alternative in favour of using the image has a lead, for fairness, >I'd like to see the page restored to the verion in which the image is >included. It is customary to let the option that has the majority >opinion behind it be the protected version. > > Actually it's generally customary to protect an arbitrary version, unless there is an overwhelming majority (i.e. only one person versus everyone else). If it's even remotely close, we just protect a random version, so as to avoid continuing edit wars over which version should be protected. -Mark From bjourne at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 19:10:44 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:10:44 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <42B078DE.7060209@hackish.org> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec0506151149449b8918@mail.gmail.com> <42B078DE.7060209@hackish.org> Message-ID: <740c3aec05061512101e1a6f9b@mail.gmail.com> > Actually it's generally customary to protect an arbitrary version, > unless there is an overwhelming majority (i.e. only one person versus > everyone else). If it's even remotely close, we just protect a random > version, so as to avoid continuing edit wars over which version should > be protected. I don't think I have *ever* witnessed an admin protect a page to revistion that person did not favour. So it can't be *totally* random. :) I'd say that the custom is to protect to a the version that gets most votes, if the number of votes one casts is proportional to how much social influence one has. But it is a bad custom. Besides, now you have also received a written *request* to change to the majority opinions version. SlimVirgin also said that she would "allow" other persons than Eyeon to edit the page. -- mvh Bj?rn From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Jun 15 20:46:01 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:46:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC733B.3040407@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <0E3A8BAE-31C0-406E-98D1-730F1685DE59@ctelco.net> <1608.194.72.110.12.1118073647.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42739.194.72.110.12.1118084071.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42AC733B.3040407@wikia.com> Message-ID: <41950.62.252.0.4.1118868361.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Jimmy Wales said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: >> Fred Bauder said: >> >>>Folk with eccentric points of view such as splinter political parties >>>often maintain websites and sometimes even publish books. >>> >> >> Then those websites and books are pretty good references for their >> opinions. I don't see a problem here. A flat earth society website >> is an excellent reference for a description of the views of that >> society. > > Strawman argument. No one is suggesting that we can't refer to such > source _for a description of their views_. Then I must have misunderatood the argument entirely. That is all they could possibly be useful for.> > What we must say, if we are to be serious at all, is that the views of > the flat earth society are totally inappropriate for a serious article > on serious scientific views of the world. Absolutely. This shouldn't need to be stated. No one source can dictate the nature of reality. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Wed Jun 15 21:27:34 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:27:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] On agreeing to disagree In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05061509187da5bfe1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > > > No IP check is being performed. SlimVirgin doesn't care about >evidence. She > > > has said she will ignore the results of an IP check, and she said she >will > > > continue to ban me from editing this article for 'being disruptive'. > > > > > > > Where did SlimVirgin say that? I'd like some links; diffs if possible. > > > > --Mgm > >I'd like to see some diffs too. I also note that [[User:SlimVirgin's >Left Boob]] and [[User:SlimVirgin's Right Buttock]] have been >complaining of admin abuse on WP:AN/I. No relation, I'm sure, to >Eyeon, Niglet, and Fecologist. > >Sarah I am no relation to your left boob/right buttock friend. Read exactly what they said. They are someone who went to the arbitration committee over an issue and were turned down. They put the quote in an obscure place in a way that wouldn't help my cause, and didn't sign it. That would be a complete waste of my time. That's not me. Other people are pissed at you. It looks like you have a history of using your adminship in a disruptive way. Links/diffs/quotes to follow. Jane _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Wed Jun 15 22:21:50 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:21:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 1) Rather than suffer through continued slurs of sockpuppetry, I formally request a proper investigation. I want an IP check and I want the admins to respect the results. 2) I would like the admins to respect the wishes of the majority of editors on Talk:Feces. The page should be unblocked and the photo should be allowed to return. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 22:51:09 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 15:51:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d405061414431f757661@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050615225109.94285.qmail@web60625.mail.yahoo.com> --- Habj wrote: > On 6/14/05, Rick wrote: > > > Well, for one thing, it's rude. And it's > especially > > troublesome when one of the people involved is a > > sysop. > > This sounds more and more like a specific case. Have > you tried to talk > to him or her about it? > > /Habj Discussions have not been productive. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From beesley at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 22:56:36 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:56:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05061512101e1a6f9b@mail.gmail.com> References: <4cc603b0506141806787c5dd0@mail.gmail.com> <740c3aec0506151149449b8918@mail.gmail.com> <42B078DE.7060209@hackish.org> <740c3aec05061512101e1a6f9b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8b722b800506151556153ba586@mail.gmail.com> On 15/06/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > I don't think I have *ever* witnessed an admin protect a page to > revistion that person did not favour. So it can't be *totally* random. The only custom is to always protect the wrong version (), although the protection policy () also allows the version not favored by those violating the 3RR to be protected. Angela From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 23:03:41 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:03:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050615230341.17820.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jane Halliwell wrote: > These are her words, at the bottom of talk:feces: > > 'As for page protection, I won't unprotect it at > your request, but I'll do > so if any other regular editor wants to edit.' > > This is an abuse of power. She is attempting to > control the content of the > article, pretending not to take a side in an content > dispute, while > everything she does favors the pro-censorship > minority. > > Her behavior is a hell of a lot more offensive than > any photo. That last paragraph is certainly an opinion. Your opinion. But it is not necessarily the opinion of others. At least, as far as I am concerned, edit warring is considerably more offensive, as is repeated whining on the mailing list. Consider your behavior. Stop violating the three revert rule, stop trying to get valuable members of the community stripped of their sysop privileges, and learn to edit like a respected member of the community. Even before this began, I mentioned your very odd behavior concerning the use of the feces image on the Administrators' board. Whether you have a fetish or whether you're trolling, I don't know, but your behavior has been slightly bizarre from the very beginning. Now, like I said: Learn how to deal with others and you won't get blocked. Discuss things on the Talk pages and listen to consensus. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 23:43:19 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:43:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050615234319.90690.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sam Korn wrote: > Um, > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mr._Hankey&diff=14680800&oldid=14680706 > > That is vandalism, without any doubt. I think > SlimVirgin was within > her rights. Harsh, but arguably fair. > > Sam See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flatulence&diff=prev&oldid=14714726 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Defecation&diff=prev&oldid=14704909 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scatology&diff=prev&oldid=14680765 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sewage&diff=prev&oldid=14680795 These edits, all made on the same day, only two days after Eyeon first came on board, were what made me suggest that we needed to keep an eye on him/her. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 23:43:19 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:43:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050615234319.90690.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sam Korn wrote: > Um, > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mr._Hankey&diff=14680800&oldid=14680706 > > That is vandalism, without any doubt. I think > SlimVirgin was within > her rights. Harsh, but arguably fair. > > Sam See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flatulence&diff=prev&oldid=14714726 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Defecation&diff=prev&oldid=14704909 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scatology&diff=prev&oldid=14680765 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sewage&diff=prev&oldid=14680795 These edits, all made on the same day, only two days after Eyeon first came on board, were what made me suggest that we needed to keep an eye on him/her. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/mobile.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 23:49:48 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:49:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05061512101e1a6f9b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050615234948.27967.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> --- BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > Actually it's generally customary to protect an > arbitrary version, > > unless there is an overwhelming majority (i.e. > only one person versus > > everyone else). If it's even remotely close, we > just protect a random > > version, so as to avoid continuing edit wars over > which version should > > be protected. > > I don't think I have *ever* witnessed an admin > protect a page to > revistion that person did not favour. So it can't be > *totally* random. > :) I'd say that the custom is to protect to a the > version that gets > most votes, if the number of votes one casts is > proportional to how > much social influence one has. But it is a bad > custom. Besides, now > you have also received a written *request* to > change to the majority > opinions version. SlimVirgin also said that she > would "allow" other > persons than Eyeon to edit the page. What an utterly OUTRAGEOUS comment! Who the HELL do you think you are? To make such a vicious attack on the good names of each and every single admin?! I am appalled, and I, personally, demand an apology! RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 15 23:51:11 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 19:51:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering In-Reply-To: <20050615234319.90690.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050615234319.90690.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Rick wrote: > --- Sam Korn wrote: > > Um, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mr._Hankey&diff=14680800&oldid=14680706 > > That is vandalism, without any doubt. I think > > SlimVirgin was within > > her rights. Harsh, but arguably fair. > > Sam > See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flatulence&diff=prev&oldid=14714726 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Defecation&diff=prev&oldid=14704909 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scatology&diff=prev&oldid=14680765 > and > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sewage&diff=prev&oldid=14680795 > These edits, all made on the same day, only two days > after Eyeon first came on board, were what made me > suggest that we needed to keep an eye on him/her. It looks like we've forgotten the difference between good faith but crap and actual vandalism. It might well by that the editor in question has poor taste and judgement, and she might well be a weirdo... But that isn't vandalism. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 15 23:52:29 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:52:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050615235229.40096.qmail@web60612.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jane Halliwell wrote: > 1) Rather than suffer through continued slurs of > sockpuppetry, I formally > request a proper investigation. I want an IP check > and I want the admins to > respect the results. > > 2) I would like the admins to respect the wishes of > the majority of editors > on Talk:Feces. The page should be unblocked and the > photo should be allowed > to return. A permanent block would do just as well. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 00:00:50 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:00:50 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: <20050615235229.40096.qmail@web60612.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050615235229.40096.qmail@web60612.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Rick wrote: > A permanent block would do just as well. > RickK Hm, alas, it wouldn't work on you... you'd probably just unblock yourself. :) The request isn't out of line. The other editors on that article are not complaining that Eyeon is not cooperating. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 00:03:03 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:03:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <20050615234948.27967.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> References: <740c3aec05061512101e1a6f9b@mail.gmail.com> <20050615234948.27967.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Rick wrote: > > I don't think I have *ever* witnessed an admin > > protect a page to > > revistion that person did not favour. So it can't be > > *totally* random. > > :) I'd say that the custom is to protect to a the > > version that gets > > most votes, if the number of votes one casts is > > proportional to how > > much social influence one has. But it is a bad > > custom. Besides, now > > you have also received a written *request* to > > change to the majority > > opinions version. SlimVirgin also said that she > > would "allow" other > > persons than Eyeon to edit the page. > > What an utterly OUTRAGEOUS comment! Who the HELL do > you think you are? To make such a vicious attack on > the good names of each and every single admin?! I am > appalled, and I, personally, demand an apology! What completely random outrage. I don't see anything claimed about that anyone should be offended about. I am appalled, and I, personally, demand emails to the list that actually make sense! From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 16 00:15:27 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:15:27 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> Jane Halliwell (hundredpurses at hotmail.com) [050616 08:21]: > 1) Rather than suffer through continued slurs of sockpuppetry, I formally > request a proper investigation. I want an IP check and I want the admins to > respect the results. As one of the poeple who performs such checks (and I get so many requests for them and the consensus on what I should be able to check is presently sufficiently unclear that I only do stuff conceivable AC-related, which this isn't), I can tell you - and anyone who's read [m:CheckUser]] should also realise - that a lack of IP match would not disprove a thing. Not having an IP match is pathetically easy to arrange. As such, I'm formally telling you "no", and admins wouldn't have anything to respect even if there wasn't a match. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 01:10:13 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 02:10:13 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Photo size and tangential plastering In-Reply-To: References: <20050615234319.90690.qmail@web60614.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > It looks like we've forgotten the difference between good faith but > crap and actual vandalism. It might well by that the editor in > question has poor taste and judgement, and she might well be a > weirdo... But that isn't vandalism. They were not instantly banned so it appears we do know the difference. -- geni From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 01:27:30 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:27:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >Jane Halliwell (hundredpurses at hotmail.com) [050616 08:21]: > > > 1) Rather than suffer through continued slurs of sockpuppetry, I >formally > > request a proper investigation. I want an IP check and I want the admins >to > > respect the results. > > >As one of the poeple who performs such checks (and I get so many requests >for them and the consensus on what I should be able to check is presently >sufficiently unclear that I only do stuff conceivable AC-related, which >this isn't), I can tell you - and anyone who's read [m:CheckUser]] should >also realise - that a lack of IP match would not disprove a thing. Not >having an IP match is pathetically easy to arrange. As such, I'm formally >telling you "no", and admins wouldn't have anything to respect even if >there wasn't a match. > > >- d. So SlimVirgin is permitted to block me indefinitely from editing the article, based on nothing but suspicion, while most other admins, who agree I'm being treated unfairly, do nothing. And Dave spends more time denying me due process than he would have spent to check the IP, because there is no consensus that he should. Picture or no picture, Wikipedia is full of shit. I left notes for the newbies Fecologist and Niglet. I can't wait for them to find out how they've been treated. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 01:55:16 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:55:16 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <20050615230341.17820.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > > Her behavior is a hell of a lot more offensive than > > any photo. > >That last paragraph is certainly an opinion. Your >opinion. But it is not necessarily the opinion of >others. At least, as far as I am concerned, edit >warring is considerably more offensive, Edit warring is bad. But it takes two to tango. Why single me out? Look at the history of feces and talk:feces. Blocking me is not justified. Everyone happened to be online at the same time. On both sides of the issue. >Stop violating the three revert rule. I did not violate the 3rr. In fact, NOBODY that day did. And even if they did, that's no reason to continue blocking me from editing that page. The rules are, its a MAXIMUM 24 hour block. SlimVirgin has said she is using the page lock ONLY to keep me from editing it. The effect: She is extending the 3rr penalty for as long as she feels like. >Now, like I said: Learn how to deal with others and >you won't get blocked. Discuss things on the Talk pages and listen to >consensus. Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as any other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 to 2 to 1. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From slimvirgin at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 02:41:24 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:41:24 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: <20050615230341.17820.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05061519415238050@mail.gmail.com> On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as any > other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 to 2 > to 1. > But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be unprotected. Sarah From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 02:59:36 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:59:36 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05061519415238050@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as >any > > other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 >to 2 > > to 1. > > >But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be unprotected. > >Sarah And you'll notice that someone asking to borrow a car, doesn't always ask for the ignition key. They just ask to borrow the car. Check the talk page. People have said they want the image back. You deny them because they didn't use admin terminology? _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From sean at epoptic.org Thu Jun 16 03:11:47 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 20:11:47 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> (fun@thingy.apana.org.au) References: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <200506160311.j5G3Blu1009889@orwen.epoptic.com> > As such, I'm formally telling you "no", and admins wouldn't have > anything to respect even if there wasn't a match. Speaking as an arbiter (though not for the entire Committee, who are quite capable of speaking for themselves), I support David's decision. Ms. Halliwell will have to find another way to prove that she isn't a puppeteer (puppetrix?). I can trivially arrange to edit from three radically different sets of addresses: my home DSL, my work VPN, and a .mil network. -- Sean Barrett | Space isn't remote at all. It's only a sean at epoptic.com | couple hours' drive away if your car | could go straight upwards. --Fred Hoyle From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 03:33:45 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:33:45 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > >I did not violate the 3rr. In fact, NOBODY that day did. And even if they >did, that's no reason to continue blocking me from editing that page. The >rules are, its a MAXIMUM 24 hour block. As far as I can tell, you're not blocked at all. Rather, the page is locked. That means it's locked for everyone. And there's no maximum 24 rule on page locks. >SlimVirgin has said she is using the page lock ONLY to keep me from editing >it. The effect: She is extending the 3rr penalty for as long as she feels >like. Well, any other admin could unlock it if they wanted. And what exactly is that "penalty" again? You're not being allowed to add a picture of a giant yellow turd to a Wikipedia article? Perhaps we should alert Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 03:36:47 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:36:47 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > > >> > Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion >>as any >> > other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 >>to 2 >> > to 1. >> > >>But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be >>unprotected. >> >>Sarah > >And you'll notice that someone asking to borrow a car, doesn't always ask >for the ignition key. They just ask to borrow the car. > >Check the talk page. People have said they want the image back. You deny >them because they didn't use admin terminology? As I said before, any admin could unprotect the article; there must be at least a couple of dozen who have read these e-mails. Somehow none have, until now, found your arguments for unprotecting to be compelling; perhaps they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which is what page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 03:48:24 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:48:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > As I said before, any admin could unprotect the article; there must be at > least a couple of dozen who have read these e-mails. Somehow none have, > until now, found your arguments for unprotecting to be compelling; perhaps > they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which is what > page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. Eh, more like worried about an admin protect war, ... even less desirable. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 03:55:54 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:55:54 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Perhaps we should alert Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. > >Jay. I'm not asking for a lot. Don't mock people who ask for help. God help you if you ever need any. _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 03:58:49 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:58:49 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: <200506160311.j5G3Blu1009889@orwen.epoptic.com> References: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> <200506160311.j5G3Blu1009889@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 6/15/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > Speaking as an arbiter (though not for the entire Committee, who are > quite capable of speaking for themselves), I support David's decision. > Ms. Halliwell will have to find another way to prove that she isn't a > puppeteer (puppetrix?). But why should the burden be on the user? Can you prove that it's not you who really controls Ms. Halliwell? As you are well aware, there is no way for someone to prove they aren't... Even if they show up at a meetup with people claiming to be the other accounts it's always possible that they didn't start that way. Lets save the blocks for users who won't discuss and compromise, and save the protects for quelling active revert wars until a decision is made on the talk pages.. Votes made by people without a real contribution history should be discounted accordingly, sockpuppett or not. We seem to spend a lot of time assigning huge importance to sockpuppets when we really can't do anything about it if the user is really trying... we shouldn't bother.. Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected puppeteer, and if the socks never edit again we'll know we were right! From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 04:05:55 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:05:55 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > Perhaps we should alert Human Rights > Watch or Amnesty International. This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. It's not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell 'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. If you really think the user in question is a troll and therefor not deserving of a basic level of respect then you need to take the only action that has ever been effective in stopping trolls: Ignore them. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 04:12:58 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:12:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >perhaps they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which >is what page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. > >Jay. SlimVirgin is not using page protection to forestall a revert war. She is using it to prevent me from editing. She is on record as saying she will lift the block if anyone asks her to, with one exception. Me. _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From sean at epoptic.org Thu Jun 16 04:26:26 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:26:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: (message from Gregory Maxwell on Wed, 15 Jun 2005 23:58:49 -0400) References: <20050616001527.GI358@thingy.apana.org.au> <200506160311.j5G3Blu1009889@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <200506160426.j5G4QQC4009991@orwen.epoptic.com> > But why should the burden be on the user? For a very simple reason: because she demands that we put the burden on her. -- Sean Barrett | From my point of view, the Jedi are evil. sean at epoptic.com | --Anakin Skywalker, choosing the Dark | Side and abandoning NPOV From drspui at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 04:33:48 2005 From: drspui at gmail.com (SPUI) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:33:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05061519415238050@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050615230341.17820.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> <4cc603b05061519415238050@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B1012B.4010307@gmail.com> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > On 6/15/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > >>Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as any >>other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 to 2 >>to 1. >> > > But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be unprotected. I'll ask then. Please unprotect the page so I can restore the picture. From theresaknott at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 04:42:02 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 05:42:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0506152142e1a4db3@mail.gmail.com> > > until now, found your arguments for unprotecting to be compelling; perhaps > > they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which is what > > page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. > > Eh, more like worried about an admin protect war, ... even less desirable. I very much doubt that. Certainly the reason that I didn't unprotect the page is because I can see that jane is trolling. I don't for one minute think that If I were to unprotect the page SlimVirgin would reprotect it again. Theresa From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 16 04:51:07 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:51:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050616045107.87950.qmail@web60623.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/15/05, Rick wrote: > > > I don't think I have *ever* witnessed an admin > > > protect a page to > > > revistion that person did not favour. So it > can't be > > > *totally* random. > > > :) I'd say that the custom is to protect to a > the > > > version that gets > > > most votes, if the number of votes one casts is > > > proportional to how > > > much social influence one has. But it is a bad > > > custom. Besides, now > > > you have also received a written *request* to > > > change to the majority > > > opinions version. SlimVirgin also said that she > > > would "allow" other > > > persons than Eyeon to edit the page. > > > > What an utterly OUTRAGEOUS comment! Who the HELL > do > > you think you are? To make such a vicious attack > on > > the good names of each and every single admin?! I > am > > appalled, and I, personally, demand an apology! > > What completely random outrage. I don't see anything > claimed about > that anyone should be offended about. I am appalled, > and I, > personally, demand emails to the list that actually > make sense! Of course, you cut off the part that I was p*ssed off about, intentionally, I'm sure. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 16 04:56:26 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:56:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050616045626.35184.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jane Halliwell wrote: > Picture or no picture, Wikipedia is full of shit. Well, that did it for me, you're in my troll filter. I won't be seeing your emails any more. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Find restaurants, movies, travel and more fun for the weekend. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/weekend.html From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 05:10:58 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 01:10:58 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42AF095C.209@shaw.ca> References: <98dd099a05061323142dd81e04@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050614043863d1d80f@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05061407582862cd05@mail.gmail.com> <42AF095C.209@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <98dd099a050615221062106d2@mail.gmail.com> I agree, it is subthread, one that I didn't think would go on this long, and again, I'm not seriously pushing for this. It was meant to be simply an extension of the idea of labeling episodes and other entries which were nothing more than descriptions of fictional events (i.e. plot re-caps). But again, I'm not really trying to push it as any global policy. I apologize for taking up space with this. FF P.S. I apologize for taking up space with this apology as well! P.S.S. I apologize for that last apology too! .... and so on! ;-) On 6/14/05, Bryan Derksen wrote: > I disagree, but this whole subthread is a digression from the main > point. You're suggesting that Wikipedia have a global guideline or > policy of putting a parenthetical comment in the titles of articles > about fictional things (In addition to Timwi's objection, the presence > of a parenthetical phrase in a title would then have two completely > different possible meanings which is IMO a bad idea) but the original > subject was Wikiprojects that decide to disregard global Wikipedia > policies in favor of their own "local" ones. If this suggestion were to > be adopted as policy, what would we do about WikiProject Wormhole > X-treme when it decides that _their_ policy is never to use parentheses > in the titles of articles relating to that show? > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 16 05:11:13 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:11:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050616051114.9377.qmail@web60617.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > > As I said before, any admin could unprotect the > article; there must be at > > least a couple of dozen who have read these > e-mails. Somehow none have, > > until now, found your arguments for unprotecting > to be compelling; perhaps > > they feel that doing so would simply re-start a > revert war, which is what > > page protection is intended to forestall in the > first place. > > Eh, more like worried about an admin protect war, > ... even less desirable. It's amazing how you seem to know everybody else's motives. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 16 05:17:45 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:17:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two simple steps to make me go away In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050616051745.6839.qmail@web60618.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/15/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > Speaking as an arbiter (though not for the entire > Committee, who are > > quite capable of speaking for themselves), I > support David's decision. > > Ms. Halliwell will have to find another way to > prove that she isn't a > > puppeteer (puppetrix?). > > But why should the burden be on the user? > Can you prove that it's not you who really controls > Ms. Halliwell? > As you are well aware, there is no way for someone > to prove they > aren't... Even if they show up at a meetup with > people claiming to be > the other accounts it's always possible that they > didn't start that > way. > > Lets save the blocks for users who won't discuss and > compromise, and > save the protects for quelling active revert wars > until a decision is > made on the talk pages.. Votes made by people > without a real > contribution history should be discounted > accordingly, sockpuppett or > not. > > We seem to spend a lot of time assigning huge > importance to > sockpuppets when we really can't do anything about > it if the user is > really trying... we shouldn't bother.. > > Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: > We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected > puppeteer, and if the > socks never edit again we'll know we were right! Bored now. Off you go into my blocked addresses file. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/online.html From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 06:04:30 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 02:04:30 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy on shocking images (was: Improper sysop behavior) In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0506151146136b2d2f@mail.gmail.com> References: <740c3aec0506151146136b2d2f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050615230418b55beb@mail.gmail.com> This has nothing to do with one's political or even moral philosophy. I don't think the image has any educational value, and I also believe it was chosen just for its shock value. The entire issue has been arranged as a false dilemma. "Which do we have, no illustrations or one which is intentionally disgusting?" The more sober answer, keeping in mind the goal of the encyclopedia and cooling our jets about turning everything into a battle against "prudes", is that we should look for more images if those are only options. I'm happy to try and put together a diagram illustrating the different processes of human digestion that food matter goes through when being turned into feces. I think it would be infinitely better. Heck, I'd even try to make it up to Featured Image quality. Then maybe there wouldn't be any real question about whether linking to (rather than inlining) a picture of something that every human on the planet has probably seen on a fairly "regular" basis, yet most find repellant when presented to them in another context, is hampering any educational goals. The goals of the encyclopedia should be first on our agenda. They are enough of a dramatic statement in and of themself without having to declare ourselves so far above all models of prudery. Edit wars over what I think most people would agree count as a "shocking" image (whether or not you think it should be displayed anyway or not) are not a good use of our time. If someone knows a good reference off-hand (is there a physiologist in the house?) for the diagram in question, please feel free to send me an e-mail or leave it on my talk page. Thanks. FF On 6/15/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > not to educate. We wouldn't tolerate intentionally offensive prose, > > and we should not tolerate intentionally offensive images. > > Only in the last 20th century there has happened hundreds of massacres > that a textual description of would make anyone sick to their stomach. > Should we not tolerate someone writing or reciting this? > > Loose the word "intentionally" because noone can accurately guess > someon else intent. Loose the word "offensive" because not everyone > takes offense. What you are left with is a picture of shit in an > article about shit. > > You have heard it lots that Wikipedia is not a "vehicle of free > speech". But Wikipedia is not a vehicle for the morale conservatists > to present their opinion as the truth. > > -- > mvh Bj?rn > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From phil.boswell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 06:46:53 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 07:46:53 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! References: Message-ID: "Jane Halliwell" wrote in message news:BAY102-F1714989F3AAB040B221FDB9F50 at phx.gbl... [snip] > SlimVirgin is not using page protection to forestall a revert war. She is > using it to prevent me from editing. She is on record as saying she will > lift the block if anyone asks her to, with one exception. Me. Exactly so. You say you have huge support for unprotecting the page and restoring your image. SV's position is: find one other person to request this and she will do so. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 16 08:03:12 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:03:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does it take to be recognized as a troll? Message-ID: <20050616080312.97577.qmail@web26002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> 'Jane' is to my mind, without any shadow of a doubt, a simple troll. The best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them - they are only seeking a reaction; when they do not get one, they get bored, and go away. So that's what I suggest people do - add Jane's address to your spam filter, and move on. If you don't think Jane's a troll, well, fair enough, but I'm suprised. I really could not care less about this issue, so will be blissfully unaware of what happens further, as I've set Yahoo to trash any mails to do with it on arrival :-). Dan ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 15:03:10 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:03:10 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > > As I said before, any admin could unprotect the article; there must be >at > > least a couple of dozen who have read these e-mails. Somehow none have, > > until now, found your arguments for unprotecting to be compelling; >perhaps > > they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which is >what > > page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. > >Eh, more like worried about an admin protect war, ... even less desirable. It is highly unlikely that Slim would re-protect in the event that some other admin unprotected; she's never done it before, nor does it seem to be in her nature. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing an admin protect war; block wars, but not protect wars. It seems to me that my own hypothesis is far more likely. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 16:04:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:04:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > > Perhaps we should alert Human Rights > > Watch or Amnesty International. > >This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. No, hysterical rhetoric about pictures of turds generating huge numbers of unecessary e-mails to a list already inundated with these kinds of e-mails reflects poorly on the project, and that needs to stop. >It's not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell >'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. That wasn't baiting, that was mocking; with any luck, it will stop futher impassioned e-mails repeating the same thing ad nauseam. If it doesn't work, I'll have to resort to mass deletion of unread e-mails, as I have had to do so many times in the past. >If you really think the user in question is a troll and therefor not >deserving of a basic level of respect then you need to take the only >action that has ever been effective in stopping trolls: Ignore them. If I didn't think they were a complete troll I would indeed have ignored them. Instead I tried to bring them to their senses, and to spare the endless rounds of debate on a topic that's been thoroughly covered. Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 16:15:04 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:15:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: [only replying in part because I too am tired with the thread...] > That wasn't baiting, that was mocking; with any luck, it will stop futher > impassioned e-mails repeating the same thing ad nauseam. If it doesn't > work, I'll have to resort to mass deletion of unread e-mails, as I have had > to do so many times in the past. Okay so you're mocking someone and expecting them to say, "Oh, you know .. you're right, I'm a complete moron and I'll change my ways", or "now you've hurt my feelings and I'll go away". How often does that work? Human nature says we respond when we are attacked. At best such behavior fuels the fire, and at worst it encourages ill will and makes you look like a jerk. I don't believe that you can solve your email volume problem by sending more emails. Try a threading mail reader. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 16:24:24 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:24:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > >>perhaps they feel that doing so would simply re-start a revert war, which >>is what page protection is intended to forestall in the first place. >> >>Jay. > >SlimVirgin is not using page protection to forestall a revert war. She is >using it to prevent me from editing. She is on record as saying she will >lift the block if anyone asks her to, with one exception. Me. I imagine she thought you might revert immediately once the protection was lifted, which, of course, would re-start the war. Is it possible you were planning to do that? Jay. From avenier at venier.net Thu Jun 16 16:40:48 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:40:48 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42B1AB90.2040003@venier.net> Gregory Maxwell wrote: >On 6/15/05, JAY JG wrote: > > >>Perhaps we should alert Human Rights >>Watch or Amnesty International. >> >> > >This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. >It's not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell >'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. > > I was kind of confused to see this post right after this one: Gregory Maxwell wrote: >Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: >We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected puppeteer, and if the >socks never edit again we'll know we were right! > > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 17:51:26 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:51:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <42B1AB90.2040003@venier.net> References: <42B1AB90.2040003@venier.net> Message-ID: On 6/16/05, Andrew Venier wrote: > Gregory Maxwell wrote: > >This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. > >It's not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell > >'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. > I was kind of confused to see this post right after this one: > Gregory Maxwell wrote: > >Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: > >We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected puppeteer, and if the > >socks never edit again we'll know we were right! I have certainty made mistakes before, but I don't see where I am criticising anyone with the above. I was pointing giving an exagerated example of how the only means we have to detect a good sock with certanty are bound to cause more harm then they stop. Had I been replying to someone complaining about sockpuppets, I could see how my words would have been read as mocking. But in this case, who could I been mocking? ... In any case the sockpuppet issue is actually a hard one, and I don't think anyone with the courage to wade those waters is deserving of mockery, ... even if I disagree with their conclusions or methods. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 17:54:53 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:54:53 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Incivility and hypocrisy In-Reply-To: <42B1AB90.2040003@venier.net> Message-ID: >>JAY JG wrote: >> >>>Perhaps we should alert Human Rights >>>Watch or Amnesty International. >Gregory Maxwell wrote: >>This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. It's >>not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell >>'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. Someone implying hypocrisy wrote: >I was kind of confused to see this post right after this one: > >Gregory Maxwell wrote: > >>Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: >>We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected puppeteer, and if the >>socks never edit again we'll know we were right! But there is no hypocrisy. Gregory Maxwell was using hyperbole to illuminate an unfairness in the process. This is civil discourse. Jay JG was ridiculing someone for daring to ask for help. Very different. _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 17:55:42 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:55:42 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: >[only replying in part because I too am tired with the thread...] > > That wasn't baiting, that was mocking; with any luck, it will stop >futher > > impassioned e-mails repeating the same thing ad nauseam. If it doesn't > > work, I'll have to resort to mass deletion of unread e-mails, as I have >had > > to do so many times in the past. > >Okay so you're mocking someone and expecting them to say, "Oh, you >know .. you're right, I'm a complete moron and I'll change my ways", >or "now you've hurt my feelings and I'll go away". How often does that >work? No, I'm mocking someone in the hopes that they'll see how ridiculous they are, and will shut up rather than exposing themselves to further embarassment. >Human nature says we respond when we are attacked. At best such >behavior fuels the fire, and at worst it encourages ill will and makes >you look like a jerk. "Jane" has been attacking for a long time now, my e-mail isn't going to make that any worse. And it is defending trolls, rather than defending Wikipedia, that makes people look like jerks. >I don't believe that you can solve your email volume problem by >sending more emails. I'm going to help solve it by not responding to your e-mails on this topic either. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 18:49:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:49:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Incivility and hypocrisy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > >Jay JG was ridiculing someone for daring to ask for help. Very different. No, I was ridiculing someone for using hysterical rhetoric to attack an admin and repeatedly troll the list. A couple of e-mails were enough; your point has been made, by you, many times. Move on. Jay. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:24:04 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:24:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet Message-ID: Since I am assumed guilty of sockpuppetry until proven innocent, the burden is on me to show evidence that I am not. I found some. I reviewed user contribuitions, and I found that I and Niglet were both active on June 3 between 06:00 and 10:00. I have mapped the times of my contributions to Niglet's (bear with me, there is a point to this.) # = me, * = niglet. # 10:22, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Anus (→See also) * 10:03, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Talk:Feces (→Pictures) * 09:49, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Lawrence Einhorn (top) * 09:46, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Testicular cancer (→Treatment ...Einhorn) * 09:45, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Lawrence Einhorn * 09:45, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (New) Dr. Lawrence Einhorn (Dr. Lawre....Einhorn) (top) * 09:40, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Lawrence Einhorn * 09:38, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Lawrence Einhorn * 09:31, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Lawrence Einhorn * 09:27, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (New) Image:Dr Lawrence Einhorn.jpg ... * 09:06, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Testicular cancer (→Treatment - Chemotherapy details) # 09:00, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Talk:Anus (→Shall there be no photos?) # 09:00, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Talk:Anus (→Shall there be no photos?) * 08:46, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Talk:Human penis size (→2 or 2.5 Standard deviations?) * 08:39, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Human penis size (→See also - Ron Jeremy) * 07:36, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Poop (Removed image) # 07:09, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Hendrikje van Andel (→Quote) # 07:08, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Hendrikje van Andel (→Quote) # 07:08, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Hendrikje van Andel (→Quote) # 06:53, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Squitten (top) * 06:39, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Poop (Reverted to include image) # 06:39, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Anus (→Hygiene) * 06:29, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) m Feces (Added image) * 06:27, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Feces (→See also) * 06:22, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Black Eyed Peas (→See also) # 06:04, 3 Jun 2005 (hist) (diff) Anus (→Structure) If one is to believe that I and Niglet are the same, one MUST believe that the record shows the following: 1) I am using two computers with different IPs simultaneously to edit (since both userIDs contributed at exactly 06:39). 2) I designated one userID exclusively for anus, squitten, and hendrikje van andel, while the other userID was used only for black eyed peas, feces, poop, penis, testicular cancer, and a Dr. Einhorn. 3) I changed seats eight times in four hours and was able to keep straight which computer was to be used for which articles. 4) Since this seat hopping and article segregation gave me no edit advantage at the time, it must have been in order to establish an alibi for a sockpuppetry scam which I was planning for ten days later. Jane _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:26:11 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:26:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > >Since I am assumed guilty of sockpuppetry until proven innocent, the burden >is on me to show evidence that I am not. I found some. > >I reviewed user contribuitions, and I found that I and Niglet were both >active on June 3 between 06:00 and 10:00. I have mapped the times of my >contributions to Niglet's (bear with me, there is a point to this.) # = me, >* = niglet. >etc. There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the same time. Move on. Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:31:36 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:31:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: > There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the same > time. > > Move on. Sure. So we tell the user it's their burden to prove they aren't a sock.. but it's clear that no such proof is possible. Why didn't we save the user the time and just tell them they've been branded for life? From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:36:11 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:36:11 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "JAY JG" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet >Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:26:11 -0400 > >>From: "Jane Halliwell" >> >>Since I am assumed guilty of sockpuppetry until proven innocent, the >>burden is on me to show evidence that I am not. I found some. >> >>I reviewed user contribuitions, and I found that I and Niglet were both >>active on June 3 between 06:00 and 10:00. I have mapped the times of my >>contributions to Niglet's (bear with me, there is a point to this.) # = >>me, * = niglet. >>etc. > >There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the >same time. > >Move on. > >Jay. Running 2 IPs on one computer doesn't make sense in light of the rest of the evidence I presented. Did you read it? Your email is time stamped 2 minutes after mine. _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:46:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:46:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Gregory Maxwell > >On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: > > There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the >same > > time. > > > > Move on. > >Sure. >So we tell the user it's their burden to prove they aren't a sock.. >but it's clear that no such proof is possible. No-one has been told any such thing, precisely for that reason. >Why didn't we save the user the time and just tell them they've been >branded for life? They haven't been "branded" at all, they've been accused of sockpuppetry by one editor. Is there no end to the hysterical rhetoric bandied about on this list? Get a grip. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:49:41 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:49:41 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Jane Halliwell" > >Running 2 IPs on one computer doesn't make sense in light of the rest of >the evidence I presented. Did you read it? Your email is time stamped 2 >minutes after mine. Accept that it can be done. You can't prove someone is NOT a sockpuppet, you can only prove that they ARE one. You've been accused, you've denied it. Is there anything else that needs to be said on the topic? Jay. From shimgray at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:52:34 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 20:52:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16/06/05, JAY JG wrote: > >I reviewed user contribuitions, and I found that I and Niglet were both > >active on June 3 between 06:00 and 10:00. I have mapped the times of my > >contributions to Niglet's (bear with me, there is a point to this.) # = me, > >* = niglet. > >etc. > > There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the same > time. Just a sidenote: It may be worth pointing out that it doesn't even need two IP addresses - running two different browsers on the same machine, logged in under different accounts, ought to do it. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 19:57:31 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:57:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Andrew Gray > > There are technical ways that can be done from the same computer at the >same > > time. > >Just a sidenote: It may be worth pointing out that it doesn't even >need two IP addresses - running two different browsers on the same >machine, logged in under different accounts, ought to do it. Right, well I didn't want to get into the details, so as not to encourage people. A year ago I was completely unaware of all of this, but [[User:Alberuni]] taught me more than I need to know. Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 20:06:09 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:06:09 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/16/05, Andrew Gray wrote: > Just a sidenote: It may be worth pointing out that it doesn't even > need two IP addresses - running two different browsers on the same > machine, logged in under different accounts, ought to do it. Ah, but earlier David refused to preform or disclose the results of performing an IP address verification because the user could still be using socks and be editing from the same IP. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 20:15:40 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:15:40 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And if those IPs come from two different cities or completely different countries, that should discount any likely sockpuppetry. -Mgm On 6/16/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/16/05, Andrew Gray wrote: > > Just a sidenote: It may be worth pointing out that it doesn't even > > need two IP addresses - running two different browsers on the same > > machine, logged in under different accounts, ought to do it. > > Ah, but earlier David refused to preform or disclose the results of > performing an IP address verification because the user could still be > using socks and be editing from the same IP. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 20:19:20 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:19:20 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > >And if those IPs come from two different cities or completely >different countries, that should discount any likely sockpuppetry. Not necessarily; that was my point. Jay. From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 16 20:24:32 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:24:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050616202432.43099.qmail@web26003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> OK, who changed the subject so this stuff can get past my filters... Are some people having trouble recognizing trolling? Dan ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 20:51:58 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:51:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A promise In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>I don't believe that you can solve your email volume problem by >>sending more emails. > >I'm going to help solve it by not responding to your e-mails on this topic >either. > >Jay. If you honor this promise, I will donate ten dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation in your name. Eyeon/Jane _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ From avenier at venier.net Thu Jun 16 20:53:16 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:53:16 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: <42B1AB90.2040003@venier.net> Message-ID: <42B1E6BC.5050100@venier.net> Gregory Maxwell wrote: >On 6/16/05, Andrew Venier wrote: > > >>Gregory Maxwell wrote: >> >> >>>This sort of disrespectful language reflects poorly on the project. >>>It's not acceptable to bait people with such jabs just so you can yell >>>'look see' when the victim meets your incivility with more incivility. >>> >>> > > > >>I was kind of confused to see this post right after this one: >> >> > > > >>Gregory Maxwell wrote: >> >> >>>Oh I know, we'll have a wikisockpuppet test: >>>We will send ninjas to go kill the suspected puppeteer, and if the >>>socks never edit again we'll know we were right! >>> >>> > >I have certainty made mistakes before, but I don't see where I am >criticising anyone with the above. I was pointing giving an >exagerated example of how the only means we have to detect a good sock >with certanty are bound to cause more harm then they stop. > >Had I been replying to someone complaining about sockpuppets, I could >see how my words would have been read as mocking. But in this case, >who could I been mocking? ... > >In any case the sockpuppet issue is actually a hard one, and I don't >think anyone with the courage to wade those waters is deserving of >mockery, ... even if I disagree with their conclusions or methods. > As far as I am concerned, both statements (yours and JayJG's) were plain and simple sarcasm. You were apparently mocking anyone who cares to address sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry. And for future reference, the disingenuous "Oh I know," is a big tip-off to sarcasm. From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 20:39:35 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:39:35 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins: Meet niglet. Niglet: Meet the admins. Message-ID: To the admins: A few days ago, I posted a message for Niglet to contact me when he got online and found himself banned as a sockpuppet. I should have read all my email. He contacted me last night. I am forwarding his email below. It doesn't say much, but I'm sure he'll have more to say. Let me save JayJG the effort of compiling his next snide retort, by conceding that I could have created Niglet's email address myself. This post isn't for you, JayJG. It's for the admins willing to look at the evidence. To Niglet: Here is a link to the archives of the discussion, showing why you've been banned. Scroll down, the discussion starts with the posting titled 'improper sysop behavior'. http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-June/thread.html#24644 Once you've read enough to see what's happening, here is the mailing list address. Expect a frosty response. Most have already decided that you are me. wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Have fun guys. Eyeon/Jane >From: Niglet >To: Eyeon >Subject: My block >Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 05:45:18 GMT > >Hey Eyeon. What can we do about this problem? > > _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 21:18:28 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:18:28 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SlimVirgin not honoring SPUI's request In-Reply-To: <42B1012B.4010307@gmail.com> Message-ID: >>>Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as >>>any >>>other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 to >>>2 >>>to 1. >>> >>>Eyeon/Jane >>But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be >>unprotected. >> >>SlimVirgin >I'll ask then. Please unprotect the page so I can restore the picture. > >SPUI SlimVirgin has not honored her promise to lift the block when another editor asked. About 18 hours have passed since SPUI's request. She received it via email and a notice was placed on her talk page. She's been online and contributing, so there is little question she got the message. Eyeon _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From nathanreed at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 21:22:18 2005 From: nathanreed at gmail.com (Nathan Reed) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:22:18 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SlimVirgin not honoring SPUI's request In-Reply-To: References: <42B1012B.4010307@gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm completely disinterested, really, but I don't know why you can't take a few days, cool off, and reapproach this Feces subject (if you wish) later. Why not work on some other articles in the interim? -N. On 6/16/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > >>>Have you seen the Talk page? I have as many entries in the discussion as > >>>any > >>>other editor, and public opinion was in favor of my position: 18 to 10 to > >>>2 > >>>to 1. > >>> > >>>Eyeon/Jane > > >>But you'll notice no other editor has asked for the page to be > >>unprotected. > >> > >>SlimVirgin > > >I'll ask then. Please unprotect the page so I can restore the picture. > > > >SPUI > > SlimVirgin has not honored her promise to lift the block when another editor > asked. About 18 hours have passed since SPUI's request. She received it via > email and a notice was placed on her talk page. She's been online and > contributing, so there is little question she got the message. > > Eyeon > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:04:45 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:04:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Exactly so. You say you have huge support for unprotecting the page and >restoring your image. > >SV's position is: find one other person to request this and she will do so. >-- >Phil At the bottom of talk:feces, there is now a LIST of people who want her to unblock the article, and she's still refusing. Now, she says she wants a 'consensus'. Jane/Eyeon _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:16:07 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:16:07 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh for heck's sake. I have unprotected it, but if the revert war restarts, I shall protect again. Sam On 6/16/05, Jane Halliwell wrote: > > >Exactly so. You say you have huge support for unprotecting the page and > >restoring your image. > > > >SV's position is: find one other person to request this and she will do > so. > >-- > >Phil > > At the bottom of talk:feces, there is now a LIST of people who want her to > unblock the article, and she's still refusing. Now, she says she wants a > 'consensus'. > > Jane/Eyeon > > _________________________________________________________________ > FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! > http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From slimvirgin at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:27:47 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:27:47 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b05061615272d801eea@mail.gmail.com> On 6/16/05, Sam Korn wrote: > Oh for heck's sake. I have unprotected it, but if the revert war restarts, I > shall protect again. With respect, Sam, I feel that for you to unlock the page was to give into the trolling of this mailing list. I placed a note on the talk page of the article only an hour ago asking whether people wanted the page unlocked. So far, there was one for and one against, not counting Eyeon, and it would have been nice to wait to see what the others wanted. However, I won't interfere. Eyeon would be delighted if she could cause us all to fall out. Sarah From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 16 22:30:24 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:30:24 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050616223024.GJ358@thingy.apana.org.au> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050617 06:15]: > And if those IPs come from two different cities or completely > different countries, that should discount any likely sockpuppetry. Not in the least. Have a look at [[User:Lir]] some time. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 16 22:32:03 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:32:03 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SlimVirgin not honoring SPUI's request In-Reply-To: References: <42B1012B.4010307@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050616223203.GK358@thingy.apana.org.au> Jane Halliwell (hundredpurses at hotmail.com) [050617 07:18]: > SlimVirgin has not honored her promise to lift the block when another > editor asked. About 18 hours have passed since SPUI's request. She received > it via email and a notice was placed on her talk page. She's been online > and contributing, so there is little question she got the message. Of course, it doesn't rely on just one person. There are hundreds of admins who could unprotect the page. None have done so. I wonder why that is. - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:35:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:35:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Sam Korn > >Oh for heck's sake. I have unprotected it, but if the revert war restarts, >I >shall protect again. And thank goodness that picture of a giant yellow turd has been restored to the top of the article. It only took 9 minutes from your unprotecting it. Wikipedia was simply a laughingstock as an encyclopedia for every second that graphic and extremely important picture of a human bowel movement was missing. In addition, the bright yellow colour really peps up what might otherwise have been a dull read. Jay. From tacodeposit at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:41:58 2005 From: tacodeposit at hotmail.com (Taco Deposit) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 17:41:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A promise In-Reply-To: Message-ID: An interesting, revealing statement. TD -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jane Halliwell Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 3:52 PM To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A promise If you honor this promise, I will donate ten dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation in your name. From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:52:44 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:52:44 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In case you hadn't realised, debate had begun (ha!) to centre on the page protection, rather than the issue at hand. Perhaps a bit of discussion might ensue now? If it doesn't, then protection can be reapplied. I just don't like debating the veracity of a page's protection, rather than the page itself. Sam On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: > > >From: Sam Korn > > > >Oh for heck's sake. I have unprotected it, but if the revert war > restarts, > >I > >shall protect again. > > And thank goodness that picture of a giant yellow turd has been restored > to > the top of the article. It only took 9 minutes from your unprotecting it. > Wikipedia was simply a laughingstock as an encyclopedia for every second > that graphic and extremely important picture of a human bowel movement was > missing. In addition, the bright yellow colour really peps up what might > otherwise have been a dull read. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From slimvirgin at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:56:19 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:56:19 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b0506161556520a6a8d@mail.gmail.com> On 6/16/05, Sam Korn wrote: > In case you hadn't realised, debate had begun (ha!) to centre on the page > protection, rather than the issue at hand. Perhaps a bit of discussion might > ensue now? If it doesn't, then protection can be reapplied. I just don't > like debating the veracity of a page's protection, rather than the page > itself. > No, Sam, the debate on the talk page about protection, and on this list, was entirely Eyeon-centered. This is all Eyeon-controlled, please see that. It's almost a case study in trolling. Sarah From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:57:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:57:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Sam Korn > >In case you hadn't realised, debate had begun (ha!) to centre on the page >protection, rather than the issue at hand. Perhaps a bit of discussion >might >ensue now? If it doesn't, then protection can be reapplied. I just don't >like debating the veracity of a page's protection, rather than the page >itself. You have a good point, but forgive me for not being able to hide the fact that I think the whole debate is ridiculous, particularly when it's about including that particular image. Jay. From slimvirgin at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 22:59:12 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:59:12 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: <20050616223024.GJ358@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050616223024.GJ358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4cc603b05061615591d22af83@mail.gmail.com> On 6/16/05, David Gerard wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050617 06:15]: > > > And if those IPs come from two different cities or completely > > different countries, that should discount any likely sockpuppetry. > > > Not in the least. Have a look at [[User:Lir]] some time. > > I blocked someone recently who had posted (from memory) from Sweden, Canada, and Germany on the same evening, all open proxies. Sarah From hundredpurses at hotmail.com Thu Jun 16 23:04:30 2005 From: hundredpurses at hotmail.com (Jane Halliwell) Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:04:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05061615272d801eea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >With respect, Sam, I feel that for you to unlock the page was to give >into the trolling of this mailing list. I placed a note on the talk >page of the article only an hour ago asking whether people wanted the >page unlocked. So far, there was one for and one against, not counting >Eyeon... > >Sarah One for, and one against, not counting Eyeon... and not counting the unblock request in SPUI's email which you ignored... and not counting the request to return the image by Mr. Tan in the header directly above yours... and not counting the four requests that are implicit in voting to return the image after the page was locked... and not counting the unblock request on your talk page... no wait, that one was me, and I don't count. and not counting the prior polling results, because they came before you blocked the editing. and not counting Niglet or Fecologist, because they're not allowed to participate until they can prove they aren't me. _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 16 23:07:17 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 00:07:17 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's ridiculous, yes. However, I could find no real reason for not keeping the page protected, other than a fear of trolling. So far, there has been no revert war. I hope that will still be the case when I wake up tomorrow morning. If it isn't the case, then I'm sure the page will be reprotected. Sam On 6/16/05, JAY JG wrote: > > >From: Sam Korn > > > >In case you hadn't realised, debate had begun (ha!) to centre on the page > >protection, rather than the issue at hand. Perhaps a bit of discussion > >might > >ensue now? If it doesn't, then protection can be reapplied. I just don't > >like debating the veracity of a page's protection, rather than the page > >itself. > > You have a good point, but forgive me for not being able to hide the fact > that I think the whole debate is ridiculous, particularly when it's about > including that particular image. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From s-wp at sabre23t.com Fri Jun 17 00:35:22 2005 From: s-wp at sabre23t.com (S.M.Sabri S.M.Ismail) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 08:35:22 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A promise ... Jay to Gregory References: Message-ID: <015401c572d4$72cba8b0$c700c8c8@SABRE23TFUJI> From: "Jane Halliwell" >>>I don't believe that you can solve your email volume problem by >>>sending more emails. >>I'm going to help solve it by not responding to your e-mails on this topic >>either. >>Jay. > If you honor this promise, I will donate ten dollars to the Wikimedia > Foundation in your name. > Eyeon/Jane Jane's cut&paste makes it appear that Jay was promising Jane, whereas Jay was talking to Gregory. I do not wonder whether Jane did this purposely or not. :-/ From: "JAY JG" Sent: Friday, 17 June, 2005 1:55 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] I'm unblocked, but SlimVirgin STILL WON'T LET ME EDIT! > From: Gregory Maxwell >> I don't believe that you can solve your email volume problem by >> sending more emails. > I'm going to help solve it by not responding to your e-mails on this topic > either. > Jay. regards, sabre23t =^.^= -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.1 - Release Date: 13.06.05 From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 17 07:57:37 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 09:57:37 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Alternate theory on Niglet In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05061615591d22af83@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050616223024.GJ358@thingy.apana.org.au> <4cc603b05061615591d22af83@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, it's easy enough to check if an IP is an open proxy. Those get blocked by the busload.I was talking mostly about fixed IPs or fixed ranges which can be attached to specific locations several countries away from each other. Say Canada, Germany and Australia without the use of open proxies. --Mgm On 6/17/05, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > On 6/16/05, David Gerard wrote: > > MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050617 06:15]: > > > > > And if those IPs come from two different cities or completely > > > different countries, that should discount any likely sockpuppetry. > > > > > > Not in the least. Have a look at [[User:Lir]] some time. > > > > > I blocked someone recently who had posted (from memory) from Sweden, > Canada, and Germany on the same evening, all open proxies. > > Sarah > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Fri Jun 17 18:43:01 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:43:01 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050615003351.GG358@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> <20050615003351.GG358@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <49bdc7430506171143280da5bf@mail.gmail.com> Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy... Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/15/05, David Gerard wrote: > Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050613 12:17]: > > > That is to say, the current practice of holding votes > > willy-nilly if you can get away with it > > > That is a stunningly accurate description of how it actually seems to occur > on en:, yes. > > > > needs to be stopped, and a > > proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our > > highest ideals. > > > I'm not quite sure how. Requiring all straw polls to be registered? > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From geniice at gmail.com Fri Jun 17 23:22:43 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:22:43 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <49bdc7430506171143280da5bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> <20050615003351.GG358@thingy.apana.org.au> <49bdc7430506171143280da5bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/17/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy... > > Jack (Sam Spade) > No. Formal surveys have to registed. Straw polls don't have to be. -- geni From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sat Jun 18 11:31:36 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:31:36 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <42AC71CC.7060208@wikia.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <42AC71CC.7060208@wikia.com> Message-ID: <20050618113136.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]: > Sean Barrett wrote: > > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a > > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and to > > ban those that feel that it is important to record it. > I don't think that's what we are discussing. jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC case, feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious nutter we're better without. It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki, only this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on content-related cases as setting up a disaster. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sat Jun 18 11:53:41 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:53:41 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <49bdc7430506171143280da5bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050607041309.22118.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> <42A6073F.5070200@gmx.de> <42AC756E.8030106@wikia.com> <42ACECED.1020505@gmx.de> <20050615003351.GG358@thingy.apana.org.au> <49bdc7430506171143280da5bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050618115341.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Jack Lynch (jack.i.lynch at gmail.com) [050618 04:43]: > On 6/15/05, David Gerard wrote: > > Erik Moeller (erik_moeller at gmx.de) [050613 12:17]: > > > That is to say, the current practice of holding votes > > > willy-nilly if you can get away with it > > That is a stunningly accurate description of how it actually seems to occur > > on en:, yes. > > > needs to be stopped, and a > > > proper framework should be developed instead that is compatible with our > > > highest ideals. > > I'm not quite sure how. Requiring all straw polls to be registered? > Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy... Not that I know of. I'm not sure how to make it work either. - d. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Jun 18 12:23:13 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 06:23:13 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050618113136.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050606075539.033c4b38@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42A45CDB.8010207@epoptic.com> <42AC71CC.7060208@wikia.com> <20050618113136.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <2ABBC0D3-62B5-4B4D-840F-3FEF0C4592CF@ctelco.net> Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only looked at his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes that the notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era notation CE - BCE (which he believes is incomprehensible to our users). Based on that belief he has changed the notation in a number of articles, most of which he does not ordinarily edit, and if reverted, engages in edit wars. The proposed decision in the arbitration case is under consideration with no remedy proposed having majority support, see: [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk/Proposed_decision]] Fred On Jun 18, 2005, at 5:31 AM, David Gerard wrote: > Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]: > >> Sean Barrett wrote: >> > > >>> I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation >>> of a >>> committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia >>> and to >>> ban those that feel that it is important to record it. >>> > > >> I don't think that's what we are discussing. >> > > > jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC > case, > feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for > Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious > nutter we're better without. > > It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki, > only > this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on > content-related cases as setting up a disaster. > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 18 13:08:20 2005 From: dangrey101 at yahoo.co.uk (Dan Grey) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:08:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <2ABBC0D3-62B5-4B4D-840F-3FEF0C4592CF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050618130820.14976.qmail@web26008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> To get a handle on how much content-arbitration is really needed, perhaps the people who feel it's required could list some examples of when it would have been useful. Or perhaps we're discussing a problem that doesn't exist? Dan ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Jun 18 16:28:19 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 10:28:19 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050618130820.14976.qmail@web26008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050618130820.14976.qmail@web26008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It exists, but generally cases fall into a grey area where resolving the content issue is not vital. For example in the Skyring arbitration, the problem is not the content he wants to put in the articles, it is the persistent way he keep arguing and going over the matter again and again, despite his failure to convince the others who edit the articles. It is necessary to look at the article and see whether the article is no good or inaccurate without the material he wants to insert. Much the same happened in the climate change arbitration. it is not so much that Cortonin is wrong but that he insists on being wrong like a bulldog. Again it helps to analyze the content he insists on to see if if adds to the article or introduces confusion about the underlying scientific principles. The Njyoder case involves [[gender]], an article which makes sense in a subcultural context but not much sense to Njyoder. A content inquiry as to whether within the subcultural context there there is significant content which might go into the article is helpful. I think the test is whether without some reference to content questions, the disputes remain unresolved and unresolvable under a theory that one opinion is as good as another. LIke I said earlier, a theory of a flat earth is fine in [[flat earth]] but out of place in [[astrophysics]]. Fred On Jun 18, 2005, at 7:08 AM, Dan Grey wrote: > To get a handle on how much content-arbitration is > really needed, perhaps the people who feel it's > required could list some examples of when it would > have been useful. > > Or perhaps we're discussing a problem that doesn't > exist? > > > Dan > > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide > with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Sat Jun 18 18:18:36 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:18:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New Creative Commons Licenses - version 2.5 In-Reply-To: <9f02ca4c05061008154359127a@mail.gmail.com> References: <42A881BF.2000605@gmail.com> <9f02ca4c05061008154359127a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050618111861505b55@mail.gmail.com> This is about a week late, but I figured I would take a look today and see what the differences are by comparing the two side by side. It seems to clarify some of the attribution information, especially the case of requesting someone to *remove* attribution (basically, if I create work X licensed under CC, and people I don't want to be associated with use it to create work Y, I cannot demand that they stop doing it, if they are using the license correctly, but I *can* request they take my name off it). This was already in 2.0 but they seem to have tried to strengthen this a bit, if I'm interpretting this correctly (but I'm no lawyer). It also looks like you can have a Licensor Designate ("e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal") be in charge of the licensing as well, instead of just the Original Author. Besides these two changes to section 4(a) and 4(b) there doesn't seem to be anything else different. FF On 6/10/05, Rowan Collins wrote: > On 10/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > By the way, I fail to see any difference between 2.0 and 2.5 Can some > > more law-savvy people explain the difference. I'm almost sure it's in > > the legal version of the license. > > I find the creativecommons site very hard to find such information on, > although I'm sure it's there. But with a bit of Googling I turned up > the *beginning* of the discussion about v2.5... > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2005-May/002313.html > ...and it "Drawing to a Close"... > http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5457 > ...but no announcement that it has "become official", although it does > seem to have. > > Basically, it seems to be to do with electing who gets attribution - > to allow collective and nominated attribution in some way. Don't ask > me how, or how this relates to the cc-wiki proposal, because I've only > skimmed the stuff, but the links above seem to basically explain it if > you have the patience to work it out. > > -- > Rowan Collins BSc > [IMSoP] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 18 20:34:45 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 13:34:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk Message-ID: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> This decision is apparently setting the precedent that if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are offensive to them, then their view is the only acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors can go hang. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ From usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Sat Jun 18 20:35:48 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:35:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Anno =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Wikip=E6di=E6?= In-Reply-To: <42961AB9.8030301@web.de> References: <20050522011221.E49971158330@mail.wikimedia.org> <429025A7.3090707@gmail.com> <42908FAF.8020906@gmail.com> <42961AB9.8030301@web.de> Message-ID: <42B485A4.9080504@tonal.clara.co.uk> Magnus Manske wrote: > >To avoid any bias whatsoever, let each wikipedia count the date by >number of edits! 100 edits are a wiki-minute... > >Magnus > > > But that would mean that we could only measure time until the WikiSingularity occurs... -- Neil From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Jun 18 20:45:38 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 14:45:38 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the particular usage you prefer on the rest of the world, especially on groups who are offended by that usage. It is more an elaboration of our general policy on courtesy. Another aspect of the decision is that you cannot unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia policy without having it adopted as an actual policy. Fred On Jun 18, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Rick wrote: > This decision is apparently setting the precedent that > if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are > offensive to them, then their view is the only > acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors > can go hang. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Discover Yahoo! > Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! > http://discover.yahoo.com/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 03:44:13 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:44:13 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050618113136.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) > >Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) [050613 10:38]: > > Sean Barrett wrote: > > > > I am very worried that we are seriously discussing the formation of a > > > committee empowered to prohibit unpopular content from Wikipedia and >to > > > ban those that feel that it is important to record it. > > > I don't think that's what we are discussing. > > >jguk has already left Wikipedia over the present content-related AC case, >feling he was being railroaded. I don't think that counts as a win for >Wikipedia - we're talking about a good contributor, not some obnoxious >nutter we're better without. > >It's a larger version of exasperating one's opponents off the wiki, only >this time using the AC as a hammer. So far I'm only seeing taking on >content-related cases as setting up a disaster. jguk was a good contributor when it came to cricket related articles; he was pretty obnoxious when it came to the use of BCE/CE. Also, his leaving is recent; many people who have been sanctioned by ArbCom, or even threatened with sanction, return after a few weeks. The way I see it, the good contributors who leave in exasperation are more often never involved with ArbCom, and are driven away by the people who eventually do get sanctioned by ArbCom. Jay. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 03:50:32 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 23:50:32 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <2ABBC0D3-62B5-4B4D-840F-3FEF0C4592CF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: >From: Fred Bauder >Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only looked at >his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes that the >notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era notation CE - BCE >(which he believes is incomprehensible to our users). Based on that belief >he has changed the notation in a number of articles, most of which he does >not ordinarily edit, and if reverted, engages in edit wars. Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a campaign to remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 article edits solely to support that campaign. Jay. From ginobiliroy at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 05:21:54 2005 From: ginobiliroy at hotmail.com (Jeremy Farrell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:21:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please unsubscribe me from this list. Ta.

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>From: geni <geniice at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: geni <geniice at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>To: Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com>,English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Commitee Seeking Comment
>Date: Sat, 18 Jun 2005 00:22:43 +0100
>
>On 6/17/05, Jack Lynch <jack.i.lynch at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Sounds like a very good idea, I thought that was already policy...
> >
> > Jack (Sam Spade)
> >
>
>No. Formal surveys have to registed. Straw polls don't have to be.
>
>--
>geni
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From misfitgirl at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 05:42:11 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:42:11 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> I think this is a bad way of putting what is a sound idea in this instance. It is true that Jguk was changing date formats to something that offended SouthernComfort and others. It is also true, however, that SouthernComfort had been changing date formats to something that offended Jguk and others. The issue here, though, is that deciding on these issues (as with whether to use American or English English) comes down to the editors of a particular article. There appears to be widespread agreement on the particular articles involved (of which SouthernComfort was one of the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this instance. Jguk then went around changing them to his preference anyway, regardless of the article consensus - and that's what isn't on. -- ambi On 6/19/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the particular usage you > prefer on the rest of the world, especially on groups who are > offended by that usage. It is more an elaboration of our general > policy on courtesy. Another aspect of the decision is that you cannot > unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia policy without having > it adopted as an actual policy. > > Fred > > On Jun 18, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Rick wrote: > > > This decision is apparently setting the precedent that > > if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are > > offensive to them, then their view is the only > > acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors > > can go hang. > > > > RickK > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Discover Yahoo! > > Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! > > http://discover.yahoo.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From geniice at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 10:11:31 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:11:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <2ABBC0D3-62B5-4B4D-840F-3FEF0C4592CF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Fred Bauder > >Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only looked at > >his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes that the > >notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era notation CE - BCE > >(which he believes is incomprehensible to our users). Based on that belief > >he has changed the notation in a number of articles, most of which he does > >not ordinarily edit, and if reverted, engages in edit wars. > > Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a campaign to > remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 article > edits solely to support that campaign. > > Jay. So? There has been a few people campaining the other ways as well. They will probably get bored in the end. -- geni From geniice at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 10:13:58 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:13:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > The issue here, though, is that deciding on these issues (as with > whether to use American or English English) comes down to the editors > of a particular article. There appears to be widespread agreement on > the particular articles involved (of which SouthernComfort was one of > the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this instance. Jguk then > went around changing them to his preference anyway, regardless of the > article consensus - and that's what isn't on. > > -- ambi > But this isn't true. SouthernComfort hit artices on which he had no previous editing history. geni From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 19 10:54:54 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:54:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk Message-ID: <20050619105454.8124.qmail@web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> First all I (and others) were doing was reverting articles back to the state they were in before SouthernComfort got to them (except for one mistake when I inadvertently changed it on [[Elamite Empire]]). SC's changes were just after the community had voted down Slrubenstein's proposal to move wholescale to his preferred notation. As I wasn't changing articles (SC was doing that), but merely enforcing the community vote. Even if the ArbCom disagree and decide SC was right to add his preferred notation to these articles, is taking a different view (in light of the community vote) something that is worthy of admonishment, let alone the threat of banning? Fred says that the decision shows that "you cannot impose the particular usage you prefer on the rest of the world, especially on groups that are offended by that usage....Another aspect of the decision is that you cannot unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia policy without having it adopted as an actual policy". Yet instead of applying it to SouthernComfort (who was actually changing a wide range of articles in accordance with his preference), he chooses to apply it to me (who was merely trying to stop him from doing that). Has Fred really got the right man? I should, as an aside, mention that I have in arguments and edit summaries to SouthernComfort referred to a "preferred notation". The context of that was not to misquote WP policy (which all participants are quite aware of), but to make the point that in practice almost all WP articles where there is a choice use BC/AD notation and that the overwhelming majority of English-writers in the world (90%+) choose BC/AD notation. It is in that sense that it is "preferred", and in that sense that I was using "preferred". I appreciate Fred would not, on a quick and possibly non-chronological, readthrough would not have picked up that context, but that's what it was. It's important ans Fred is saying that an important aspect in this is that I was arguing my preference was WP policy - let me assure everyone, that was not the case. Bearing this in mind, does Fred accept that his comment is no longer appropriate (or at least, should not in particular be directed against me)? Ambi goes on to mention the wishes of the particular editors on the articles being dealt with. Well, I suggest that until SouthernComfort got to the articles, the preference was clear. Does SouthernComfort's involvement change anything. Well, for most of the articles, he had made as many (or as few) edits as me before he changed them. Since one person cannot make a difference to whether there is consensus, surely the answer is no - he alone has changed nothing. As to the "widespread agreement" Ambi refers to - the only evidence of such agreement is SouthernComfort claiming a "consensus" in his edit summaries (and on one talk page there is one other user agreeing with him - and two people does not a consensus make). This whole case was confused right from the start - half the Arbitrators chose to take the case not to discuss behaviours but to discuss principles - namely (1) We have a failed proposal, which was very divisive; (2) Some editors are trying to implement that failed proposal; (3) Other editors are trying to stop them. It seems ArbCom are deciding whether they like the failed proposal or not (a content issue, which they shouldn't be looking at anyway), deciding that they do like it, and then moving to ban the user who has tried to stop its implementation. On the "offensiveness" point, my opponents have offended me and (as they have admitted themselves) deliberately so. SouthernComfort's "offence" is so acute that when he wrote his paragraph supporting Slrubenstein's proposal, he did not even think it worthwhile mentioning it. Indeed, none of Slrubenstein's supporters actually claimed to be offended themselves by BC/AD notation. So, as RickK said to begin with, shouldn't WP ignore the "I am offended" argument rather than pander to it? Overall, I have been completely put off WP by the whole incident, and you will not see jguk returning. I have received many messages of support (and indeed have found it heartwarming that everyone who has commented on the case who does not support SC on the content issue has noted that the ArbCom has gone too far and is too one-sided in this case. This is true regardless of whether they have been involved in the case or are neutral outsiders. Kind regards jguk Ambi wrote: I think this is a bad way of putting what is a sound idea in this instance. It is true that Jguk was changing date formats to something that offended SouthernComfort and others. It is also true, however, that SouthernComfort had been changing date formats to something that offended Jguk and others. The issue here, though, is that deciding on these issues (as with whether to use American or English English) comes down to the editors of a particular article. There appears to be widespread agreement on the particular articles involved (of which SouthernComfort was one of the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this instance. Jguk then went around changing them to his preference anyway, regardless of the article consensus - and that's what isn't on. -- ambi On 6/19/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the particular usage you > prefer on the rest of the world, especially on groups who are > offended by that usage. It is more an elaboration of our general > policy on courtesy. Another aspect of the decision is that you cannot > unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia policy without having > it adopted as an actual policy. > > Fred > > On Jun 18, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Rick wrote: > > > This decision is apparently setting the precedent that > > if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are > > offensive to them, then their view is the only > > acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors > > can go hang. > > > > RickK --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From misfitgirl at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 10:55:46 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:55:46 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5309126705061903553361a21@mail.gmail.com> Folks, if you don't provide evidence, then don't be surprise when your concerns aren't included in a ruling. The vast amount of evidence there points to the conclusion I noted before - there are piles upon piles of examples of Jguk systematically changing stuff, and about four examples of SouthernComfort doing the same thing. We can only consider what is put before us, and almost all of that relates to Jguk. -- ambi On 6/19/05, geni wrote: > > The issue here, though, is that deciding on these issues (as with > > whether to use American or English English) comes down to the editors > > of a particular article. There appears to be widespread agreement on > > the particular articles involved (of which SouthernComfort was one of > > the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this instance. Jguk then > > went around changing them to his preference anyway, regardless of the > > article consensus - and that's what isn't on. > > > > -- ambi > > > > But this isn't true. SouthernComfort hit artices on which he had no > previous editing history. > > geni > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 19 11:03:18 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:03:18 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <2ABBC0D3-62B5-4B4D-840F-3FEF0C4592CF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <1B9C50A8-E0AC-4C4A-B124-7D32509CE354@ctelco.net> Wikipedia editors do not have to meekly wait until those who are disrupting Wikipedia to "get bored." The dispute resolution process is available to them. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 4:11 AM, geni wrote: > On 6/19/05, JAY JG wrote: > >>> From: Fred Bauder >>> Besides doing a lot of good editing (by repute, as I have only >>> looked at >>> his edit wars involving [[common era]] notation) Jguk believes >>> that the >>> notation AD - BC is vastly superior to the common era notation >>> CE - BCE >>> (which he believes is incomprehensible to our users). Based on >>> that belief >>> he has changed the notation in a number of articles, most of >>> which he does >>> not ordinarily edit, and if reverted, engages in edit wars. >>> >> >> Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a >> campaign to >> remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 >> article >> edits solely to support that campaign. >> >> Jay. >> > > So? There has been a few people campaining the other ways as well. > They will probably get bored in the end. > > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 19 11:17:32 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:17:32 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050619111732.GG7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050619 06:34]: > This decision is apparently setting the precedent that > if a user can claim that edits they disagree with are > offensive to them, then their view is the only > acceptable view and the rest of Wikipedia's editors > can go hang. I see some problematic areas in the proposed decision in its present state (e.g. the statement about academic standards only applies to the US and definitely not to the UK, and even then only certain parts of US academia) and will hopefully find time today to put some amendments in. - d. From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 19 11:20:59 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:20:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <20050619112059.53420.qmail@web25406.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Assuming you're not holding my newbie edits 9 months ago against me, I very quickly stopped changing articles from BCE/CE to BC/AD notation. What I continued doing was (1) reverting those who were changing BC/AD notation to BCE/CE notation (which presumably, if you are neutral, you would agree with on the grounds that they shouldn't have changed the notation in the first place); (2) making articles consistent. When I first came to WP most articles that used BCE/CE notation also used BC/AD notation. It makes sense (and indeed should be regarded as a good edit) to copyedit those articles so that they use one and only one notation. Wouldn't a barnstar be more appropriate than approbation? Jguk Jay wrote: Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a campaign to remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 article edits solely to support that campaign. Jay. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with voicemail From slimvirgin at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 11:28:15 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 05:28:15 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050619112059.53420.qmail@web25406.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050619112059.53420.qmail@web25406.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05061904284ac786d8@mail.gmail.com> On 6/19/05, Jon wrote: > Assuming you're not holding my newbie edits 9 months ago against me, I very quickly stopped changing articles from BCE/CE to BC/AD notation. Jon, what you say isn't correct. You made hundreds of edits under your old user name, and not just as a complete newbie but after two months of editing, where you deleted BCE and inserted BC, in articles that had nothing to do with Christianity. See here, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chandragupta_Maurya&diff=prev&oldid=8070685 Sarah From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 19 12:02:51 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:02:51 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought Message-ID: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> I've noted that the proposed FoF 6 is trivially factually incorrect - it only applies to US academia, and even then only a certain portion thereof. It notably does not apply to e.g. UK academia. I've written a proposed FoF 6.01. Comments welcomed. (The sentence construction could almost certainly do with improvement, for instance.) FoF 6: 6) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among scholars and those who seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus potentially offensive, see research by El_C. FoF 6.01: 6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia. This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to use in pushing a POV. - d. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 14:50:57 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 10:50:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619105454.8124.qmail@web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050619105454.8124.qmail@web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, Jon wrote: > On the "offensiveness" point, my opponents have offended me and (as they have admitted themselves) deliberately so. SouthernComfort's "offence" is so acute that when he wrote his paragraph supporting Slrubenstein's proposal, he did not even think it worthwhile mentioning it. Indeed, none of Slrubenstein's supporters actually claimed to be offended themselves by BC/AD notation. So, as RickK said to begin with, shouldn't WP ignore the "I am offended" argument rather than pander to it? You're right that offense shouldn't be a part of our decision on what to use, but it is a part of civility. Following someone around and making changes that offend them is not polite. However. some people are offended by things which do not push their point of view, so we really don't have a choice but to change things. In other cases we do have a choice, such as in the linguistic dialect issue. The primary argument against using the BC/AD notation, after you cut away the offense cruft, is the claim that it is a violation of NPOV and that it is the more common language used in scholarly research. The primary counter argument is that time and commonality has washed away any POV status and that BCE/CE is not commonly enough understood. ..and it appears that the counter counter claim is that the counter claim is bogus since many academics have moved to BCE/CE due to perceived POV pushing and that any lack of understanding can be solved via a wiki-link. In all of the discussion it seems to be that the majority of wikipedia is not convinced by either argument and is willing to tolerate both usages. In the future this position may be clarified, but today it is where we appear to stand. As a result, no one should begrudge you for using BC/AD in articles as you add content. However, that isn't the issue in question here. This isn't a content issue at all as the largest part of the complaint appears to be about follow around users using the acceptable CE/BCE notation and changing it to the BC/AD... That the users here are offended by that usage is a matter of merit because it what takes your behaviour from simply being against the majority and makes in an uncivil act towards other editors. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 14:58:08 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 10:58:08 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, David Gerard wrote: > 6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain > portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in > inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno > Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus > regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does > not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia. > > This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content > arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to > use in pushing a POV. Can you actually provide any citations to support your position? I only ask because in my experience the BCE/CE notation is really quite common and has been used in the majority of scholarly research I've read (well the majority hasn't mentioned an era at all, but what does uses BCE/CE). I am aware that it isn't so universally used in all fields, but I was taught the BCE/CE notation in grade school... Perhaps this is just because I am in the United States. Your rewrite makes it sound like it is only used by an insubstantial minority. In any case, the arbcom isn't and shouldn't be deciding if we should use AD/BC or CE/BCE as it appears the larger community has decided that the issue isn't currently clear enough and we don't care. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 19 14:59:30 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 08:59:30 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: References: <20050619105454.8124.qmail@web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Well put. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 8:50 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/19/05, Jon wrote: > >> On the "offensiveness" point, my opponents have offended me and >> (as they have admitted themselves) deliberately so. >> SouthernComfort's "offence" is so acute that when he wrote his >> paragraph supporting Slrubenstein's proposal, he did not even >> think it worthwhile mentioning it. Indeed, none of Slrubenstein's >> supporters actually claimed to be offended themselves by BC/AD >> notation. So, as RickK said to begin with, shouldn't WP ignore the >> "I am offended" argument rather than pander to it? >> > > You're right that offense shouldn't be a part of our decision on what > to use, but it is a part of civility. Following someone around and > making changes that offend them is not polite. However. some people > are offended by things which do not push their point of view, so we > really don't have a choice but to change things. In other cases we do > have a choice, such as in the linguistic dialect issue. > > The primary argument against using the BC/AD notation, after you cut > away the offense cruft, is the claim that it is a violation of NPOV > and that it is the more common language used in scholarly research. > The primary counter argument is that time and commonality has washed > away any POV status and that BCE/CE is not commonly enough understood. > ..and it appears that the counter counter claim is that the counter > claim is bogus since many academics have moved to BCE/CE due to > perceived POV pushing and that any lack of understanding can be solved > via a wiki-link. > > In all of the discussion it seems to be that the majority of wikipedia > is not convinced by either argument and is willing to tolerate both > usages. In the future this position may be clarified, but today it is > where we appear to stand. As a result, no one should begrudge you for > using BC/AD in articles as you add content. > > However, that isn't the issue in question here. This isn't a content > issue at all as the largest part of the complaint appears to be about > follow around users using the acceptable CE/BCE notation and changing > it to the BC/AD... That the users here are offended by that usage is a > matter of merit because it what takes your behaviour from simply being > against the majority and makes in an uncivil act towards other > editors. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 19 15:02:11 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:02:11 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050619150211.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050620 00:58]: > Can you actually provide any citations to support your position? You mean, like papers using it? > Perhaps this is just because I am in the United States. > Your rewrite makes it sound like it is only used by an insubstantial minority. I said it needed tweaking. Call it substantial minority. And noisy. > In any case, the arbcom isn't and shouldn't be deciding if we should > use AD/BC or CE/BCE as it appears the larger community has decided > that the issue isn't currently clear enough and we don't care. Well, yeah. That's why I was ignoring this - as a storm in a teacup - and why I'm appalled its advocates have tried to push it this far. Those seeking to push a POV will not be put off by content arbitration - they'll just try to use it as a further bludgeon for their views, as we see in the present case. - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 15:18:05 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:18:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: geni > > Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a campaign >to > > remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made over 1,000 >article > > edits solely to support that campaign. > > > > Jay. > >So? There has been a few people campaining the other ways as well. Really? People who edit dozens of articles solely for the purpose of removing BC/AD notation, and who have made hundreds of edits to further that goal over a period of many months? Who did you have in mind? >They will probably get bored in the end. jguk's campaign lasted for 8 months, from soon after he joined Wikipedia until the time he left. I see no indication that he was becoming bored. Who are these other people, and why do you imagine they will get bored? Jay. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 15:29:09 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:29:09 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <20050619105454.8124.qmail@web25403.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Jon > >First all I (and others) were doing was reverting articles back to the >state they were in before >SouthernComfort got to them (except for one mistake when I inadvertently >changed it on >[[Elamite Empire]]). That describes your more recent actions on a relatively narrow set of articles. It does not describe your more lengthy campaign against BCE/CE notation, including in the MOS and Common Era articles themselves. >I should, as an aside, mention that I have in arguments and edit summaries >to SouthernComfort >referred to a "preferred notation". The context of that was not to misquote >WP policy (which all >participants are quite aware of), but to make the point that in practice >almost all WP articles where there is a choice use BC/AD notation and that >the overwhelming majority of English-writers in the >world (90%+) choose BC/AD notation. It is in that sense that it is >"preferred", and in that sense >that I was using "preferred". The term for what you are describing is "more common", not "preferred". >I appreciate Fred would not, on a quick and possibly >non-chronological, readthrough would not have picked up that context, but >that's what it was. >It's important ans Fred is saying that an important aspect in this is that >I was arguing my >preference was WP policy - let me assure everyone, that was not the case. >Bearing this in mind >does Fred accept that his comment is no longer appropriate (or at least, >should not in particular >be directed against me)? You made it clear the you, personally, "preferred" this usage, and attempted to enforce it on dozens of articles over a period of 8 months. I find your current explanation of "preferred" to be difficult to reconcile with your actions. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 15:52:16 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 11:52:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050619112059.53420.qmail@web25406.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Jon > >Assuming you're not holding my newbie edits 9 months ago against me, I very >quickly stopped >changing articles from BCE/CE to BC/AD notation. What about attempting to change the MOS to reflect your views months after you joined Wikipedia, and had already been involved in conflicts at the Common Era article?[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29/proposed_revision&diff=prev&oldid=9603439] >What I continued doing was (1) reverting >those who were changing BC/AD notation to BCE/CE notation (which >presumably, if you are >neutral, you would agree with on the grounds that they shouldn't have >changed the notation >in the first place); (2) making articles consistent. When I first came to >WP most articles that >used BCE/CE notation also used BC/AD notation. It makes sense (and indeed >should be >regarded as a good edit) to copyedit those articles so that they use one >and only one notation. That might be a reasonable argument except that you appeared to use any excuse to convert an article to BC/AD notation. You used "consistency" as an excuse to convert an article that had one use of BC and eight of BCE,[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bihar&diff=prev&oldid=10934688] or one that had 10 uses of BC/AD and 19 uses of BCE/CE,[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silk_Road&diff=prev&oldid=10939297] to all BC/AD format. If a stub used BC, but the subsequent re-write into a proper article used BCE, you used "original usage" as an excuse to switch it back; yet if an article originally used BCE as notation, and subsquently grew to contain both usages, you used "consistency" to switch it to BC. >Wouldn't a barnstar be more appropriate than approbation? Perhaps if you had truly been even-handed in your attempts to support the MOS. Jay. From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 19 19:26:55 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:26:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk Message-ID: <20050619192655.66470.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Ambi SouthernComfort has provided no evidence of me changing articles from one notation to another, he has merely listed my reverts. If he wants to provide evidence of me changing things he has to show that the articles always used BCE/CE notation beforehand, which he has not done. He is making the accusations, arguing that I should be banned because of them: it is for him to support them. Of course, he can't, but I see no reason why I should waste a couple of days defending in detail any diff he chooses to quote when I have already explained that it was a revert of a change he was making? (Indeed, this was the reason I left, I edited WP because it was fun to do so - I have better things to do in life than spend hours and hours defending every edit I make - by the way, this included defending [[2005 English cricket season]] against deletion, not just the ArbCom dispute.) SouthernComfort has merely provided evidence that is entirely consistent with what I have said, namely (ignoring months-old issues that are now resolved and pre-date this dispute): (1) Slrubenstein made a proposal that was very divisive and which failed (2) SouthernComfort (and others) attempted to enforce that proposal (3) I (and others) reverted them in line with the community vote (4) I have reverted other editors making such unnecessary changes to date style before this (5) I have copyedited articles that have used inconsistent notation so that they use consistent notation (which is consistent with good practice on style) (6) I have not deliberately changed BCE/CE notation to BC/AD notation where the article has consistently used BCE/CE notation throughout (although I think I made one mistake in this recent dispute on [[Elamite Empire]], for which I am willing to apologise, but I do not think I should be hanged for one mistake) I admit that I have chosen not to spend time putting together lots of diffs made by SouthernComfort as I don't think the underlying facts are really disputed. (And whilst he and others did deliberately lie to me and were deliberately offensive to me, I chose not to take that point.) Similarly, I did not choose to escalate the matter by bringing in evidence against others (including one arbitrator) who have, far more recently than me, unilaterally changed date notation for no other reason than their own personal preference. That is, I have consciously chosen not to make this case messier and more acrimonious than it already is. The issue before the ArbCom is a straightforward one: If a policy proposal fails, some editors start implementing it anyway, and other editors revert them, what should happen? Unfortunately, it's a question ArbCom isn't even addressing. Kind regards Jon Ambi wrote: Folks, if you don't provide evidence, then don't be surprise when your concerns aren't included in a ruling. The vast amount of evidence there points to the conclusion I noted before - there are piles upon piles of examples of Jguk systematically changing stuff, and about four examples of SouthernComfort doing the same thing. We can only consider what is put before us, and almost all of that relates to Jguk. -- ambi --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Sun Jun 19 19:38:37 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:38:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <5309126705061903553361a21@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050618203446.40755.qmail@web60619.mail.yahoo.com> <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> <5309126705061903553361a21@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5481AF42-962B-40D0-A85E-E9A74B9253ED@sbcglobal.net> To be fair, in my experience, often one can provide evidence and still not have much of the arbcom read it.... -Snowspinner On Jun 19, 2005, at 6:55 AM, Rebecca wrote: > Folks, if you don't provide evidence, then don't be surprise when your > concerns aren't included in a ruling. The vast amount of evidence > there points to the conclusion I noted before - there are piles upon > piles of examples of Jguk systematically changing stuff, and about > four examples of SouthernComfort doing the same thing. We can only > consider what is put before us, and almost all of that relates to > Jguk. > > -- ambi > > On 6/19/05, geni wrote: > >>> The issue here, though, is that deciding on these issues (as with >>> whether to use American or English English) comes down to the >>> editors >>> of a particular article. There appears to be widespread agreement on >>> the particular articles involved (of which SouthernComfort was >>> one of >>> the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this instance. Jguk then >>> went around changing them to his preference anyway, regardless of >>> the >>> article consensus - and that's what isn't on. >>> >>> -- ambi >>> >>> >> >> But this isn't true. SouthernComfort hit artices on which he had no >> previous editing history. >> >> geni >> >> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 19 19:43:51 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:43:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment Message-ID: <20050619194351.16162.qmail@web25407.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Jay jg Making proposals for change is perfectly acceptable - and I though it was recommended in controversial areas. My early conflicts made me realise that it was counter-productive to change articles that always use BCE/CE notation to BC/AD notation (even though it would be preferable to user a style most commonly used worldwide - as Britannica and Encarta realise). I have therefore desisted from doing so months and months ago. And not even an ArbCom in sight then! However, I can name at least half a dozen editors, including one arbitrator, who choose to continue making arbitrary changes on articles that already use fully consistent notation. Why single me out for edits done 7 months or so ago? (Incidentally, I mention this more to ask that you calm down on me, I don't want to widen this witchhunt to more and more people - it's messy enough already.) Jguk From: "JAY JG" Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: Jon > >Assuming you're not holding my newbie edits 9 months ago against me, I very >quickly stopped >changing articles from BCE/CE to BC/AD notation. What about attempting to change the MOS to reflect your views months after you joined Wikipedia, and had already been involved in conflicts at the Common Era article?[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29/proposed_revision&diff=prev&oldid=9603439] --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 19 19:52:59 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 12:52:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the > particular usage you > prefer on the rest of the world, especially on > groups who are > offended by that usage. It is more an elaboration of > our general > policy on courtesy. Another aspect of the decision > is that you cannot > unilaterally declare your preference Wikipedia > policy without having > it adopted as an actual policy. > > Fred Isn't that exactly what SouthernComfort did? He said he was offended by BC/AD, and you and the rest of the arbcomm said his offense is more important than consensus. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 19:59:25 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 15:59:25 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619192655.66470.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050619192655.66470.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, Jon wrote: > (5) I have copyedited articles that have used inconsistent notation so that they use consistent notation (which is consistent with good practice on style) Can you cite an example where you normalized an article to CE/BCE when there were multiple uses? If not, then I would suggest you drop the 'I only made them consistent' defense. (Sorry to ask you to find one, but I looked ... and couldn't) From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 19 20:01:49 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:01:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <53091267050618224273dad461@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050619200149.16083.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rebecca wrote: > I think this is a bad way of putting what is a sound > idea in this > instance. It is true that Jguk was changing date > formats to something > that offended SouthernComfort and others. It is also > true, however, > that SouthernComfort had been changing date formats > to something that > offended Jguk and others. > > The issue here, though, is that deciding on these > issues (as with > whether to use American or English English) comes > down to the editors > of a particular article. There appears to be > widespread agreement on > the particular articles involved (of which > SouthernComfort was one of > the editors) that BCE-CE was preferable in this > instance. Jguk then > went around changing them to his preference anyway, > regardless of the > article consensus - and that's what isn't on. > > -- ambi SouthernComfort was NOT one of the editors involved until after he got into "change every article about Iran to BCE" mode. jguk was RIGHTLY changing SC's edits back to what the original authors had left them at. RickK ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 19 20:05:43 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:05:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <5309126705061903553361a21@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050619200543.55453.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rebecca wrote: > Folks, if you don't provide evidence, then don't be > surprise when your > concerns aren't included in a ruling. The vast > amount of evidence > there points to the conclusion I noted before - > there are piles upon > piles of examples of Jguk systematically changing > stuff, and about > four examples of SouthernComfort doing the same > thing. We can only > consider what is put before us, and almost all of > that relates to > Jguk. > > -- ambi Rebecca, I respect you tremendously, but, forgive me, this just sounds like laziness to me. If the arbcomm is given a diff, can't they look at the various versions of the article in question, or are they ironclad bound to only look at the single diff? RickK ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 19 20:10:29 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:10:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050619201029.86824.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> --- JAY JG wrote: > >From: geni > > > Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he > has been on a campaign > >to > > > remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and > has made over 1,000 > >article > > > edits solely to support that campaign. > > > > > > Jay. > > > >So? There has been a few people campaining the > other ways as well. > > > Really? People who edit dozens of articles solely > for the purpose of > removing BC/AD notation, and who have made hundreds > of edits to further that > goal over a period of many months? Who did you have > in mind? SouthernComfort, for one. It was his sole editing procedure from immediately after he was encouraged to engage in it by Slrubenstein after Slrubenstein's failure to get consensus on his BCE POV. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sun Jun 19 20:25:36 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:25:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050619201029.86824.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050619201029.86824.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, Rick wrote: > SouthernComfort, for one. It was his sole editing > procedure from immediately after he was encouraged to > engage in it by Slrubenstein after Slrubenstein's > failure to get consensus on his BCE POV. I know it might not be entirely obvious just just because someone prefers something doesn't make it 'POV' in the NPOV sense. The only POV intrinsic to the BCE/CE side is that BC/AD is not NPOV. BCE/CE doesn't push a specific world view, it doesn't deny the existence or importance of Jesus, it merely doesn't support that view either. Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV. So at worst you could claim that it is meta-meta-pov: the use of BCE/CE implies that BC/AD may not be NPOV. The majority opinion on Wikipedia doesn't support the claim that BCE/CE use is a POV, but rather that the use of BC/AD is so old that the POVness of it has been washed away by time and therefor it is permissible. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 19 20:30:59 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 16:30:59 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <20050619201029.86824.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Rick >--- JAY JG wrote: > > > >From: geni > > > > Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he > > has been on a campaign > > >to > > > > remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and > > has made over 1,000 > > >article > > > > edits solely to support that campaign. > > > > > > > > Jay. > > > > > >So? There has been a few people campaining the > > other ways as well. > > > > > > Really? People who edit dozens of articles solely > > for the purpose of > > removing BC/AD notation, and who have made hundreds > > of edits to further that > > goal over a period of many months? Who did you have > > in mind? > >SouthernComfort, for one. It was his sole editing >procedure from immediately after he was encouraged to >engage in it by Slrubenstein after Slrubenstein's >failure to get consensus on his BCE POV. > >RickK Rick, SouthernComfort edited a narrow set of subject topics (Iran-related), over a period of a few weeks, as part of his general interest in Iran; included in that was his conversion of pages from BC/AD to BCE/CE. He did not edit dozens of articles over a period of many months for the sole purpose of (and to which he contributed nothing else but) date notation conversions. If jguk had converted cricket related articles he was already editing to BC/AD, that would have been one thing; but he has been on an obvious campaign to remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia from any article he comes across which uses it, using the pretense of either "consistency" or "original usage" depending on which best serves his purposes. He still insists on this pretense, rather than admitting the nature of his campaign, though evidence has been presented which shows its specious nature. He has even gone so far as to try to remove all links to www.religioustolerance.org from Wikipedia, a reasonably popular (Alexa ranking 10,000-11,000) religion-oriented website promoting religious tolerance, using the pretense that it is a "blog", but with the obvious reason being that it supports BCE/CE notation. I haven't seen behaviour comparable to this by any of the pro BCE/CE editors. Jay. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 19 20:31:34 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:31:34 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619200149.16083.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050619200149.16083.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> Under the existing style guide that was ok. Either style is acceptable. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Rick wrote: > SouthernComfort was NOT one of the editors involved > until after he got into "change every article about > Iran to BCE" mode. jguk was RIGHTLY changing SC's > edits back to what the original authors had left them > at. > > RickK From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 19 20:33:34 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:33:34 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619200543.55453.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050619200543.55453.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9700CED8-D621-4697-B413-E9BB6528B8B0@ctelco.net> Numerous diffs were viewed and what was seen was Jguk reverting over and over giving reasons which have no basis in Wikipedia policy. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 2:05 PM, Rick wrote: > --- Rebecca wrote: > > >> Folks, if you don't provide evidence, then don't be >> surprise when your >> concerns aren't included in a ruling. The vast >> amount of evidence >> there points to the conclusion I noted before - >> there are piles upon >> piles of examples of Jguk systematically changing >> stuff, and about >> four examples of SouthernComfort doing the same >> thing. We can only >> consider what is put before us, and almost all of >> that relates to >> Jguk. >> >> -- ambi >> > > Rebecca, I respect you tremendously, but, forgive me, > this just sounds like laziness to me. If the arbcomm > is given a diff, can't they look at the various > versions of the article in question, or are they > ironclad bound to only look at the single diff? > > RickK > > > > > ____________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Sports > Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football > http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 19 22:24:07 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 08:24:07 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> References: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050620 05:53]: > Isn't that exactly what SouthernComfort did? He said > he was offended by BC/AD, and you and the rest of the > arbcomm said his offense is more important than > consensus. Not the *entire* rest, thanks ... This is the sort of AC case that should never have been accepted, and I'm now sorry I voted 'accept' (though it already had four by the time I got there). - d. From timwi at gmx.net Sun Jun 19 22:59:58 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:59:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: David Friedland wrote: > > My opinion is that we should not allow or least sternly frown upon > discussion on the English Wikipedia in languages other than English. I don't know anything about the specific situation that led you to post this, but in general I quite fiercely disagree with this. What are you trying to accomplish? You can hardly force people to write in English when they don't want to; instead they're just going to discuss things elsewhere or not at all. In all likelihood, it will lead to decreased productivity in the actual articles. You have not added to Wikipedia that way. In another posting, David Friedland wrote: > > a pair of editors repeatedly revert a change I make to an article, > then post some messages in a foreign language to the article talk > pages as well as to their own user talk pages and the "Xyz > Wikipedians' notice board". Some of these messages clearly contain my > user name. Again, I don't know the specific situation, but come on, for all you know these comments could be saying "David Friendland has a good point, what do you all think?". Timwi From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 19 23:02:51 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:02:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Religioustolerance.org Message-ID: <20050619230251.9623.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Jayjg questions why I oppose linking to the religioustolerance.org website, citing an Alexa ranking of 10,000 to 11,000. Let me explain why. Especially as this is the sort of thing we need content arbitration for. Religioustolerance.org is run by a group called "Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance". Not very close inspection of their website reveals that this group has five members, none of whom have any religious training or stature in the religious community (either in Ontario or elsewhere). Almost all their essays are written by one man, who is a retired engineer who freely admits his lack of academic or religious training. This makes the site no better than a blog - after all, I could, if I were so motivated, start a website, sign up four mates, and write loads of essays. That would not make those essays quotable (or the website linkable). It is because religioustolerance.org is a bunch of (very poorly written) essays written by a man with absolutely no training or stature in the field of religious tolerance that it is not suitable as a link. Except, of course, as an example of how a good URL can boost your number of hits - it's a very good example of that! Since the site is of no academic significance whatsoever, I do not think we should link to it. (I add as an aside that where I have removed it I have said that I would have no objection to a site that provided similar information or arguments provided that it had some academic or religious stature. Indeed, I would prefer this option, provided the arguments used in religioustolerance.org are not so rare as for there to be no link to a site with suitable stature to replace it.) Jguk --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From timwi at gmx.net Sun Jun 19 23:05:54 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 00:05:54 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <20050614205836.52791.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> References: <22483029.1118752896104.JavaMail.root@vms071.mailsrvcs.net> <20050614205836.52791.qmail@web60620.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Rick wrote about people having discussions in languages other than English: > Well, for one thing, it's rude. Maybe it's just me, but my impression is that English speakers tend to find it more rude than others. *Could* be (but need not be) interpreted as anglo-chauvinism. Timwi From erik_moeller at gmx.de Sun Jun 19 23:33:31 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:33:31 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Religioustolerance.org In-Reply-To: <20050619230251.9623.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050619230251.9623.qmail@web25402.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42B600CB.7050600@gmx.de> Jon: > Jayjg questions why I oppose linking to the religioustolerance.org website, > citing an Alexa ranking of 10,000 to 11,000. Let me explain why. I find your reasons not to be backed up by Wikipedia policy or practice. External links in Wikipedia articles do not have to be "academic" or even NPOV, they have to be on-topic and add value to an article. It's perfectly fine to link to a blog if that blog posts articles exclusively or primarily devoted to the topic of a Wikipedia article, and we have frequently done so. Check out, as one example of thousands, the link collection on [[Michael Moore]]. For an example of the kind of material religioustolerance.org hosts, see their useful and well-referenced collection of information on satanic ritual abuse: http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra_intro.htm (this is just one of many pages devoted to the topic) My main criticism would be that the site has become more advertising-dependent than it used to be; this somewhat reduces its value as a resource. Where exactly did you remove links to religioustolerance.org? > Especially as this is the sort of thing we need > content arbitration for. And that's exactly the reason I oppose content arbitration. Best, Erik From waltercompton at sympatico.ca Sun Jun 19 23:40:41 2005 From: waltercompton at sympatico.ca (walt compton) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:40:41 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] unwanted e-mails. Message-ID: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> I keep getting unwanted e-mails from people I don't know and I don't know they are talking about. Could I PLEASE be removed from their e-mail mailing list. Thank you. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 00:12:20 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 18:12:20 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: We have been here before. We have a user who is doing something in an obsessive way, but is otherwise a productive editor. Because they are a "good" editor, nothing is done, or there is a slap on the wrist. They keep on and on and we have Wik2 and Wik3 and would have had Wik4 if the whole Committee had not finally come around. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 4:24 PM, David Gerard wrote: > Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050620 05:53]: > > >> Isn't that exactly what SouthernComfort did? He said >> he was offended by BC/AD, and you and the rest of the >> arbcomm said his offense is more important than >> consensus. >> > > > Not the *entire* rest, thanks ... > > This is the sort of AC case that should never have been accepted, > and I'm > now sorry I voted 'accept' (though it already had four by the time > I got > there). > > > - d. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 00:19:10 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:19:10 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anarchism Message-ID: <49bdc743050619171968037cda@mail.gmail.com> There is a near perpetual crisis on talk:anarchism, usually involving a great deal of incivility, rhetoric and failure to focus (outside of on ad hominems ;) I would like to see some mediators, from whatever mediation group / cabal / club, etc.. is willing to get involved in contentious talk pages. Jack (Sam Spade) From james at jdforrester.org Mon Jun 20 00:57:30 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:57:30 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200506200057.j5K0vYrw000668@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 4:18 PM, JAY JG wrote: > > From: geni > > > Just to make it clear, for the past 9 months he has been on a > > > campaign to remove all BCE/CE notation from Wikipedia, and has made > > > over 1,000 article edits solely to support that campaign. > > > > > > Jay. > > > > So? There has been a few people campaining the other ways as well. [Snip] > > They will probably get bored in the end. > > jguk's campaign lasted for 8 months, Indeed. And the United States was continuously at war with Germany from 1918 until 1945, and has been so with the United Kingdom since 1776. *yawns* [Snip] Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From james at jdforrester.org Mon Jun 20 01:16:30 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:16:30 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200506200116.j5K1GYfC005125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 8:53 PM, Rick wrote: > --- Fred Bauder wrote: > > > No, it sets the precedent you cannot impose the > > particular usage you prefer on the rest of the world, especially > > on groups who are offended by that usage. It is more an > > elaboration of our general policy on courtesy. Another aspect of > > the decision is that you cannot unilaterally declare your > > preference Wikipedia policy without having it adopted as an > > actual policy. > > Isn't that exactly what SouthernComfort did? He said > he was offended by BC/AD, and you and the rest of the > arbcomm said his offense is more important than > consensus. Yes, indeed, absolutely. As I said when I made my contribution to the unfortunately divisive poll carried out on this issue, as an atheist I find "CE"/"BCE" notation abhorrent and amazingly offensive; it suggests that my concerns that the calendar system, based on some daft quacks' opinions on the historical accuracy of their lore on some lackey who conned them into believing that he was the "son" of some mythical "god"-figure invented by tribal elders to keep their people in line, is of any relevance to the real world, and that my life should be based on said arcane information's "wisdom". [0] "CE"/"BCE" notation really is religious imperialism at its very worst, and I am saddened to see that a few odd parts of the US academic system. At least its vileness has not (yet) spread and infected others, hood-winked into thinking that it is "politically correct".[1] It is notable that I had never come across it at all until coming to Wikipedia - this despite my fascination with history and having left school but 4 years ago, so hardly being part of an older generation, whose education was less "well-balanced" than today's. I asked a historian friend of mine (as in, post-grad historian) about "CE"/"BCE", who laughed and said that it was very rarely used outside of very specialist circles, and was a very good way to make your paper look like it was written by someone with an axe to grind.[2] Intriguingly, those who note the absolute scarcity of use of "CE"/"BCE" notation are now asked to prove the lack of existence of its widespread use. Gosh. How fun. Being asked to prove a negative. Lots of critical thinking students here, evidently. What, exactly, would constitute sufficient proof that "CE" and "BCE" are not well-used, or even recognised, outside of the United States? [0] - This is not a personal attack. [1] - Neither is this. [2] - Yes, this is anecdotal, and has nothing like basis for an argument. However, I am happy with it as such, because it has no stronger basis in fact than any other argument I have yet seen (many comments written used particular parts of this argument as "divine knowledge", self-evidently true; this irony no doubt was sadly lost on the authors). Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From james at jdforrester.org Mon Jun 20 01:20:11 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:20:11 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200506200120.j5K1KF6w005670@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:26 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE > doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV. Please don't be overly broad-brush. I am very much certainly in the former group, and am equally certainly not in the latter. I severly doubt that I am not alone in this, either. [Snip the rest of the argument based on this logical fallacy] Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From james at jdforrester.org Mon Jun 20 01:24:15 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:24:15 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:32 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: > On Jun 19, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Rick wrote: > > > SouthernComfort was NOT one of the editors involved > > until after he got into "change every article about > > Iran to BCE" mode. jguk was RIGHTLY changing SC's > > edits back to what the original authors had left them at. > > Under the existing style guide that was ok. Either style is acceptable. Indeed. However, this misses out one very important part (paraphased, obviously): | Under the existing style guide, either style is acceptable. Changing an | article with both forms to use just one is, also, acceptable, a useful | bit of copyediting. However, changing an article from style to the other, | in whichever direction, is not, and should be reverted. The lack of everything after the first full stop is what is worrying in your answers; I hope that it was missed off purely for brevity. Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 01:52:14 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:52:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <200506200120.j5K1KF6w005670@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506200120.j5K1KF6w005670@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester wrote: > > Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE > > doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV. > Please don't be overly broad-brush. I am very much certainly in the former > group, and am equally certainly not in the latter. I severly doubt that I am > not alone in this, either. I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue. The confusion that it is clearly stems from the fact that many people with a particular pov prefer one over the other... This certainly isn't the only reason, as I previously mentioned, it is argued that BCE/CE isn't as widely understood. But this is the reason that causes people to think that the BCE/CE debate is one POV verses another POV. Since I was specifically discussing the claim that arbcom was getting involved with supporting one POV over another, my primary interest was in demonstrating why BCE/CE isn't POV at all. That is to say that arbcom may or may not be doing the right thing, but they aren't affirming one POV over another... because if we were to agree that one of the phrasings were non-neutral then it would be the BC/AD nomenclature and we would have no choice but to adopt the BCE/CE form. Since the original post was concerned about arbcom's involvement in deciding NPOV, I think this point is quite important. > [Snip the rest of the argument based on this logical fallacy] I'm sorry, because I suspect I must be a little dense here... I just can't follow how your (quite correct) criticism of my loosely worded claim in any way invalidates the rest of my message, and I really do wish you had replied point by point. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Jun 20 02:00:33 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:00:33 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <200506200120.j5K1KF6w005670@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20050620020033.GN7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell at gmail.com) [050620 11:52]: > I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made > that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue. It's nothing of the sort. As was mentioned in the original discussion page, it advocates the BC/AD dating system but puts it under a different name in a claim that this reduces the POV, when it blatantly doesn't. It's also been pushed a lot like a POV. - d. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 02:02:36 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:02:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <200506200116.j5K1GYfC005125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> <200506200116.j5K1GYfC005125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester wrote: > What, exactly, would constitute sufficient proof that "CE" and "BCE" are not > well-used, or even recognised, outside of the United States? Well you could start by telling us what part of the story has been omitted from this: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/531644 ... It was somewhat hard to find that URL because google returns so many .uk sites using the BCE/CE nomenclature. In any case, I think this is becoming pointless rehashing of the debate that already occurred on wikipedia. It has already been decided that both forms are acceptable. That BCE/CE might be less well known or even US centric has no bearing on weather or not arbcom is engaging in affirming one POV over another. From james at jdforrester.org Mon Jun 20 02:07:54 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 03:07:54 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200506200207.j5K27wWb017125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> -On Monday, June 20, 2005 2:52 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester wrote: > > > > > Just because the side with the "Jesus wasn't God" POV prefer BCE/CE > > > doesn't make using BCE/CE an example of supporting a POV. > > > > Please don't be overly broad-brush. I am very much certainly in the > > former group, and am equally certainly not in the latter. I severly > > doubt that I am not alone in this, either. > > I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made > that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue. No, it isn't. Were it "clearly untrue", everyone would see it immediately (that is, after all what those words would mean). I don't. Others don't. Or are we all just being difficult and stating that we fail to see the BCE/CE is NPOV to annoy you (what is termed "trolling")? > The confusion that it is clearly stems from the fact that many people > with a particular pov prefer one over the other... Well, yes, indeed. Something that is regarded by one group of POV-holders as good and another as bad is, generally, well ... How to put this? So terribly tricky. Still, I will try: POV. Gosh. Wasn't actually so hard, when it came down to it. If group A says that foo is NPOV, but group B say that it is POV, then it by definition cannot be NPOV - because otherwise group B would agree that it was. In this scenario, I think that the difficulty is that people want something that is, indeed, absolutely NPOV, and acceptable to everyone. However, this is a case, I feel, like too many others, sadly, where there is no such Nirvana solution; we must make do with the least POV use. "Both" sides feel that using "AD" and "BC" is POV, and both are right. However, where they differ is that one side either considers "CE" and "BCE" to be less POV than the others for most people, or fails to see it as POV at all, whereas the other finds it more POV. [Snip] > Since I was specifically discussing the claim that arbcom was getting > involved with supporting one POV over another, my primary interest was > in demonstrating why BCE/CE isn't POV at all. Please, do, go ahead. I await with baited breath. > That is to say that arbcom may or may not be doing the right thing, > but they aren't affirming one POV over another... I disagree; by strongly criticising one side of a wide-ranging edit war, and saying nothing at all about the other, the old proposed rulings were impliticly condoing the POV of those not mentioned, and discarding that of Jguk and others. > because if we were to agree that one of the phrasings were non-neutral > then it would be the BC/AD nomenclature and we would have no choice but > to adopt the BCE/CE form. I agree. However, this is not true - *both* are non-neutral, the argument is to the relative neutrality of them two. > Since the original post was concerned about arbcom's involvement in > deciding NPOV, I think this point is quite important. I absolutely agree. I just disagree with your conclusion. :-) > > [Snip the rest of the argument based on this logical fallacy] > > I'm sorry, because I suspect I must be a little dense here... I just > can't follow how your (quite correct) criticism of my loosely worded > claim in any way invalidates the rest of my message, and I really do > wish you had replied point by point. Sorry. In future I will reply, point-by-point, with "See above.". I had written this thrice before deciding to merely snip. Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 02:50:34 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:50:34 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <200506200207.j5K27wWb017125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506200207.j5K27wWb017125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: On 6/19/05, James D. Forrester wrote: > > I omitted the word '''some''' because the implication was being made > > that BCE/CE itself is POV, which is clearly untrue. > > No, it isn't. Were it "clearly untrue", everyone would see it immediately > (that is, after all what those words would mean). I don't. Others don't. Or > are we all just being difficult and stating that we fail to see the BCE/CE > is NPOV to annoy you (what is termed "trolling")? Well, actually, I hadn't yet seen the overt claim that BCE/CE isn't NPOV... this is a first, more on that in a bit. What I've seen claimed many times that that BCE/CE isn't any more or less NPOV than BC/AD and that because of the other issues we should prefer BC/AD. This is an argument that I am inclined to agree with. > Well, yes, indeed. Something that is regarded by one group of POV-holders as > good and another as bad is, generally, well ... How to put this? So terribly > tricky. Still, I will try: POV. Gosh. Wasn't actually so hard, when it came > down to it. I believe you are incorrect here. The relationship only goes one way. Only a POV supporter will agree with a strongly non-neutral position, but just because someone is a POV pusher it is not necessary that everything they support is non-neutral. BC/BCE and BC/AD can both be NPOV even if some in the BC/BCE camp claim that BC/AD isn't NPOV and just because some of the advocates of either view carry some strong POVs this doesn't make it a POV issue. You know, it is possible for people to disagree and for the argument to have absolutely nothing to do with NPOV. > If group A says that foo is NPOV, but group B say that it is POV, then it by > definition cannot be NPOV - because otherwise group B would agree that it > was. I think you need to re-read the page on NPOV. NPOV doesn't mean that everyone always agrees. > In this scenario, I think that the difficulty is that people want something > that is, indeed, absolutely NPOV, and acceptable to everyone. However, this > is a case, I feel, like too many others, sadly, where there is no such > Nirvana solution; we must make do with the least POV use. "Both" sides feel > that using "AD" and "BC" is POV, and both are right. However, where they > differ is that one side either considers "CE" and "BCE" to be less POV than > the others for most people, or fails to see it as POV at all, whereas the > other finds it more POV. >From your tone it sound like you're quite tired of this matter, ... And I can't blame you.. As I've said, the issue has already been well cooked on the wiki. But I'm curious... What makes you believe that BCE/CE isn't neutral and that it's less so than AD/BC? I get the argument against AD/BC, that it pushes a specific idea about the existence and role of Jesus and I get the counter arguments.. usually that common use and time have tempered the POVness to where no one really associates it with any POV. I can also see how people may be concerned that BCE/CE isn't in common enough use and that it may represents a degree of national snobbery, since the usage is more common in some English speaking nations than others. But I simply don't see why BCE/CE isn't as neutral as any ideal nomenclature for naming eras. Not all disagreements are a matters of neutrality. > > Since I was specifically discussing the claim that arbcom was getting > > involved with supporting one POV over another, my primary interest was > > in demonstrating why BCE/CE isn't POV at all. > Please, do, go ahead. I await with baited breath. Well, I've said my mind on the matter and you're still unconvinced. ... I did not claim that my demonstration would be effective. :) > I disagree; by strongly criticising one side of a wide-ranging edit war, and > saying nothing at all about the other, the old proposed rulings were > impliticly condoing the POV of those not mentioned, and discarding that of > Jguk and others. It seems to me that arbcom was specifically acting against users who have broken the agreement to allow both forms. In the arbcom case there is no substantially cited history of the 'other side' following around the people they disagree with and revising every use. If you are aware of such a case, I highly suggest you take it to the arbcom. > > because if we were to agree that one of the phrasings were non-neutral > > then it would be the BC/AD nomenclature and we would have no choice but > > to adopt the BCE/CE form. > I agree. However, this is not true - *both* are non-neutral, the argument is > to the relative neutrality of them two. Well, this is a misunderstanding on my part then. But I still don't see that this is of merit to the arbcom issue: If someone has been following around editors that write using BC/AD in articles containing mostly BC/AD and changing it, then I think they are also deserving a reprimand and I'm confident that arbcom would agree. > I absolutely agree. I just disagree with your conclusion. :-) Well, we have to start with something... > Sorry. In future I will reply, point-by-point, with "See above.". I had > written this thrice before deciding to merely snip. I certainly understand the effort that goes into writing a thought out reply, and I promise that I am making a genuine attempt to understand your position and not merely trolling you. Thank you for your time and effort. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 03:35:40 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:35:40 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Religioustolerance.org In-Reply-To: <42B600CB.7050600@gmx.de> Message-ID: >From: Erik Moeller > >Jon: >Where exactly did you remove links to religioustolerance.org? Primarily from the [[Common Era]] article, where the issue was much discussed and edit-warred over. Most recently, on the [[Jesus]] article just before he went on his editing haitus.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jesus&diff=prev&oldid=15030087] Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 03:40:18 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:40:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Licensing concern. Message-ID: en:User:UninvitedCompany has a user page which contains text with a form much like a standard copyright grant, which makes the claim that because wikipedia or it's articles are a collective work by many authors that any contributor, no matter how minor (as his less than 3k edits are quite minor compared to the size of wikipedia as a whole which he lays claim to), is entitled to relicense the work as a whole under any license they see fit. He then goes on to use this to grant the entire wikipedia under CC-BY-SA because he has issues with the GFDL. Although he has been careful to pad his words with the expected IANALs, it is pretty clear his intention is to circumvent the licensing of Wikipedia and, failing that, to encourage others to disregard our licensing. When the issue of User:Pioneer12's non-article edits came up ... I didn't care too much because the issue was the licensing of his work, not mine. In this case UninvitedCompany is making an effort to circumvent the licensing on my work that I have chosen, by attempting to relicense that work against my wishes. I consider this to be profoundly anti-social. Although uninvitedcompany has been more than polite in my discussion with him on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:UninvitedCompany (more polite than I for sure), he refuses to stop attempting to relicense my work via the text on his user page. I understand that UninvitedCompany dislikes the GFDL and that he is not alone in that position. I, however disagree with his position on the GFDL and his idea of what other people think of the GFDL. For example, the position of debian legal is not as strongly negative as he implies, because the license is setup to only have teeth against distribution so the 'encrypted storage' issue is generally a strawman argument. I specifically prefer the GFDL over the CC-BY-SA because the DRM restriction would make life hard for someone distributing my content using a device which involuntarily locks the content with DRM (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/10/everything_you_ever_wanted/). The GFDL's strong DRM terms contain an intentional side effect that may help slow the market penetration of devices which subjugate the users of the technology, and I strongly support this protection because it is certan that since I use Free Software I would be unable to access content given to me by users of CPRM devices no matter their good intentions, and because only through creating 'licensed publishers' can the mass-media companies completely close the hole that allows the illegal distribution of their work. Such a future would likely deny me the effective ability to publish altogether, as long as you define effective to mean not providing a special playing device with my work and publish as covering a wider audience than some free software geeks. ... but the arguments for and against the GFDL really don't matter here: My work is licensed under the GFDL and only the GFDL. It is almost certainly not possible for User:UninvitedCompany or anyone else to change that, but it is terribly impolite for him to use space on Wikipedia (userpager or otherwise) to make such claims that disagree with our license text and the wishes of (at least) some of the editors. The argument UninvitedCompany is advocating would allow any editor to distribute wikipedia under any license he wishes no matter how more or less restrictive. Judging by the small number of people who dual license their work as PD or BSD, I suspect many would disagree. So I'd like to ask the community at large to please ask uninvited company to revise his user page. I don't think his claim has any more merit than pioneer12's disagreement with the form he submitted all his talk text through, but I think it's all the more negative because it purports to effect the licensing of work by authors other than him rather than just his own. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 03:48:07 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:48:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: <200506200057.j5K0vYrw000668@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: >From: "James D. Forrester" > > > They will probably get bored in the end. > > > > jguk's campaign lasted for 8 months, > >Indeed. And the United States was continuously at war with Germany from >1918 >until 1945, and has been so with the United Kingdom since 1776. > >*yawns* > >[Snip] Hmm. I'm not sure what to make of your rather "snippy" response. The United States has not, in fact, been continuously at war with Germany for that perios, nor with the UK. However, jguk did indeed make edit articles solely for the purpose of deleting BCE/CE for 8 months, almost the entire time he has been editing here, including deletions of BCE/CE references in every one of those eight months. In all it was over 1000 edits. We've had other editors (almost always anonymous) come in here and remove BCE/CE references from several dozen, or even several hundred, articles over a period of a day or two, but I've never seen one as persistent as jguk. And by the way, contrary to geni's contention, I've never seen an anonymous editor come in and edit dozens or hundreds of articles solely for the purpose of converting BC/AD to BCE/CE - the phenomenon seems to be one-way only. Jay. From alphasigmax at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 03:57:48 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:27:48 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42B63EBC.5060909@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David Gerard wrote: > FoF 6: > > 6) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among scholars and > those who seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out > in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year > of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus potentially offensive, see research by > El_C. > > FoF 6.01: > > 6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain > portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in > inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno > Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus > regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does > not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia. > Not sure about "recently", but 6.01 explains who is pushing this particular POV a whole lot better. > This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content > arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to > use in pushing a POV. > Which is exactly what content arbitration should avoid. Civility and NPOV are the goals, aren't they? > - d. > - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCtj68/RxM5Ph0xhMRAv/vAJ9DOJPNkfmGyWkRybqDiSraUYdboQCePdDR UYNDSM1k4S34wKTLQptrY5w= =Myee -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 04:11:17 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:11:17 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <5309126705061921111abc880e@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, David Gerard wrote: > Not the *entire* rest, thanks ... > > This is the sort of AC case that should never have been accepted, and I'm > now sorry I voted 'accept' (though it already had four by the time I got > there). I'm beginning to regret this myself. This is the sort of case I'm really growing increasingly against us hearing in the first place, and it's rapidly degenerating into a stuffup. -- ambi From alphasigmax at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 04:43:09 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:13:09 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Licensing concern. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42B6495D.8090806@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Gregory Maxwell wrote: > en:User:UninvitedCompany has a user page which contains text with a > form much like a standard copyright grant, which makes the claim that > because wikipedia or it's articles are a collective work by many > authors that any contributor, no matter how minor (as his less than 3k > edits are quite minor compared to the size of wikipedia as a whole > which he lays claim to), is entitled to relicense the work as a whole > under any license they see fit. He then goes on to use this to grant > the entire wikipedia under CC-BY-SA because he has issues with the > GFDL. Although he has been careful to pad his words with the > expected IANALs, it is pretty clear his intention is to circumvent the > licensing of Wikipedia and, failing that, to encourage others to > disregard our licensing. > So I'd like to ask the community at large to please ask uninvited > company to revise his user page. I don't think his claim has any more > merit than pioneer12's disagreement with the form he submitted all his > talk text through, but I think it's all the more negative because it > purports to effect the licensing of work by authors other than him > rather than just his own. > While your insistence on the GFDL is admirable, I (and IANAL) feel that the user page of UninvitedCompany does not present the same problems as that of User:Pioneer-12, because UnivitedCompany is *not* saying that they are refusing to license under the GFDL. As I see it (and again, IANAL), the statement on [[User:UninvitedCompany]] (as of 04:25, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)), says: 1. I have contributed to Wikipedia 2. Wikipedia is NOT a collection, but a single work (which, IMHO, is contrary to consensus) 3. Wikipedia is a single work with joint authorship (again, contrary to consensus) 4. Since Wikipedia is a single work, any author can license it however they want, the rest of Wikipedia be damned (which is against the GFDL) 5. I hereby multi-license my contributions under CC-BY-SA 1.0 and 2.0 6. IANAL so anything in 1-4 must be taken with a very large grain of salt, and people should check before the distribute material 7. This is a statement of intent, not a contract. The problems I see are in the status of Wikipedia as being a single work rather than a collection of works; and the right of a single user (namely UnivitedCompany) to change the license of the entire Wikipedia by simply saying that they want their contributions to be under the Creative Commons licenses. Now if I've read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multi-licensing correctly (and again, IANAL), All Wikipedia articles are licensed under the GFDL, and only the portions written by authors who have multi-licensed under CC/BSD/whatever are licensed under those alternative licenses. So (and again, IANAL): your contributions cannot be licensed under anything except the GFDL unless you choose to do so, and even then, *they are still under the GFDL*. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCtkld/RxM5Ph0xhMRApxvAJ4jDybEl5oiiXab4608BUUuPB9LhgCffKLw 53DYHkNh/qn4rCsdEjP65vo= =+aip -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From skyring at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 04:48:37 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:48:37 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <200506200057.j5K0vYrw000668@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <550ccb8205061921481a7d105b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, JAY JG wrote: > Hmm. I'm not sure what to make of your rather "snippy" response. The United > States has not, in fact, been continuously at war with Germany for that > perios, nor with the UK. However, jguk did indeed make edit articles solely > for the purpose of deleting BCE/CE for 8 months, almost the entire time he > has been editing here, including deletions of BCE/CE references in every one > of those eight months. In all it was over 1000 edits. We've had other > editors (almost always anonymous) come in here and remove BCE/CE references > from several dozen, or even several hundred, articles over a period of a day > or two, but I've never seen one as persistent as jguk. And by the way, > contrary to geni's contention, I've never seen an anonymous editor come in > and edit dozens or hundreds of articles solely for the purpose of converting > BC/AD to BCE/CE - the phenomenon seems to be one-way only. Perhaps it's the Almighty, bending Wikipedia to His POV? -- Peter in Canberra From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 04:50:23 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:50:23 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] unwanted e-mails. In-Reply-To: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> References: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> Message-ID: It would help if you told us what you are talking about. -Mgm On 6/20/05, walt compton wrote: > I keep getting unwanted e-mails from people I don't know and I don't know they are talking about. Could I PLEASE > be removed from their e-mail mailing > list. Thank you. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 05:06:01 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:06:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050620050601.78437.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > Under the existing style guide that was ok. Either > style is acceptable. > > Fred > > On Jun 19, 2005, at 2:01 PM, Rick wrote: > > > SouthernComfort was NOT one of the editors > involved > > until after he got into "change every article > about > > Iran to BCE" mode. jguk was RIGHTLY changing SC's > > edits back to what the original authors had left > them > > at. > > > > RickK It was NOT ok. SouthernComfort's sole edits were to change the date formats. This would be the same as an editor changing all American spellings to English spellings and getting away with it because they are offended by American spellings. RickK __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 05:09:53 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:09:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050620050953.48779.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> --- Timwi wrote: > Rick wrote about people having discussions in > languages other than English: > > > Well, for one thing, it's rude. > > Maybe it's just me, but my impression is that > English speakers tend to > find it more rude than others. *Could* be (but need > not be) interpreted > as anglo-chauvinism. > > Timwi What a crock. If you and I went to another language's wiki and started writing comments in only English, don't you think there would be objections? RickK ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 05:56:12 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 22:56:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project Message-ID: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede to this. I am leaving the project and will not be back. Enjoy your lives. RickK __________________________________ Discover Yahoo! Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! http://discover.yahoo.com/ From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 06:02:38 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 02:02:38 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, Rick wrote: > Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede > to this. I am leaving the project and will not be > back. > Enjoy your lives. Oh come on, you engaged in an ugly and unsubstantiated edit war, protected the page, blocked a random user that disagreed with you, probably broken 3RR... And now you complain that you received treatment not 1/8th as harsh as you would have given any other editor without hesitation? ... Get over it! You'll be back, so next time spare us the hysterics. From blankfaze at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 06:04:02 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:04:02 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <34a27deb050619230457d5ec72@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, Rick wrote: > > Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede > to this. I am leaving the project and will not be > back. > > Enjoy your lives. > > RickK That really sucks. Thanks a lot to the jackasses responsible. -- ! blankfaze *the good times are killing me* From ultrablue at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 06:04:50 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (ultrablue at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:04:50 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So you got a 24 hour block for 3RR. Get over it and move on. For someone who so freely gives out 24 hour blocks for rule violations, you don't seem to like the rules being enforced against yourself. Hopefully when you come back (in 24 hours) you will be less willing to engage in block/unblock wars, which I'm sure everyone agrees are not a good thing. ~Mark Ryan On 6/20/05, Rick wrote: > Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede > to this. I am leaving the project and will not be > back. > > Enjoy your lives. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Discover Yahoo! > Use Yahoo! to plan a weekend, have fun online and more. Check it out! > http://discover.yahoo.com/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 06:06:16 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:06:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050620060616.35022.qmail@web60624.mail.yahoo.com> --- ultrablue at gmail.com wrote: > So you got a 24 hour block for 3RR. Get over it and > move on. For > someone who so freely gives out 24 hour blocks for > rule violations, > you don't seem to like the rules being enforced > against yourself. > Hopefully when you come back (in 24 hours) you will > be less willing to > engage in block/unblock wars, which I'm sure > everyone agrees are not a > good thing. > > ~Mark Ryan I won't be back. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 20 06:40:26 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2005 23:40:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <1C20D37C-C2EC-4194-8BA8-2873B86E10BF@ctelco.net> <20050619195259.14373.qmail@web60616.mail.yahoo.com> <20050619222407.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42B664DA.8030708@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: >Rick (giantsrick13 at yahoo.com) [050620 05:53]: > > >>Isn't that exactly what SouthernComfort did? He said >>he was offended by BC/AD, and you and the rest of the >>arbcomm said his offense is more important than >>consensus. >> >> >Not the *entire* rest, thanks ... > >This is the sort of AC case that should never have been accepted, and I'm >now sorry I voted 'accept' (though it already had four by the time I got >there). > > When people can simply say that they are offended and have all sorts of operations thus brought to a screeching halt then you know that political correctness has run amok. Some take it to the extent that being offended becomes offensive. When people use these allegedly offensive expressions offense is often the furthest thing from their minds; they are not being disrespectful of anybody. Their actions should be viewed in that light, and not in the light of someone else's self-pity. Ec From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 11:47:58 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:47:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: > Can you actually provide any citations to support your position? > I only ask because in my experience the BCE/CE notation is really > quite common and has been used in the majority of scholarly research > I've read (well the majority hasn't mentioned an era at all, but what > does uses BCE/CE). I am aware that it isn't so universally used in all > fields, but I was taught the BCE/CE notation in grade school... > Perhaps this is just because I am in the United States. > > Your rewrite makes it sound like it is only used by an insubstantial minority. > > In any case, the arbcom isn't and shouldn't be deciding if we should > use AD/BC or CE/BCE as it appears the larger community has decided > that the issue isn't currently clear enough and we don't care. So why does web of knowledge throw up far more results for BC than BCE? -- geni From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 11:58:18 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:58:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <20050619201029.86824.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Rick, SouthernComfort edited a narrow set of subject topics (Iran-related), > over a period of a few weeks, as part of his general interest in Iran; > included in that was his conversion of pages from BC/AD to BCE/CE. He did > not edit dozens of articles over a period of many months for the sole > purpose of (and to which he contributed nothing else but) date notation > conversions. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > SouthernComfort had no previous contibutions to [[Zoroastrianism]]. -- geni From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 12:19:35 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:19:35 +0200 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_[WikiEN-l]_Re:_Anno_Wikip=E6di=E6?= In-Reply-To: <42B485A4.9080504@tonal.clara.co.uk> References: <20050522011221.E49971158330@mail.wikimedia.org> <429025A7.3090707@gmail.com> <42908FAF.8020906@gmail.com> <42961AB9.8030301@web.de> <42B485A4.9080504@tonal.clara.co.uk> Message-ID: I'm not sure if this has already been proposed. But can't we just wikify BC/AD and BCE/CE and have their use depend on user preferences, just like with the dates? -Mgm On 6/18/05, Neil Harris wrote: > Magnus Manske wrote: > > > > >To avoid any bias whatsoever, let each wikipedia count the date by > >number of edits! 100 edits are a wiki-minute... > > > >Magnus > > > > > > > But that would mean that we could only measure time until the > WikiSingularity occurs... > > -- Neil > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 12:24:07 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:24:07 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: References: <200506200207.j5K27wWb017125@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <6BB900C1-A54D-4C65-9EBF-9814BFD1489B@ctelco.net> Exactly. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 8:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > It seems to me that arbcom was specifically acting against users who > have broken the agreement to allow both forms. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 12:43:30 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 06:43:30 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <20050620050601.78437.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620050601.78437.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8CD0F9CD-7912-4061-B201-3E15BF1A8E3A@ctelco.net> Your statement is not based on the facts, SouthernComfort generally was a regular editor of the articles he changed the notation in. He can be presumed to have decided Common Era notation was better for that article and to have had at least the forbearance of the other editors. With respect to American versus British English it has always been acceptable to change to American spelling for an American subject and vice-versa. Fred On Jun 19, 2005, at 11:06 PM, Rick wrote: > It was NOT ok. SouthernComfort's sole edits were to > change the date formats. This would be the same as an > editor changing all American spellings to English > spellings and getting away with it because they are > offended by American spellings. > > RickK From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 12:49:27 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:49:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision against jguk In-Reply-To: <8CD0F9CD-7912-4061-B201-3E15BF1A8E3A@ctelco.net> References: <20050620050601.78437.qmail@web60621.mail.yahoo.com> <8CD0F9CD-7912-4061-B201-3E15BF1A8E3A@ctelco.net> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > Your statement is not based on the facts, SouthernComfort generally > was a regular editor of the articles he changed the notation in. He > can be presumed to have decided Common Era notation was better for > that article and to have had at least the forbearance of the other > editors. With respect to American versus British English it has > always been acceptable to change to American spelling for an American > subject and vice-versa. > > Fred You presume falsely. -- geni From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 13:08:45 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 07:08:45 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <20050620050953.48779.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620050953.48779.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Actually, no. I have asked a question on the Hungarian Wikipedia in English and been politely answers. I know from playing BatMUD for years that almost everyone in Finland is fluent in English and would generally not get their nose out of joint should someone (on a talk page) made a comment in English. I also know (from playing BatMUD) that a tiny minority might use it as an excuse to express their "Puuh." Anyway, I don't see a problem in occasional conversations in Turkish or Farsi. After they settle whatever issue they have with each other they can bring it back in English for the rest of us. On Jun 19, 2005, at 11:09 PM, Rick wrote: > What a crock. If you and I went to another language's > wiki and started writing comments in only English, > don't you think there would be objections? > > RickK From jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk Mon Jun 20 13:14:08 2005 From: jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk (jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:14:08 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick Message-ID: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> Every conflict on Wikipedia follows the same pattern. It begins with one user doing something another doesn't like (with or without actual policy violations) but there is a breach of civility and resultant offense in almost every instance. It must be pretty bad if long-term contributors (say >5000 edits) or administrators are blocked over anything, and I find it hard to believe that a valuable contributor like RickK should be blocked without a polite warning or an offer for help. Without insisting on double standards for administrators, I think long-term contributors, who have spent months working on improving the project and know the ropes, should be protected against people who come crashing into Wikipedia with an agenda to push and an axe to grind. Rick, I admire your style and commitment to Wikipedia, and hope you will regret your departure. Scrupulous RC patrollers and vandal fighters deserve suport. JFW From misfitgirl at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 13:27:55 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:27:55 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> Message-ID: <53091267050620062744de6930@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > It must be pretty bad if long-term contributors (say >5000 edits) or administrators are blocked over anything, and I find it hard to believe that a valuable contributor like RickK should be blocked without a polite warning or an offer for help. Without insisting on double standards for administrators, I think long-term contributors, who have spent months working on improving the project and know the ropes, should be protected against people who come crashing into Wikipedia with an agenda to push and an axe to grind. > > Rick, I admire your style and commitment to Wikipedia, and hope you will regret your departure. Scrupulous RC patrollers and vandal fighters deserve suport. Too true. While double standards are not a good thing, sometimes discretion is really useful. Blocking a really good and long-term contributor over a one-off 3RR violation is madness. If it happens a few times, then that may be justified, but else it just serves to infuriate and potentially encourage them to quit the project. -- ambi From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 13:35:20 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:35:20 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Discussion on English Wikipedia in languages other than English In-Reply-To: <20050620050953.48779.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620050953.48779.qmail@web60611.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2f33f2d405062006351d93e05b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, Rick wrote: > If you and I went to another language's > wiki and started writing comments in only English, > don't you think there would be objections? IMO it would all depend on how and why you did it, and how you responded to comments to your extensive writing in English. The topic of this list is English Wikipedia: I write about sv:WP below because I think a comparison adds to the understanding of the complexity of the subject. At Swedish WP there are people who do post quite a lot in English on talk pages. The reason for non-Swedish-speakers to write comments in English on Swedish Wikipedia could be many: the topic might be international Wikipedia colloaborations etc, something about the WikiMedia board elections etc (see Angelas comments previously) but also sometimes comments regarding article content etc. We have an editor from Japan who writes about international golf players at Swedish Wikipedia: I guess he mainly adds dates for tournaments, victories and similar, since he doesn't speak Swedish - I haven't checked, only seen some of the discussions. He discusses a lot on the talk pages, to be able to use the right words etc. If anything, I think people find his efforts kind of cute. The non-Swedish-speakers or poor-Swedish-speakers who edit without discussing - mainly by exchanging one word for another, or cutting parts of articles away - are IMO much more of a problem. We should probably realise, though, that if he and three or four other guys discussed the golf articles at sv:WP in Japanese instead of English, that would be something else. I guess Swedish is not as bad as Japanese to the average English speaker, but almost (bork bork). ;-) To add a small complication, there is a situation where I will probably always add a comment in Swedish on an en:WP talk page, after what other stuff I've written in English. This is if I am adressing a person who I know is from Finland and whose Swedish is good; so good that it might be his/her first language. Due to history and the relationship between Finnish and Swedish nations and languages, not acknowledging I am talking to a fellow Swedish speaker although from Finland is a bit... if Ifail to do this I feel like a jerk. I don't ask you to understand the mechanisms behind this, and quite possibly it is more in me than in them. I just ask you to not let general encouragement of posting in English at en:WP go so far as to frown on this kind of small comments; it might make life at English Wikipedia a bit more complicated for us than you understand. I am still very much in favour of encouragements of taking the on topic parts of discussions in English. /Habj From dangrey at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 13:51:05 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:51:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: <53091267050620062744de6930@mail.gmail.com> References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> <53091267050620062744de6930@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 20/06/05, Rebecca wrote: > Too true. While double standards are not a good thing, sometimes > discretion is really useful. Blocking a really good and long-term > contributor over a one-off 3RR violation is madness. If it happens a > few times, then that may be justified, but else it just serves to > infuriate and potentially encourage them to quit the project. > > -- ambi Yes, double standards are indeed not a good thing. Rules must apply to everyone, equally. Dan From smoddy at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 14:06:20 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:06:20 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> <53091267050620062744de6930@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: And how many users are given just a warning on their first offence at WP:AN3? Rules must apply to everyone, equally. Sam On 6/20/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > On 20/06/05, Rebecca wrote: > > Too true. While double standards are not a good thing, sometimes > > discretion is really useful. Blocking a really good and long-term > > contributor over a one-off 3RR violation is madness. If it happens a > > few times, then that may be justified, but else it just serves to > > infuriate and potentially encourage them to quit the project. > > > > -- ambi > > Yes, double standards are indeed not a good thing. > > Rules must apply to everyone, equally. > > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From kkrueger at whoi.edu Mon Jun 20 15:59:12 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 11:59:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20050620155912.GD3109@whoi.edu> On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 02:24:15AM +0100, James D. Forrester wrote: > On Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:32 PM, Fred Bauder wrote: > | Under the existing style guide, either style is acceptable. Changing an > | article with both forms to use just one is, also, acceptable, a useful > | bit of copyediting. However, changing an article from style to the other, > | in whichever direction, is not, and should be reverted. > > The lack of everything after the first full stop is what is worrying in your > answers; I hope that it was missed off purely for brevity. The way it sounds to me, acceptable conduct is to not make a big deal out of the issue. Anyone who makes a big deal about it is in violation of policy. :) -- Karl A. Krueger From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:00:27 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:00:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> <53091267050620062744de6930@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: > And how many users are given just a warning on their first offence at > WP:AN3? New users (new being subjective I define it as less thatn 3 mounth or 1000 edits) are normaly warned. I've never seen an admin or arbcom member warned since it is generaly assumed they know about the rule.~~~~ -- geni From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:06:55 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:06:55 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > Every conflict on Wikipedia follows the same pattern. It begins with one user doing something another doesn't like (with or without actual policy violations) but there is a breach of civility and resultant offense in almost every instance. > Not always. I remeber being involved in one disspute where both side were civil. I belive it was solved by the boredom method in the end. > It must be pretty bad if long-term contributors (say >5000 edits) or administrators are blocked over anything, and I find it hard to believe that a valuable contributor like RickK should be blocked without a polite warning or an offer for help. Without insisting on double standards for administrators, I think long-term contributors, who have spent months working on improving the project and know the ropes, should be protected against people who come crashing into Wikipedia with an agenda to push and an axe to grind. They are. However the 3RR as decided by the comunity makes no such distinction. Do you really want to increase its subjectiveness? -- geni From smoddy at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:12:12 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:12:12 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: References: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> Message-ID: Yes. I think that would be a wholly good thing. Sam On 6/20/05, geni wrote: > > On 6/20/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > > > Every conflict on Wikipedia follows the same pattern. It begins with one > user doing something another doesn't like (with or without actual policy > violations) but there is a breach of civility and resultant offense in > almost every instance. > > > > Not always. I remeber being involved in one disspute where both side > were civil. I belive it was solved by the boredom method in the end. > > > > It must be pretty bad if long-term contributors (say >5000 edits) or > administrators are blocked over anything, and I find it hard to believe that > a valuable contributor like RickK should be blocked without a polite warning > or an offer for help. Without insisting on double standards for > administrators, I think long-term contributors, who have spent months > working on improving the project and know the ropes, should be protected > against people who come crashing into Wikipedia with an agenda to push and > an axe to grind. > > They are. However the 3RR as decided by the comunity makes no such > distinction. Do you really want to increase its subjectiveness? > > > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 16:16:57 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:16:57 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <20050620155912.GD3109@whoi.edu> References: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> <20050620155912.GD3109@whoi.edu> Message-ID: Exactly. And in my opinion that include the arbitrators who are in full retreat because a "good" editor has decided to pack it up because there was a PROPOSED decision he found offensive. Fred On Jun 20, 2005, at 9:59 AM, Karl A. Krueger wrote: > On Mon, Jun 20, 2005 at 02:24:15AM +0100, James D. Forrester wrote: > >> On Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:32 PM, Fred Bauder >> wrote: >> | Under the existing style guide, either style is acceptable. >> Changing an >> | article with both forms to use just one is, also, acceptable, a >> useful >> | bit of copyediting. However, changing an article from style to >> the other, >> | in whichever direction, is not, and should be reverted. >> >> The lack of everything after the first full stop is what is >> worrying in your >> answers; I hope that it was missed off purely for brevity. >> > > The way it sounds to me, acceptable conduct is to not make a big deal > out of the issue. Anyone who makes a big deal about it is in > violation > of policy. :) > > -- > Karl A. Krueger > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:28:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:28:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Rick > >Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede >to this. I am leaving the project and will not be >back. I hope this is not true. Jay. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Mon Jun 20 16:29:11 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:29:11 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project Message-ID: Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been worth. Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", etc. for the lost sheep. Ed Poor From fastfission at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:45:28 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:45:28 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062009457537079d@mail.gmail.com> Doesn't this just get at the first and most primary difficulty in content arbitration: Whose authority to go by? If it was me, I'd ask the people who run Chicago Manual of Style. But I know what they'd answer: In academia, this actually isn't that contentious a battle, you go with what you feel most, and those who use BCE/CE consider it less offensive, those who don't, don't. Which doesn't give policy. Would they call up some professor and ask them what they thought we should do? Would anybody abide by that? Would it be a quantitative thing? Would we add up all the citations on one online search engine versus another? (Would we be careful enough to realize that a search for "BC" is likely to also pick up any usages of "BCE" on most of them?) Do these search engines necessarily reveal academic consensus? (Academia is a culture in which quality matters a lot more than quantity, in my opinion; a few major players insisting on something often matters a lot more than a lot of minor players doing things their own way). Do we even think "Academia" is the gold standard? Aren't the editors of the Catholic Encyclopedia just as erudite and scholarly? I go both ways on content arbitration. Part of me says, "Yes, call up a well-respected academic, they'll tell you what the 'mainstream' consensus is; most of us know that pretty well, our full time jobs involve doing nothing but reading things other academics have written!" The other part of me realizes that this is a not entirely defensible position, and that wars of experts won't work unless somebody "from above" (i.e. Jimbo) gives a hard and fast rule determining how these things will work, and doesn't worry about whether it is logically or ethically defensible. The other problem I have is that I know that other institutions that rely on "expert advice" from outside often take care to pick the experts that reflect their version of "consensus." This happens again and again in politics, in the courts, in journalism, in academia itself. I don't see any reason that this wouldn't happen on Wikipedia. There is, by the way, a large literature on the use of "experts" out there, in sociology, science studies, legal studies, etc., so we don't necessarily have to re-invent the wheel as we hash this over. FF On 6/20/05, geni wrote: > > Can you actually provide any citations to support your position? > > I only ask because in my experience the BCE/CE notation is really > > quite common and has been used in the majority of scholarly research > > I've read (well the majority hasn't mentioned an era at all, but what > > does uses BCE/CE). I am aware that it isn't so universally used in all > > fields, but I was taught the BCE/CE notation in grade school... > > Perhaps this is just because I am in the United States. > > > > Your rewrite makes it sound like it is only used by an insubstantial minority. > > > > In any case, the arbcom isn't and shouldn't be deciding if we should > > use AD/BC or CE/BCE as it appears the larger community has decided > > that the issue isn't currently clear enough and we don't care. > > > So why does web of knowledge throw up far more results for BC than BCE? > > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 16:50:37 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:50:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: subject-area advisory panels for the ArbCom (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050620165037.11990.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > The Njyoder case involves [[gender]], an article which makes sense in > a subcultural context but not much sense to Njyoder. A content > inquiry as to whether within the subcultural context there there is > significant content which might go into the article is helpful. Very well put. Thus my idea of having advisory panels in various fields that the ArbCom can consult to help it find out just who is and is not following our content-related policies. 12 people simply do not have enough combined knowledge about everything needed to make this effective except in the most obvious of cases. > I think the test is whether without some reference to content > questions, the disputes remain unresolved and unresolvable under a > theory that one opinion is as good as another. LIke I said earlier, a > theory of a flat earth is fine in [[flat earth]] but out of place in > [[astrophysics]]. Another excellent point. If we only looked at violations of purely behavioral policies, then all a POV/OR-pusher would need to do is be persistent and provoke editors working against them into violations of our behavioral policies and guidelines. It can be *very* frustrating to know what is NPOV and what is and is not original research in an area and have somebody very persistently try to push a POV or OR. Thus I can understand why some outbursts from good editors can happen. Such outbursts can not be condoned, but the reason why they happened should be considered and that information should mitigate any remedy for the outburst and the person provoking the outburst should be sanctioned. If we (the ArbCom) ding the good editor for violating a behavioral policy and leave the bad editor alone just because we either did not understand the content policy violation or because we are gun-shy from enforcing those policies except in the most blatant of cases, then we have failed in our primary goal; to provide an environment where good editors can create the best encyclopedia possible. That's why I want the ArbCom to have the ability to consult subject-area advisory panels when needed. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fastfission at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:53:39 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:53:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062009535f67ee2a@mail.gmail.com> By the way, on this question in specific: I can't search the full Web of Knowledge, apparently (I'm only getting the Web of Science), but it seems in the results I am getting (and logically speaking) that "BC" can stand for a lot of things besides a date usage, whereas BCE seems to be primarily only used in designating eras. Additionally I'm having a hard time telling if searches for "BC" don't also bring up articles which use "BCE" as well. Which indicates only that if one were to use a quantitative search for these sorts of things (differentiating between one usage and another), one has to make sure we understand how the engines in particular function, as well as thinking about the queries in question (I've had people give #s for Google Scholar searches which simply wouldn't give the information they were trying to get, just because they weren't thought out that well). There's also the bigger question about whether quantity matters more than quality, but that's even harder to parse out. (In any event, I don't care either way. I don't think there needs to be a universal policy on this; I think it should fall under the English/American spellings clause. But alas..) FF On 6/20/05, geni wrote: > So why does web of knowledge throw up far more results for BC than BCE? > > -- > geni From beesley at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 16:54:45 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:54:45 +0200 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_[WikiEN-l]_Re:_Anno_Wikip=E6di=E6?= In-Reply-To: References: <20050522011221.E49971158330@mail.wikimedia.org> <429025A7.3090707@gmail.com> <42908FAF.8020906@gmail.com> <42961AB9.8030301@web.de> <42B485A4.9080504@tonal.clara.co.uk> Message-ID: <8b722b8005062009542b1d5543@mail.gmail.com> On 20/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I'm not sure if this has already been proposed. But can't we just > wikify BC/AD and BCE/CE and have their use depend on user preferences, > just like with the dates? That solution was proposed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/BCE-CE_Debate/Alternatives but not very well supported. Angela. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Mon Jun 20 16:56:09 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:56:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick Message-ID: Ambi wrote: > ... While double standards are not a good thing, > sometimes discretion is really useful. Blocking a really good > and long-term contributor over a one-off 3RR violation is > madness. If it happens a few times, then that may be > justified, but else it just serves to infuriate and > potentially encourage them to quit the project. I think double standards are an excellent idea, but not the way Ambi means. They're not good when you hold others to a higher standard than yourself, of course, as when political POV pushers excuse torture and mass murder when carried out "for the sake of the cause" but profess to despise it (for its own sake) when carried out by "opponents of the cause". But it's good when one holds *oneself* to a higher standard than you demand from others. One of the reasons I'm so popular around here is that I've always assumed that I should strive, and be judged by, a higher standard than anyone else here. Call it pride, if you like, but who's the most successful Mediator we have? And how many NPOV disputes have I permanently settled? [cringes while tomatoes and dead cats are thrown] Let's stop all this fussing about who's allowed to do what and get back to the actual work of this project. I don't give a dry-eyed duck about B.C./A.D versus BCE/CE or centre/center or Danzig/Gdansk or how disgusting a photo we can upload "informing" our readers about [[human feces]]. All that childishness does is distract us from real work. Uncle Ed From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 20 17:11:59 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 11:11:59 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062009535f67ee2a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a05062009535f67ee2a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7F9E0EDC-EB99-475D-A413-30108D24F37E@ctelco.net> From votes on the subject I would say Wikipedia opinion is about evenly divided, thus the style guide which permits both usages. Fred On Jun 20, 2005, at 10:53 AM, Fastfission wrote: > By the way, on this question in specific: I can't search the full Web > of Knowledge, apparently (I'm only getting the Web of Science), but it > seems in the results I am getting (and logically speaking) that "BC" > can stand for a lot of things besides a date usage, whereas BCE seems > to be primarily only used in designating eras. Additionally I'm having > a hard time telling if searches for "BC" don't also bring up articles > which use "BCE" as well. > > Which indicates only that if one were to use a quantitative search for > these sorts of things (differentiating between one usage and another), > one has to make sure we understand how the engines in particular > function, as well as thinking about the queries in question (I've had > people give #s for Google Scholar searches which simply wouldn't give > the information they were trying to get, just because they weren't > thought out that well). There's also the bigger question about whether > quantity matters more than quality, but that's even harder to parse > out. > > (In any event, I don't care either way. I don't think there needs to > be a universal policy on this; I think it should fall under the > English/American spellings clause. But alas..) > > FF > > On 6/20/05, geni wrote: > >> So why does web of knowledge throw up far more results for BC than >> BCE? >> >> -- >> geni >> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu Mon Jun 20 17:26:45 2005 From: rickyrab at eden.rutgers.edu (Richard Rabinowitz) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:26:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 68 In-Reply-To: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: Ever notice how many folks use [[Wikipedia]] wiki conventions such as [[double brackets]], ~~~~ for names, etc, in their e-mail messages to this board? :) From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 17:30:22 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:30:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: geni > > > Rick, SouthernComfort edited a narrow set of subject topics >(Iran-related), > > over a period of a few weeks, as part of his general interest in Iran; > > included in that was his conversion of pages from BC/AD to BCE/CE. He >did > > not edit dozens of articles over a period of many months for the sole > > purpose of (and to which he contributed nothing else but) date notation > > conversions. > >SouthernComfort had no previous contibutions to [[Zoroastrianism]]. [[Zoroastrianism]] is obviously Iran-related, regardless of whether or not SouthernComfort had edited there before; the religion originated in the region, was once the official religion of the Persian empire, and the country still contains the largest population of Zoroastrians in the world. Jay. From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 17:33:44 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:33:44 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 68 In-Reply-To: References: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, Richard Rabinowitz wrote: > Ever notice how many folks use [[Wikipedia]] wiki conventions such as > [[double brackets]], ~~~~ for names, etc, in their e-mail messages to this > board? :) > yes double brackets are handy since they show clearly you are refuring to an article.~~~~ is just habit. -- geni From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 17:38:47 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:38:47 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: <1119273248_13799@drn10msi01> Message-ID: >From: jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk > >Every conflict on Wikipedia follows the same pattern. It begins with one >user doing something another doesn't like (with or without actual policy >violations) but there is a breach of civility and resultant offense in >almost every instance. > >It must be pretty bad if long-term contributors (say >5000 edits) or >administrators are blocked over anything, and I find it hard to believe >that a valuable contributor like RickK should be blocked without a polite >warning or an offer for help. Without insisting on double standards for >administrators, I think long-term contributors, who have spent months >working on improving the project and know the ropes, should be protected >against people who come crashing into Wikipedia with an agenda to push and >an axe to grind. > >Rick, I admire your style and commitment to Wikipedia, and hope you will >regret your departure. Scrupulous RC patrollers and vandal fighters deserve >suport. > Amen. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 17:52:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:52:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Sam Korn > >And how many users are given just a warning on their first offence at >WP:AN3? In my experience, just about every one. Jay. From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 17:57:01 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:57:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > In my experience, just about every one. > > Jay. You are wrong. As I said no past admin who has been blocked has been warned. Normaly people who break the 3RR for the first time are new users who don't know the rules. Sometimes they are not then they don't get a warning. -- geni From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Mon Jun 20 17:58:27 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 18:58:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: References: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> <20050620155912.GD3109@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <42B703C3.8000506@tiscali.co.uk> Fred Bauder wrote: > Exactly. And in my opinion that include the arbitrators who are in full > retreat because a "good" editor has decided to pack it up because there > was a PROPOSED decision he found offensive. > > Fred Or maybe we are just prepared to listen when the community says we are making a mistake. --sannse From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Jun 20 17:56:29 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:56:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: <20050619120251.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, David Gerard wrote: > > I've noted that the proposed FoF 6 is trivially factually incorrect - it > only applies to US academia, and even then only a certain portion thereof. > It notably does not apply to e.g. UK academia. I've written a proposed FoF > 6.01. Comments welcomed. (The sentence construction could almost certainly > do with improvement, for instance.) > > FoF 6: > > 6) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among scholars and > those who seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out > in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year > of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus potentially offensive, see research by > El_C. > > FoF 6.01: > > 6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain > portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in > inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno > Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus > regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does > not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia. > > This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content > arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to > use in pushing a POV. > I have no objections to the ArbCom's Findings until I reached section 6; what I found written there yesterday disturbs me greatly, for it appears that they are embracing one side in a POV dispute. I, for one, would be far happier if the Committee simply dropped all comment about the AD/BC - CE/BCE controversy; I think it is clear to all but a few that there is no consensus either on Wikipedia or in the larger world about which style is preferred. But if the members feel compelled to make a statement, I would hope they limit it to the observation that both styles are widely used in the English-spekaing world, & that there many arguments for & against each -- acknowledging that for Wikipedia to embrace either exclusively would be to violate our core value of NPOV. Geoff From bjourne at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 19:11:13 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:11:13 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Howto write better WikiEN-l messages :) In-Reply-To: References: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <740c3aec05062012113b5c6e14@mail.gmail.com> > Ever notice how many folks use [[Wikipedia]] wiki conventions such as > [[double brackets]], ~~~~ for names, etc, in their e-mail messages to this > board? :) Aye! Let me also quip in to say that that is an *extremly* irritating convention to use in e-mail. Most mail-readers do not support the English Wikipedia and therefore to check out the page that the person is referring to in the [[double brackets]], you have to paste the thing in the English Wikipedia's search box click search and goto the page. So if you are referring to a Wikipedia page, and want lazy people like me to look at it, then please use an URL instead of stupid double brackets. -- mvh Bj?rn From blankfaze at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 19:33:06 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:33:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34a27deb050620123336e558bd@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > worth. > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > etc. for the lost sheep. > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > That's a horrible thing to say, Ed. I don't agree with you for a second. blankfaze From smoddy at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 19:39:36 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:39:36 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. Sam On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > worth. > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > etc. for the lost sheep. > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 19:43:59 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:43:59 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just an encyclopedia, get over it already... Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: > Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a > Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. > > Sam > > On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > > worth. > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > Ed Poor > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Jun 20 20:38:55 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 06:38:55 +1000 Subject: subject-area advisory panels for the ArbCom (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment) In-Reply-To: <20050620165037.11990.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620165037.11990.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050620203855.GQ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Daniel Mayer (maveric149 at yahoo.com) [050621 02:50]: > If we (the ArbCom) ding the good editor for violating a behavioral policy and > leave the bad editor alone just because we either did not understand the > content policy violation or because we are gun-shy from enforcing those > policies except in the most blatant of cases, then we have failed in our > primary goal; to provide an environment where good editors can create the best > encyclopedia possible. > That's why I want the ArbCom to have the ability to consult subject-area > advisory panels when needed. We can do that already. However, I foresee only disasters with content arbitration, and it not decreasing POV pushing at all - but giving POV pushers more system to game. I point to the present case as an example. - d. From dangrey at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 20:43:26 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:43:26 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Also agree with Ed. Rick knows the rules - and no-one is above them. So I have no idea why he acted in a manner that would get himself blocked - only he knows. Then he gets upset over it after deliberately brining it on himself - huh?! And I've never been impressed by these desperately attention-seeking public exits. People join and leave Internet communities all the time. Most don't feel the need to be a prima donna though. Those that do tend to return quite quickly. Dan On 20/06/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins > shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to > experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just > an encyclopedia, get over it already... > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: > > Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a > > Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. > > > > Sam > > > > On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > > > worth. > > > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > > > Ed Poor > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From trodel at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 20:56:07 2005 From: trodel at gmail.com (Jim Trodel) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:56:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Reverting copyrighted material should not count as 3RR violation. Now I agree that RickK should have refrained from blocking other users in the dispute and waited for a different admin. I for one am sad to see contrarian editors/admins go. There seem to be several editors at the [[GAP Project]] that have done things that were inappropriate - improperly undeleting a page, etc. If you ask me what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If RickK's deserves some type of 24 hour block in the name of treating admin's equally, those that misused the admin tools should also be blocked a minimum of 24 hours. Jim On 6/20/05, Dan Grey wrote: > Also agree with Ed. > > Rick knows the rules - and no-one is above them. So I have no idea why > he acted in a manner that would get himself blocked - only he knows. > Then he gets upset over it after deliberately brining it on himself - > huh?! > > And I've never been impressed by these desperately attention-seeking > public exits. People join and leave Internet communities all the time. > Most don't feel the need to be a prima donna though. Those that do > tend to return quite quickly. > > > Dan > > On 20/06/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > > Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins > > shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to > > experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just > > an encyclopedia, get over it already... > > > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > > > > > > > On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > > > > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > > > > worth. > > > > > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > > > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > > > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > > > > > Ed Poor From sean at epoptic.org Mon Jun 20 20:56:00 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 13:56:00 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42B72D60.5000406@epoptic.com> Geoff Burling stated for the record: > I have no objections to the ArbCom's Findings until I reached section 6; > what I found written there yesterday disturbs me greatly, for it appears > that they are embracing one side in a POV dispute. Why are you disturbed? Only Fred is in favor, four of us oppose it and three are abstaining. Most of us on the Committee agree with you. -- Sean Barrett | The best thing about the Internet is that it absorbs sean at epoptic.com | the attention of tens of thousands of people | whom everyone would like to keep off the streets | and away from our children. --Garrison Keillor From smoddy at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 21:00:00 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:00:00 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Which justifies that self-aggrandizing, completely malicious tirade? Methinks not. I was not objecting to Ed's tone and crowing. It is hardly civil. Sam On 6/20/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > Also agree with Ed. > > Rick knows the rules - and no-one is above them. So I have no idea why > he acted in a manner that would get himself blocked - only he knows. > Then he gets upset over it after deliberately brining it on himself - > huh?! > > And I've never been impressed by these desperately attention-seeking > public exits. People join and leave Internet communities all the time. > Most don't feel the need to be a prima donna though. Those that do > tend to return quite quickly. > > > Dan > > On 20/06/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > > Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins > > shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to > > experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just > > an encyclopedia, get over it already... > > > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > > > On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: > > > Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a > > > Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. > > > > > > Sam > > > > > > On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > > > > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've > been > > > > worth. > > > > > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed > to > > > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more > rejoicing", > > > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > > > > > Ed Poor > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 20 21:13:24 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:13:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> The rules do not have any innate value. That is to say, the mere fact that something is in the rules does not make it right, any more than its absence from the rules makes it wrong. Sysops are not expected to be mechanical robots in enforcing the 3RR or any other rule. This doesn't mean people are above the rules. It means that sysops are not obliged to block in every case. One of the things that should always play into a decision about blocking is the good faith of the contributor, the necessity of the block in getting the point across, and the nature of the dispute. Frankly, Rick's block wasn't cut and dry - removing copyvio absolutely should not count as a 3RR revert, and there's no reason to think that Rick did not sincerely see a copyvio problem. And it's important to err on the side of protecting Wikipedia from lawsuit with copyvio - if there's a reasonable suspicion, remove first, then spend the time sorting it out. Which isn't to say that Rick handled this well. He didn't. it is, however, to say that he did not handle it so badly as to deserve the abject slap in the face that this block was. And he's right to be pissed - I would be. I hope Silsor intends to spend a LOT more time than he has browsing recent changes and dealing with the abject stupidity that Rick was our first line of defense against. Because otherwise, that block just hurt the project a lot. -Snowspinner From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 20 21:14:16 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 14:14:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: subject-area advisory panels for the ArbCom (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee Seeking Comment) In-Reply-To: <20050620203855.GQ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050620211417.63634.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > We can do that already. However, I foresee only disasters with content > arbitration, and it not decreasing POV pushing at all - but giving POV > pushers more system to game. I point to the present case as an example. Thus the need for subject-area advisory panels. The 'disaster' you talk about seems to focus on a bad FoF. A subject area advisory panel would have helped the ArbCom avoid such a mistake. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 21:28:25 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:28:25 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] unwanted e-mails. In-Reply-To: References: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> Message-ID: <49bdc74305062014285a562969@mail.gmail.com> he wants to be removed from the list, I think ;') ~~~~ On 6/20/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > It would help if you told us what you are talking about. > -Mgm > > On 6/20/05, walt compton wrote: > > I keep getting unwanted e-mails from people I don't know and I don't know they are talking about. Could I PLEASE > > be removed from their e-mail mailing > > list. Thank you. > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 21:41:31 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:41:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Granted Rick's actions were attempting to keep a possible copyvio out of WP, but revert warring with other respected users was a pretty lame way to go about it. It was not going to resolve the GAP project copyvio problem. Dan On 20/06/05, Phil Sandifer wrote: > The rules do not have any innate value. That is to say, the mere fact > that something is in the rules does not make it right, any more than > its absence from the rules makes it wrong. Sysops are not expected to > be mechanical robots in enforcing the 3RR or any other rule. This > doesn't mean people are above the rules. It means that sysops are not > obliged to block in every case. > > One of the things that should always play into a decision about > blocking is the good faith of the contributor, the necessity of the > block in getting the point across, and the nature of the dispute. > Frankly, Rick's block wasn't cut and dry - removing copyvio > absolutely should not count as a 3RR revert, and there's no reason to > think that Rick did not sincerely see a copyvio problem. And it's > important to err on the side of protecting Wikipedia from lawsuit > with copyvio - if there's a reasonable suspicion, remove first, then > spend the time sorting it out. > > Which isn't to say that Rick handled this well. He didn't. it is, > however, to say that he did not handle it so badly as to deserve the > abject slap in the face that this block was. And he's right to be > pissed - I would be. > > I hope Silsor intends to spend a LOT more time than he has browsing > recent changes and dealing with the abject stupidity that Rick was > our first line of defense against. Because otherwise, that block just > hurt the project a lot. > > -Snowspinner > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 20 21:47:56 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:47:56 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Lame, yes. Worth blocking over? Erm. No. -Snowspinner On Jun 20, 2005, at 5:41 PM, Dan Grey wrote: > Granted Rick's actions were attempting to keep a possible copyvio out > of WP, but revert warring with other respected users was a pretty lame > way to go about it. It was not going to resolve the GAP project > copyvio problem. > > > Dan > > On 20/06/05, Phil Sandifer wrote: > >> The rules do not have any innate value. That is to say, the mere fact >> that something is in the rules does not make it right, any more than >> its absence from the rules makes it wrong. Sysops are not expected to >> be mechanical robots in enforcing the 3RR or any other rule. This >> doesn't mean people are above the rules. It means that sysops are not >> obliged to block in every case. >> >> One of the things that should always play into a decision about >> blocking is the good faith of the contributor, the necessity of the >> block in getting the point across, and the nature of the dispute. >> Frankly, Rick's block wasn't cut and dry - removing copyvio >> absolutely should not count as a 3RR revert, and there's no reason to >> think that Rick did not sincerely see a copyvio problem. And it's >> important to err on the side of protecting Wikipedia from lawsuit >> with copyvio - if there's a reasonable suspicion, remove first, then >> spend the time sorting it out. >> >> Which isn't to say that Rick handled this well. He didn't. it is, >> however, to say that he did not handle it so badly as to deserve the >> abject slap in the face that this block was. And he's right to be >> pissed - I would be. >> >> I hope Silsor intends to spend a LOT more time than he has browsing >> recent changes and dealing with the abject stupidity that Rick was >> our first line of defense against. Because otherwise, that block just >> hurt the project a lot. >> >> -Snowspinner >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 22:48:36 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:48:36 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Why not? It's only for 24 hours. The alternative would have been leaving them to edit war on and on, to present certain users as being above the rules, and to generally devalue the 3RR - this is exactly what it's supposed to be used for. Dan On 20/06/05, Phil Sandifer wrote: > Lame, yes. > > Worth blocking over? > > Erm. No. From shebs at apple.com Mon Jun 20 23:01:05 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:01:05 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <42B74AB1.4040203@apple.com> Yeah, quitting the project is like a city council member getting a speeding ticket, and reacting by announcing that the local government has broken down, resigning from the council, and selling the car. Stan Dan Grey wrote: >Why not? It's only for 24 hours. The alternative would have been >leaving them to edit war on and on, to present certain users as being >above the rules, and to generally devalue the 3RR - this is exactly >what it's supposed to be used for. > > >Dan > >On 20/06/05, Phil Sandifer wrote: > >>Lame, yes. >> >>Worth blocking over? >> >>Erm. No. >> >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From rowan.collins at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 23:23:16 2005 From: rowan.collins at gmail.com (Rowan Collins) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:23:16 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 68 In-Reply-To: References: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05062016233f00f63b@mail.gmail.com> On 20/06/05, Richard Rabinowitz wrote: > Ever notice how many folks use [[Wikipedia]] wiki conventions such as > [[double brackets]], ~~~~ for names, etc, in their e-mail messages to this > board? :) Ever notice how many people who opt to receive mailing lists in digest form don't think to change the subject to something other than "Re: Digest, Vol , Issue ", making it impossible for anyone to tell what their message is about without looking at it? ;) [Sorry, minor pet peeve] -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Jun 20 23:23:59 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 16:23:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: <42B72D60.5000406@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Jun 2005, Sean Barrett wrote: > Geoff Burling stated for the record: > > > I have no objections to the ArbCom's Findings until I reached section 6; > > what I found written there yesterday disturbs me greatly, for it appears > > that they are embracing one side in a POV dispute. > > Why are you disturbed? Only Fred is in favor, four of us oppose it and > three are abstaining. Most of us on the Committee agree with you. > The very thought that the subject covered by section 6 should be considered for a vote. And when I looked at the Findings Sunday, the voting was not complete. My sense is that Wikipedia is fairly evenly divided over this matter. The ArbCom has shown a commendable amount of restraint so far with its powers, which have only helped to make its authority that much more powerful. I feel that if the ArbCom gets involved in this matter, it can only result with one side -- or both -- losing respect for the ArbCom. And I haven't spoken up more about this issue because I find it hard to stately unemotionally -- & succinctly -- my opinions about this matter. Geoff From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 20 23:33:11 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:33:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: geni > > > In my experience, just about every one. > > > > Jay. > >You are wrong. As I said no past admin who has been blocked has been >warned. Normaly people who break the 3RR for the first time are new >users who don't know the rules. Sometimes they are not then they don't >get a warning. That doesn't invalidate what I said; most people who violate the 3RR are fairly new, and are warned. Admin 3RR violations are few and far between. Jay. From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Mon Jun 20 23:37:40 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 19:37:40 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <742dfd0605062016374aa5a766@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Rick > > > >Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede > >to this. I am leaving the project and will not be > >back. > > I hope this is not true. I, too, hope this is not true. From michaelturley at myway.com Tue Jun 21 01:13:17 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 21:13:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project Message-ID: <20050621011317.72F1339A8@mprdmxin.myway.com> RickK wrote: > Silsor has blocked me from editing. I will not accede >to this. I am leaving the project and will not be >back. > >Enjoy your lives. > >RickK If Omar Vizquel got called out at the plate by a bad call by the umpire, do you think he'd rant and rave at the umpire until he got ejected? Or quit the team? Unlikely. He'd probably go sit in the dugout, suck it up and deal, take one for the team, and wait for his next turn at bat. He has more class than almost all the other major league baseball players. By at least one administrator's opinion, you broke a policy that calls for a near automatic 24 hour block. Maybe you got a bad call. Maybe you didn't. Suck it up and deal, take one for the team. I think you were sometimes short and overly harsh. But I think that if you do come back, you'll be a much better participant than you were before. You were pretty good for all your flaws. (I hope the Giants in "giantsrick13 at yahoo.com" is the San Francisco Giants. I'm an Omar Vizquel fan from when he played in Cleveland.) Best regards, Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 01:21:29 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:21:29 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > That doesn't invalidate what I said; most people who violate the 3RR are > fairly new, and are warned. Admin 3RR violations are few and far between. > > Jay. These days it does seem to be mostly new users. In the past we had a lot more reasonably experenced users getting blocked. Depending on how cynical you are you can either conclude that people's behaviour is improveing or that they are getting better at revert waring. -- geni From andrew.lih at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 01:43:00 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:43:00 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05062018433d0b44fc@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins > shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to > experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just > an encyclopedia, get over it already... Referring to the 3RR blocking as "law" or "near automatic" is flawed, which is why the treatment of RickK is a disappointment, and the potential loss of a very valuable individual. If you read the text of the WP:3RR page, it would not qualify as anything like "law" as we understand it: "If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24 hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." Emphasis on the "may" part. For a good system of law you need pre-knowledge of the rules, fair application and an independent judiciary. The arbitration committee approaches these ideals, but enforcement of 3RR? Nowhere close, and it's causing lots of problems. -User:Fuzheado > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: > > Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a > > Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. > > > > Sam > > > > On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > > > > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > > > worth. > > > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > > > Ed Poor > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From ultrablue at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 02:42:55 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:42:55 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ed. I noticed your email address listed as WikiEN-l admin is no longer functioning. Would you like me to change it to reflect your new email address, or just remove it? I understand you don't entirely want to be list admin any more (or you didn't 12 months ago) so I'll leave it to you to decide what to do. ~Mark Ryan On 6/21/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > worth. > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > etc. for the lost sheep. > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From ultrablue at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 02:46:48 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:46:48 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Errr just ignore that people. Completely off-topic and meant to be private. But so appalling uncontroversial that it puts this list to shame. Why couldn't I accidentally post something amazing like confessions of Wikipedians' sex secrets? At least it would liven up the usual bland "I'm quitting / I'm being stalked! / I will sue Wikipedia" messages. ;-) ~Mark On 6/21/05, Mark Ryan wrote: > Hi Ed. > > I noticed your email address listed as WikiEN-l admin is no longer > functioning. Would you like me to change it to reflect your new email > address, or just remove it? I understand you don't entirely want to be > list admin any more (or you didn't 12 months ago) so I'll leave it to > you to decide what to do. > > ~Mark Ryan > > > On 6/21/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've been > > worth. > > > > Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to > > soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. > > > > But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more rejoicing", > > etc. for the lost sheep. > > > > Ed Poor > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From ultrablue at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 02:51:09 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:51:09 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] unwanted e-mails. In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305062014285a562969@mail.gmail.com> References: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> <49bdc74305062014285a562969@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I checked yesterday, and that email address is not subscribed to the list. :-/ So either another list admin has done it already, or it's not that. Or it's another email address entirely. ~Mark Ryan On 6/21/05, Jack Lynch wrote: > he wants to be removed from the list, I think ;') ~~~~ > > On 6/20/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > It would help if you told us what you are talking about. > > -Mgm > > > > On 6/20/05, walt compton wrote: > > > I keep getting unwanted e-mails from people I don't know and I don't know they are talking about. Could I PLEASE > > > be removed from their e-mail mailing > > > list. Thank you. > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 03:18:14 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:18:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/20/05, Jim Trodel wrote: > Reverting copyrighted material should not count as 3RR violation. Eh, Coolcat says he wrote the text and we have no reason to disbelieve him. He has exhibited substantial personal knowledge on matters related to Turkey in the past. Rather than RickK responding to Coolcat's claim he outright ignored it as though it had never been said, and continued making the claim all over the wiki that there was no justification for restoring the material. I encounter substantial difficulty at times getting media removed that is far more likely to be a copyvio and without an editor claiming to be the author than the situation here. The point quite rightly made to me is that it's not the end of the world if it isn't removed today, which is quite valid. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 03:51:49 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:51:49 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] jguk case: amended FoF brought In-Reply-To: References: <42B72D60.5000406@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <5309126705062020513642d84b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Geoff Burling wrote: > My sense is that Wikipedia is fairly evenly divided over this matter. > The ArbCom has shown a commendable amount of restraint so far with its > powers, which have only helped to make its authority that much more > powerful. I feel that if the ArbCom gets involved in this matter, it can > only result with one side -- or both -- losing respect for the ArbCom. > > And I haven't spoken up more about this issue because I find it hard to > stately unemotionally -- & succinctly -- my opinions about this matter. You're not the only one concerned. This decision is a fiasco, and is why it's in the process of being almost entirely overturned. I apologise for my part in it going this far. -- ambi From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 03:53:33 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:53:33 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I am very concerned by the arbcomm decision againstjguk In-Reply-To: <42B703C3.8000506@tiscali.co.uk> References: <3EBCE62B-5F94-44B7-9D47-620900D3250D@ctelco.net> <200506200124.j5K1OJLc006876@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> <20050620155912.GD3109@whoi.edu> <42B703C3.8000506@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <5309126705062020533d5ec2b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, sannse wrote: > Or maybe we are just prepared to listen when the community says we are > making a mistake. > > --sannse Hear hear. -- ambi From laura at thescudder.com Tue Jun 21 04:26:28 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura Scudder) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:26:28 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I happen to agree that the way he's leaving full of righteous indignation is really foolish, and I really don't care who thinks I'm pathetic and selfish just because I don't appreciate other's silly outbursts. Laurascudder On Jun 20, 2005, at 1:43 PM, Jack Lynch wrote: > Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins > shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to > experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just > an encyclopedia, get over it already... > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/20/05, Sam Korn wrote: >> Ed, that is the most pathetic and selfish thing I have ever read a >> Wikipedian write. I thought better of you. >> >> Sam >> >> On 6/20/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: >>> >>> Really? Good riddance. You've caused far more trouble than you've >>> been >>> worth. >>> >>> Even the way you're leaving is an example. You could have appealed to >>> soft-hearted old Uncle Ed. But, no, you've got to run off in a snit. >>> >>> But if you change your mind, let me know. "For there is more >>> rejoicing", >>> etc. for the lost sheep. >>> >>> Ed Poor >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From rhobite at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 04:38:05 2005 From: rhobite at gmail.com (Rhobite) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:38:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page Message-ID: RickK has deleted his own talk page. I think it should be undeleted, and RickK should be de-sysop'ed. Rhobite From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 21 05:06:39 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:06:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8DD9BAC3-7BC2-400D-AC51-E75DBFDA0966@sbcglobal.net> Yes! Clearly desysopping him will fix everything! -Snowspinner On Jun 21, 2005, at 12:38 AM, Rhobite wrote: > RickK has deleted his own talk page. I think it should be undeleted, > and RickK should be de-sysop'ed. > > Rhobite > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From skyring at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 05:17:28 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:17:28 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] unwanted e-mails. In-Reply-To: References: <005f01c57528$4e015920$f3e0fea9@retiredgdfvdog> <49bdc74305062014285a562969@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820506202217ee7edab@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Mark Ryan wrote: > I checked yesterday, and that email address is not subscribed to the list. :-/ > > So either another list admin has done it already, or it's not that. Or > it's another email address entirely. He needs one of these: http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequitur/2005/06/20 -- Pete, who wants one too From skyring at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 05:22:00 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:22:00 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Howto write better WikiEN-l messages :) In-Reply-To: <740c3aec05062012113b5c6e14@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620160700.011B41190BEF@mail.wikimedia.org> <740c3aec05062012113b5c6e14@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820506202222d1d2e74@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: > > Ever notice how many folks use [[Wikipedia]] wiki conventions such as > > [[double brackets]], ~~~~ for names, etc, in their e-mail messages to this > > board? :) > > Aye! Let me also quip in to say that that is an *extremly* irritating > convention to use in e-mail. Most mail-readers do not support the > English Wikipedia and therefore to check out the page that the person > is referring to in the [[double brackets]], you have to paste the > thing in the English Wikipedia's search box click search and goto the > page. > > So if you are referring to a Wikipedia page, and want lazy people like > me to look at it, then please use an URL instead of stupid double > brackets. Hmmm. Has the [[WikiMail]] project reached beta yet? -- Peter in Canberra From blankfaze at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 05:25:32 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:25:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34a27deb0506202225405ea739@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, Rhobite wrote: > > RickK has deleted his own talk page. I think it should be undeleted, > and RickK should be de-sysop'ed. > > Rhobite > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > Rho, that is the dumbest thing I've heard in this whole silly mess -- ! blankfaze *the good times are killing me* From michaelturley at myway.com Tue Jun 21 05:26:53 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:26:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous Message-ID: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> >> Ed is spot on, and couldn't be more right about such whinging. Admins >> shouldn't be above the law, and precious few of us are here to >> experience an online soap opera of hysterical emotionalism. Its just >> an encyclopedia, get over it already... > >Referring to the 3RR blocking as "law" or "near automatic" is flawed, >which is why the treatment of RickK is a disappointment, and the >potential loss of a very valuable individual. If you read the text of >the WP:3RR page, it would not qualify as anything like "law" as we >understand it: > >"If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24 >hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." > >Emphasis on the "may" part. > >For a good system of law you need pre-knowledge of the rules, fair >application and an independent judiciary. The arbitration committee >approaches these ideals, but enforcement of 3RR? Nowhere close, and >it's causing lots of problems. > >-User:Fuzheado Come on, now. "May" indicates that the administrator had the option to block RickK for up to 24 hours. An administrator used that option to do so. (The very same who had in November 2004 awarded RickK the "Order of Canada" for "past work in defending our integrity".) Certainly you cannot be upset that an administrator used his own independent judgement and chose to use the authority granted to him by the community at large in a way prescribed by formal policy? Part of the more general problem I see here that causes this is that granting administratorship at Wikipedia is meant to be "no big deal", yet anything that even hints at removing such, even for an hour or two, is the seen as end of the world as we know it. If granting administrator status truly is "no big deal", it shouldn't be that much less common to remove it, if only temporarily. Instead, we have more and more policies and procedures that excuse and insulate administrators from the "no big deal" portion and say "forgive the administrator for being mean because you really were a jerk" or "don't worry about the administrator driving off new users because he's so good at catching vandals." If we truly want to live up to the perception and ideal that adminship is "no big deal", it should be a matter of routine to revoke admin priviledges for a few hours for something as little as a single foul mouthed comment, even if provoked and egged on by peers. If this is done, perhaps we will see less admins defending their actions at any cost, and more "shrugging it off" and proceeding with business. For an example of an insulating policy, what's the point of getting another user to certify an RfC if it's only meant to be a request for comments? To paraphrase a comment I posted earlier on WP, it's as if people think of it as two people ganging up on a third to administer a lashing. It probably comes from being the first "formal" step of dispute resolution, but we should try to de-escalate the seriousness of RfC so we have a more basic forum for public commentary. I didn't mean for this to be a rant, but I hope this is an appropriate place for such comments. I also hope that anyone not interested will sell me an indulgence for the price of fifteen good edits as penance. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From rhobite at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 05:39:27 2005 From: rhobite at gmail.com (Rhobite) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 01:39:27 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: <34a27deb0506202225405ea739@mail.gmail.com> References: <34a27deb0506202225405ea739@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It was just a suggestion, there is no need for you to act like a child. I think blanking one's talk page is fine but deleting a record of over 11,000 edits is not OK. RickK has been involved in Wikipedia for years - his deletion destroys a good amount of notes, chat, evidence, and information. If a normal user left, would we let them speedy delete their own talk page? Not without discussion, at least. Rhobite On 6/21/05, blankfaze wrote: > > > Rho, that is the dumbest thing I've heard in this whole silly mess > > -- > ! blankfaze > *the good times > are killing me* From avenier at venier.net Tue Jun 21 05:44:26 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:44:26 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> Gregory Maxwell wrote: >On 6/20/05, Jim Trodel wrote: > > >>Reverting copyrighted material should not count as 3RR violation. >> >> > >Eh, Coolcat says he wrote the text and we have no reason to disbelieve >him. He has exhibited substantial personal knowledge on matters >related to Turkey in the past. > > As has been pointed out on the relevant talk page, having written something (if we choose to believe an unidentified pseudonymous user) is not necessarily sufficient to establish ownership. CoolCat claimed that text was prepared for a large offline (i.e. print) distribution. We have no way of knowing if that was work-for-hire, for example. When it comes to copyright problems, all one has to do is anonymously claim "I wrote it" when it is found to have been published earier elsewhere? That can't be right. From avenier at venier.net Tue Jun 21 05:46:33 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:46:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05062018433d0b44fc@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb05062018433d0b44fc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B7A9B9.5020405@venier.net> Andrew Lih wrote: >Referring to the 3RR blocking as "law" or "near automatic" is flawed, >which is why the treatment of RickK is a disappointment, and the >potential loss of a very valuable individual. If you read the text of >the WP:3RR page, it would not qualify as anything like "law" as we >understand it: > >"If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24 >hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." > >Emphasis on the "may" part. > > Yes, I'm starting to wonder what happened to all the cheerleaders for WP:IAR that showed up on Eequor's RFA... From alphasigmax at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 06:08:51 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:38:51 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > Part of the more general problem I see here that causes this is that > granting administratorship at Wikipedia is meant to be "no big deal", > yet anything that even hints at removing such, even for an hour or > two, is the seen as end of the world as we know it. If granting > administrator status truly is "no big deal", it shouldn't be that > much less common to remove it, if only temporarily. Instead, we have > more and more policies and procedures that excuse and insulate > administrators from the "no big deal" portion and say "forgive the > administrator for being mean because you really were a jerk" or > "don't worry about the administrator driving off new users because > he's so good at catching vandals." > This is why I look forward to graduated user rights levels. The abilities to block, delete, protect, and revert should all be assigned individually, not as a lump sum just for "doing a few hours RC patrol, having a bajillion edits and working on a featured article". Sure, those things make a person a good Wikipedian, but does that justify adminship? We seem to have a lot of hot-headed admins about (not just the rouge ones) - and when an admin decides to throw a hissy fit, block, revert and delete pages, and announce that they are fed up with the whole thing, it only serves to re-inforce some people's beliefs that people should be stripped of their admin priveleges. > If we truly want to live up to the perception and ideal that > adminship is "no big deal", it should be a matter of routine to > revoke admin priviledges for a few hours for something as little as a > single foul mouthed comment, even if provoked and egged on by peers. > If this is done, perhaps we will see less admins defending their > actions at any cost, and more "shrugging it off" and proceeding with > business. > Indeed; at present, it takes the intervention of a steward (which I've always thought of as being comparable to a Herculean effort) for someone to have admin priveleges removed; even so, it must be at the request of said admin, or the result of an RfAr, or something equally vile. For example, there are several Wikipedians on en who are listed as "missing", and yet still have their mystical powers. Who knows what would happen if they ever returned. I agree that admins should be elected, and elected by the community; but reading the votes at RfA gives me the feeling that members of the Cabal are elected by the Cabal, for the Cabal, and Cabal memebership is some kind of certificate you hang on your wall, much like a diploma. Yes, you can lose it, but it requires breaking, entering, pillaging, and arson. > For an example of an insulating policy, what's the point of getting > another user to certify an RfC if it's only meant to be a request for > comments? To paraphrase a comment I posted earlier on WP, > it's as if people think of it as two people ganging up on a third to > administer a lashing. It probably comes from being the first > "formal" step of dispute resolution, but we should try to de-escalate > the seriousness of RfC so we have a more basic forum for public > commentary. > Also, how come only users get subpages at RfC, and not articles/policies/whatever? And why is an RfC only ever a /bad/ thing? Why is there never a /positive/ RfC? As in "I think this is really great, what do you think?" > I didn't mean for this to be a rant, but I hope this is an > appropriate place for such comments. I also hope that anyone not > interested will sell me an indulgence for the price of fifteen good > edits as penance. > The mailing list is the home of all good rants not unleashed at RfAr, IRC or WP:VP :) > Michael Turley User:Unfocused > - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCt67z/RxM5Ph0xhMRAtscAJ929U8E2y4MqgBFFMepgIPY6tVNowCcDp1+ vga7BdZKcpc0sXT0wgL/w+E= =HlDy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 21 06:14:38 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:14:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <42B7B04E.1050402@gmx.de> michaelturley at myway.com: > Part of the more general problem I see here that causes this > is that granting administratorship at Wikipedia is meant to be > "no big deal", yet anything that even hints at removing such, > even for an hour or two, is the seen as end of the world as we > know it. If adminship is meant to be no big deal, there are a number of things that should be changed, I think. * Rename adminship to "trusted users" and greatly relax the criteria for becoming a TU (certainly in terms of minimum number of edits, which is getting excessive) * Make all TU actions reversible, and possibly require quorums for some * Make privileges individually revokable (banning, deleting, protecting etc.) in case of policy violations * Decrease technical dependency on admins for tasks like deletion and protection - see http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?DevolvePower * Have fast procedures in place for revocation of privileges, but only in cases of proven repeated and persistent violations of policy. Getting adminship is like an initiation rite, and that makes it special to anyone who goes through it. Some even go through it repeatedly. It's a judgment call on the contributor's "worth" as much as on whether they are trusted. "Not enough edits!" "Writes insufficient summaries!" "Doesn't use preview enough!" It's also a big deal because "administrator of Wikipedia" is a nice title. I think the name "bureaucrats" is very clever in comparison. Someone who goes through the RFA process is often likely to feel that they *deserve* to be treated specially. They are now part of the core group, after all. If you slap them repeatedly, that's not going to make things better -- it will only generate friction between the slapper and the slappee. :-) Let's not limit ourselves to thinking with a fixed set of parameters, especially those related to punishment. Hurting some people in order to help others may sometimes be necessary, but if you feel the need to do this frequently, step back and analyze the system itself. I believe that the way to make adminship "not a big deal" is to flatten the power structure of Wikipedia tecnically and socially and to atomize privileges. Erik From wikipedia at earthlink.net Tue Jun 21 06:40:35 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 23:40:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> Erik Moeller wrote: > If adminship is meant to be no big deal, there are a number of things > that should be changed, I think. > > * Rename adminship to "trusted users" and greatly relax the criteria > for becoming a TU (certainly in terms of minimum number of edits, > which is getting excessive) I don't know how much the name matters, but the real criterion, as Erik indicates, is *trust*. And I agree that the adminship process is seriously afflicted with edit-counting disease. > * Make all TU actions reversible, and possibly require quorums for some Isn't reversibility already built into all admin privileges? (Image deletion being an exception for technical reasons.) Quorums are problematic because they require time to form, and part of the reason we grant privileges is to help processes go more quickly. Plenty of things that require admin attention are backlogged as it is. And some situations really do call for swift action, with deliberation to follow afterward. It might be a very good idea, however, if some quorum was required to repeat any admin action that got reversed. I don't know if it would be possible to implement this by technical means, but I'd settle for it as a social expectation. > It's also a big deal because "administrator of Wikipedia" is a nice > title. I think the name "bureaucrats" is very clever in comparison. I didn't like it when chosen, but it's interesting to reconsider a negative as perhaps having some positive effect after all. > I believe that the way to make adminship "not a big deal" is to > flatten the power structure of Wikipedia tecnically and socially and > to atomize privileges. Breaking up the various admin privileges into their component "atoms" will not necessarily flatten the power structure. It can just as easily encourage people to collect as many of the "atoms" as possible, and that kind of attitude would reverse any flattening effect by creating new ways to define the stratification of Wikipedia society. The art of social engineering is filled with unintended consequences. --Michael Snow From andrew.lih at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 06:42:17 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:42:17 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05062023425003c23f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > >"If you violate the three-revert rule, after your fourth revert in 24 > >hours, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." > > Come on, now. "May" indicates that the administrator had the option to block RickK for up to 24 hours. An administrator used that option to do so. (The very same who had in November 2004 awarded RickK the "Order of Canada" for "past work in defending our integrity".) But that's my whole point - folks are saying, "Well that's the law, and no one is above the law." It's not consistent application of a "law" by any stretch. As an admin, I've seen plenty of 3RR violations, but I try to protect the page rather than imposing an abrupt user block. I would like to see article protection as a preferred first step before blocking someone over 3RR. The 3RR would be better if it required this. And as much as people say, "It's just a 24 hour ban, get over it," most would consider it a stain on their reputation within the community if they were blocked. As we can see from the RfA votes, these things do get dredged up. > Certainly you cannot be upset that an administrator used his own independent judgement and chose to use the authority granted to him by the community at large in a way prescribed by formal policy? In terms of "authority," if you look at the Wikipedia:Administrators page, this is what it says: "Administrators are not imbued with any special authority, and are equal to everybody else in terms of editorial responsibility." Either this page or the 3RR page should be changed to be consistent. -User:Fuzheado From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 21 07:05:03 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:05:03 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> Michael Snow: > Isn't reversibility already built into all admin privileges? (Image > deletion being an exception for technical reasons.) Image deletion is quite serious. History merging isn't reversible either at the present. > Quorums are problematic because they require time to form, and part of > the reason we grant privileges is to help processes go more quickly. Yes. It all depends on the implementation. For example, automatic notifications can be used to quickly get users who are online involved. The process where I would most like to have additional safeguards is blocking. It might be preferable to have a temporary "review phase" where editing privileges are suspended, but the block is not yet finalized. The finalization could require a quorum, no objections from other sysops, or a similar process. The reason is simple. A user who feels they are unfairly blocked once may never come back. Angela says that this, too, can be an example of an "irreversible" action. That is quite a drastic possible outcome, and we should strive to reduce that possibility while not giving one inch to spammers and vandals. > It might be a very good idea, however, if some quorum was required to > repeat any admin action that got reversed. I don't know if it would be > possible to implement this by technical means, but I'd settle for it as > a social expectation. Interesting idea. I see you have the right mind for working on solutions to these kinds of questions. Please join the http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network and help us to find and specify ways to improve the existing methods. > Breaking up the various admin privileges into their component "atoms" > will not necessarily flatten the power structure. It can just as easily > encourage people to collect as many of the "atoms" as possible, Generally people should get the whole package. Atomic operations, especially when granting privileges, should be the exception. But they should be possible. I strongly agree with your "unintended consequences" bit. Evaluation, testing, discussion, trial are essential for changes like this. Erik From t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au Tue Jun 21 07:55:45 2005 From: t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au (Tim Starling) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:55:45 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: Alphax wrote: > Indeed; at present, it takes the intervention of a steward (which I've > always thought of as being comparable to a Herculean effort) for someone > to have admin priveleges removed; even so, it must be at the request of > said admin, or the result of an RfAr, or something equally vile. If you think it's too hard to get a steward to desysop someone, you could always become a steward yourself. The process of becoming a steward is reasonably democratic. Just state your platform and try to get elected. Of course stewards aren't the real problem, before the introduction of stewards there were a few instances where I was responsible for such things. An admin violated policy, everyone got angry, I had my finger on the desysop button and I was encouraging the community to make a decision, but there was no consensus. Then as now, many people thought that revoking admin privileges was something you just don't do, except in some unspecified case of extreme behaviour, like deleting the main page or something. There was a lack of direction, few people seemed to believe in the importance of discipline. Frustrated, I later argued that all rules pertaining to the conduct of sysops were just guidelines, to be broken at will, because there was no method for enforcing those rules. I've long thought that the best way to deal with community apathy is by passionate leadership. I had hoped that the arbcom would fill this role, and I guess they have been improving over time in this respect. That doesn't mean other members of the community can't fulfill a similar role in a less legalistic environment -- by climbing the ladder of technical power, by proposing policies and enforcing them, and by inspiring other users to join them in lobbying developers and the Board for changes which are in their interests. This is of course the exact opposite to the position of Michael Turley and Erik, who believe that the problem is in the existence of a power structure, rather than the solution. Some Wikipedians believe that all our problems can be traced to a deviation from anarchy, and that the solution lies in denigrating would-be leaders by calling them "janitors" or "bureaucrats". I respectfully disagree with this philosophy, I put my hope in enlightened democratic leadership rather than the mob. Some people complain that those in power are a cabal, rather than an accountable and democratic body. I'd prefer it if they'd use a more accurate word (despots?), but besides that, it will remain a perfectly valid criticism for as long as there is no easy way for the community to remove them from power. -- Tim Starling From dangrey at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 08:41:59 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:41:59 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: Haven't people made attempts at formulating a policy for de-sysopping before now, and been shot down in flames? This is a bit like the content-committee discussion - I'm not sure how much of a problem there really is. When have we ever truly needed to desysop someone? Can anyone point to an example? Admins, by and large, behave perfectly well. I would hope that the community is selecting those who are trustworthy to be admins, and that peer-pressure from the responsible majority will keep the odd rouge in line. Dan From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:03:04 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:03:04 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: <34a27deb0506202225405ea739@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I agree, a not on his user page to show he's left is okay, but you can't delete your talk page just as you can't delete your edits. -Mgm On 6/21/05, Rhobite wrote: > It was just a suggestion, there is no need for you to act like a > child. I think blanking one's talk page is fine but deleting a record > of over 11,000 edits is not OK. RickK has been involved in Wikipedia > for years - his deletion destroys a good amount of notes, chat, > evidence, and information. If a normal user left, would we let them > speedy delete their own talk page? Not without discussion, at least. > > Rhobite > > On 6/21/05, blankfaze wrote: > > > > > > Rho, that is the dumbest thing I've heard in this whole silly mess > > > > -- > > ! blankfaze > > *the good times > > are killing me* > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:14:45 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:14:45 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> Message-ID: > Yes. It all depends on the implementation. For example, automatic > notifications can be used to quickly get users who are online involved. > The process where I would most like to have additional safeguards is > blocking. It might be preferable to have a temporary "review phase" > where editing privileges are suspended, but the block is not yet > finalized. The finalization could require a quorum, no objections from > other sysops, or a similar process. > > The reason is simple. A user who feels they are unfairly blocked once > may never come back. Angela says that this, too, can be an example of an > "irreversible" action. That is quite a drastic possible outcome, and we > should strive to reduce that possibility while not giving one inch to > spammers and vandals. Temporary blocks are already 24 hours. How are you going to build a review phase in that? The sheer option of being considered for a block is enough to send a lot of people over the edge. > Generally people should get the whole package. Atomic operations, > especially when granting privileges, should be the exception. But they > should be possible. > Yes, it only makes finding an admin to help you with certain actions harder for newbies. Also, someone said something about the cabal choosing the cabal when it comes to RFA. Personally, I find this ridiculous. The only reason admins are voting, is because they are already trusted and have the experience to see who makes a good admin. Besides, admins make up 1% of the Wikipedia population at most, if you made some effort to involve other users, you could easily have more non-admins join in such discussion. -Mgm From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 21 09:15:20 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:15:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom Message-ID: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> It seems Fred has it in for me - whether this is because he shares the views of the BCE/CE lobby and so is unable to step back and be neutral or because he still has it in for me over the CheeseDreams incident, I don't know. But it's getting out of hand. Why can't the ArbCom just stop all the content argument? It's that (along with attempts to delete [[2005 English cricket season]]) that turned me off WP and made it no longer fun. That's why jguk isn't there editing anymore - because it's no longer fun, not because I am trying to use my editing absence as part of any greater ploy. The content wars continue apace though. Those who oppose my view are trying to get ArbCom to decide I am wrong to espouse my view - though they have even more forcefully than me tried to impose their views over a much longer period than me. But, hey - that's political correctness for you - the PC lobby are not noted for their tolerance and understanding of others' views. It's coming to something when edits such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Msha%27sha%27iya&diff=0 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1879_in_archaeology&diff=prev&oldid=15475197 are held against someone! I struggle to find how anyone finds those edits unreasonable - indeed, they very much do put usual formation of dates into the article! However, Fred and Jayjg think these edits are so bad as to actually be reprehensible! Surely this whole ArbCom thing has already gone beyond reason! There is a straightforward question behind all this that the ArbCom has not even addressed - what should happen when some users try to implement a failed proposal and are reverted by other users? Decide this question and leave all other issues alone (it is as unfair to admonish SouthernComfort as it is me - we were both hastened along quite deliberately by Slrubenstein as it is). Jguk --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:27:58 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:27:58 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <530912670506210227697900e@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Dan Grey wrote: > Haven't people made attempts at formulating a policy for de-sysopping > before now, and been shot down in flames? > > This is a bit like the content-committee discussion - I'm not sure how > much of a problem there really is. When have we ever truly needed to > desysop someone? Can anyone point to an example? > > Admins, by and large, behave perfectly well. I would hope that the > community is selecting those who are trustworthy to be admins, and > that peer-pressure from the responsible majority will keep the odd > rouge in line. As far as I remember, three users have been desysopped. It is a big thing - and it so it should be, which is why it's dealt with the way it is now. Our admins are generally our contributors that have been here the longest and in almost all cases, have put in tireless amounts of work to improve the encyclopedia (and anyone who isn't an admin, unless they either don't want to be an admin, or are in some way a dick, should be one in the future with a few more contributions). I'm getting really damned sick of all this admin-bashing on wikien-l. We seem to be getting a small clique of very loud users who seem to contribute remarkably little to the project apart from persecuting users who actually *do* (and loudly defending those that don't). Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy. If you start punishing good users without a very good reason, they will leave. This is a volunteer project - we rely on the people who are prepared to put in hours and hours of work. The people that are prepared to do this (without causing scores of controversy), become admins. We've seen enough good users leave because of people - and you know who are - who seem to get some bizarre kick out of chasing good users away from the project. -- ambi From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:36:47 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:36:47 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of Wikipedia. I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick of this. -- ambi From alphasigmax at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:40:41 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:10:41 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B7E099.10805@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rebecca wrote: > I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of Wikipedia. > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick > of this. > > -- ambi > Ooh ooh, was it me? I'm pretty certain I've already made someone else's hitlist: > Also, someone said something about the cabal choosing the cabal when > it comes to RFA. Personally, I find this ridiculous. The only reason > admins are voting, is because they are already trusted and have the > experience to see who makes a good admin. Besides, admins make up 1% > of the Wikipedia population at most, if you made some effort to > involve other users, you could easily have more non-admins join in > such discussion. -Mgm > Go ahead, make my day. Block me. For a week :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCt+CZ/RxM5Ph0xhMRAj74AJ9nXg/N2hORRnhYi/MVn7fyiyGARgCeIL7d 60d5IeFnLDms9nNJ1NYUzus= =Op4D -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From blankfaze at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 09:55:04 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 04:55:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <34a27deb0506210255f1903d9@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Rebecca wrote: > > I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of > Wikipedia. > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick > of this. > > -- ambi > I hear you, ambi. Seems like each day this place and the people here make me want to be here less and less. So much hostility, incompetence, malice... It's not like it used to be, that's for sure. -- ! blankfaze *the good times are killing me* From skyring at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 10:28:15 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:28:15 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <34a27deb0506210255f1903d9@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <34a27deb0506210255f1903d9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205062103287a9c9743@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, blankfaze wrote: > I hear you, ambi. Seems like each day this place and the people here make me > want to be here less and less. So much hostility, incompetence, malice... > It's not like it used to be, that's for sure. Sounds like a management problem to me. What's changed between "the good old days" and now? -- Peter in Canberra From t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au Tue Jun 21 10:27:48 2005 From: t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au (Tim Starling) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:27:48 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Rebecca wrote: > I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of Wikipedia. > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick > of this. Sorry, I should have read Alphax's post more closely before hastily agreeing to part of it. Of course admins do a great job, they're dedicated to Wikipedia and passionate about its cause, for the most part they stick to the rules and strive for community consensus in everything they do. There have been cases where admins have violated policy, lashing out in the heat of the moment, and I think those cases call for punishment in proportion to the crime. In this particular case, I don't think Silsor is guilty of any crime apart from bruising a fragile ego. -- Tim Starling From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 10:54:39 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:54:39 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> Alphax a ?crit: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 >>If we truly want to live up to the perception and ideal that >>adminship is "no big deal", it should be a matter of routine to >>revoke admin priviledges for a few hours for something as little as a >>single foul mouthed comment, even if provoked and egged on by peers. >>If this is done, perhaps we will see less admins defending their >>actions at any cost, and more "shrugging it off" and proceeding with >>business. >> > > > Indeed; at present, it takes the intervention of a steward (which I've > always thought of as being comparable to a Herculean effort) for someone > to have admin priveleges removed; even so, it must be at the request of > said admin, or the result of an RfAr, or something equally vile. For > example, there are several Wikipedians on en who are listed as > "missing", and yet still have their mystical powers. Who knows what > would happen if they ever returned. I agree that admins should be > elected, and elected by the community; but reading the votes at RfA > gives me the feeling that members of the Cabal are elected by the Cabal, > for the Cabal, and Cabal memebership is some kind of certificate you > hang on your wall, much like a diploma. Yes, you can lose it, but it > requires breaking, entering, pillaging, and arson. Asking a steward to remove sysop status is not an Herculean effort at all. We are numerous enough so that you can find one within an hour at most. So, if you want hurry action, I think it is fine. The Herculean effort comes from the fact you may not remove a sysop status without a full set a actions, so complicated, bureaucratic and generally upsetting... that you just do not do it :-) I would recommand some rules I proposed more than a year ago on meta. I believe a few projects follow them as well. There are two ideas * an editor is gone, does not edit any more ---> he will be removed sysop status. If he needs them back, he can ask and sysop position is granted back pretty easily. But we do not pretend we have 600 sysops while only 100 are active. * an editor must be lightly confirmed once a year. Without making a big mess of it. If several people question the status, it will just be removed. No fuss. Only one person complained in 1 year, not because he was desysoped, but because we did not tell him he was desysoped... but actually, I just did not think of telling him at all... as I think any one asking to be an admin on a project... should know the rules of adminship on this project. On meta, you can give up, ask again, get temporary status, lose or regain sysop power very quickly and painlessly. We just avoid making a big fuss of it. So, I do not think stewards is the problem. Only habits are. Maybe you need to change these habits. ant From skyring at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 11:10:19 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:10:19 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <530912670506210227697900e@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <530912670506210227697900e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050621041051f103b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Rebecca wrote: > As far as I remember, three users have been desysopped. It is a big > thing - and it so it should be, which is why it's dealt with the way > it is now. Our admins are generally our contributors that have been > here the longest and in almost all cases, have put in tireless amounts > of work to improve the encyclopedia (and anyone who isn't an admin, > unless they either don't want to be an admin, or are in some way a > dick, should be one in the future with a few more contributions). There's a problem right there. Not every editor has the same set of wants and needs. Just because someone is a good editor doesn't mean that they will be a good admin. You've outlined adminship as something like having a driver's licence - everyone should be able to get one once they are off their Learner's Permit - when to my mind it should be something more like becoming a Justice of the Peace or a police constable. Look at the way you've defined entry and exit paths. Easy to get in and hard to get out. There's an imbalance in the process. I'm not just flapping my keyboard here. I'm one of a very small number of "admins" in a web community of a size comparable to Wikipedia, and I've been given the task of creating a class of special users, who will have privileges and recognition beyond that of the average member. Given the nature of the tasks they will have to do, the selection process is crucial, and I'm wondering how to go about it. Do I set an arbitrary bar of membership time and number of actions performed, or do I make it a matter of having those "in the know" selecting "people like us"? The example of Wikipedia is before me, and I'm trying to find out out what works and what mistakes to avoid. -- Peter in Canberra From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 11:22:25 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:22:25 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Anthere wrote: > I would recommand some rules I proposed more than a year ago on meta. I > believe a few projects follow them as well. There are two ideas > > * an editor is gone, does not edit any more ---> he will be removed > sysop status. If he needs them back, he can ask and sysop position is > granted back pretty easily. But we do not pretend we have 600 sysops > while only 100 are active. Why? We've never had a problem with an editor returning from hiatus and mysteriously going nuts. This was proposed once before, and turned down very strongly, as it is a solution without a problem. > * an editor must be lightly confirmed once a year. Without making a big > mess of it. If several people question the status, it will just be removed. This is a terrible, terrible idea, Anthere. The standards at the moment are fairly good for newish users, as a means of working out whether they are trusted enough by the community to become admin users. Anyone who edits in controversial areas, does RC patrol, or is involved in any meta issues at all invariably makes enemies on Wikipedia, with a couple of exceptions who have the patience and diplomacy of a saint (ala Jwrozenzweig or Michael Snow). If you sack an editor as an admin because they had to be voted again at the end of a year and they've made some enemies (as opposed to doing something seriously wrong), you're bound to have a lot of editors mysteriously resigning a little after one year after becoming an admin. I've said it before, and I've said it again - this is a volunteer project. If you punish good, long-term users without very good reason, they will quit. And this is a Bad Thing for the project as a whole. -- ambi From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 11:47:49 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 04:47:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050621114749.22746.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rebecca wrote: > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick > of this. Then somebody will need to bring some cases against them to the ArbCom. If some users are causing trouble and contributing very little to the main namespace, then we should get rid of them. We need to ask this question of them: Does having them around help us toward our primary goal of creating the best encyclopedia possible? If not, then they are parasites/trolls that should be shown the door. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 11:51:19 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:51:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> > > As has been pointed out on the relevant talk page, having written > something (if we choose to believe an unidentified pseudonymous user) is > not necessarily sufficient to establish ownership. CoolCat claimed that > text was prepared for a large offline (i.e. print) distribution. We > have no way of knowing if that was work-for-hire, for example. True. We have no way of knowing that anything that anyone writes for wikipedia really belongs to them. All we can do is assume that they are telling the truth when they claim it's thier own work. > When it comes to copyright problems, all one has to do is anonymously > claim "I wrote it" when it is found to have been published earier > elsewhere? That can't be right. This sort of thing could easily be sorted out though. We could contact the publishers directly "Do you give permission for this material to be on Wikipedia?" Theresa From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 11:57:54 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:57:54 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> Message-ID: > Also, someone said something about the cabal choosing the cabal when > it comes to RFA. Personally, I find this ridiculous. The only reason > admins are voting, is because they are already trusted and have the > experience to see who makes a good admin. Besides, admins make up 1% > of the Wikipedia population at most, if you made some effort to > involve other users, you could easily have more non-admins join in > such discussion. -Mgm Admins may make up 1% of the comunity but they are by far the most active part. Fortunety getting admin consensus on anything is near imposible. -- geni From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 12:41:00 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 07:41:00 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Besides, admins make up 1% > of the Wikipedia population at most, if you made some effort to > involve other users, you could easily have more non-admins join in > such discussion. -Mgm Non-admins who get involved in policy discussions -- especially those relating to administrators -- have a tendency to become administrators. Kelly From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 12:49:15 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:49:15 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> But that's again because being an administrator is supposed to be "no big deal" or whatever Jimbo said about it. It generally just means "this person has been around for awhile and does not have some sort of pathological editing problem that makes large amounts of people hate them." It is not a title that is supposed to relate to any particular POV except "Wikipedia is a good thing" which even then you can find some variety in. And I think people who don't share that POV probably shouldn't be taken too seriously in discussions about its policies or future -- its the axiom from which good editing and good decision-making derives. FF On 6/21/05, Kelly Martin wrote: > On 6/21/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > Besides, admins make up 1% > > of the Wikipedia population at most, if you made some effort to > > involve other users, you could easily have more non-admins join in > > such discussion. -Mgm > > Non-admins who get involved in policy discussions -- especially those > relating to administrators -- have a tendency to become > administrators. > > Kelly > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 13:30:12 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:30:12 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <95459085-F6CA-4763-8976-782826BD9F9B@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050621063077312797@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/05, Phil Sandifer wrote: > I hope Silsor intends to spend a LOT more time than he has browsing > recent changes and dealing with the abject stupidity that Rick was > our first line of defense against. Because otherwise, that block just > hurt the project a lot. Now hold on -- this is NOT Silsor's fault that RickK is leaving. The only person behind RickK's actions is RickK. He was not forced out. He was not persecuted. If he believed the 3RR was applied incorrectly, there are reasonable channels through which that communication could go through. If he had written to the list, "Silsor has blocked me, but I was reverting copyrighted info, can someone please unblock me?" he'd probably have been unblocked within the hour. I don't know why RickK wants to leave. But that's his choice. If he wants to give some silly reason -- a single other admin *maybe* made a bad call -- that's his choice as well. But that doesn't mean it's a legitimate reason, and it doesn't mean that we should heap trouble onto the person who allegedly made the bad call. Worst consequence of a 3RR violation? Blocked for a day. Get some sunshine. Stretch your bones. Call your parents. Cool off. RickK was a good editor. His tireless work in keeping out nonsense will be missed. It's too bad he decided that something this petty was the last straw. But you know what? I bet if this hadn't happen, there'd have been another last straw. People don't throw a fit and leave over some little thing when they're content as a whole. I have a feeling he was on the way out one way or another anyway -- this is just a convenient excuse. And in that case, I wish him luck on whatever else he chooses to spend his time on. Fortunately this is a collective project. RickK did a lot of good work, but so do a lot of other people. Let's not get confused over who made this choice, though. RickK's choice was his own. He had plenty of other options that he knew about -- at best he was the victim of a bad call, at worst he violated a simple and well-known rule. He chose to leave -- an extreme choice, but that's his choice to make. He's welcome to come back if he changes his mind. FF From michaelturley at myway.com Tue Jun 21 13:34:58 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:34:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* Message-ID: <20050621133458.4BEE612D5A@mprdmxin.myway.com> >I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of Wikipedia. > >I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just >camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. >I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main >namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should >be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick >of this. > >-- ambi Well, I don't "camp out on wikien-l and VFD", and I have made very many edits to the main namespace in the last fortnight, and I don't have "some sort of problem with authority". But I still get the feeling that I'm being grouped into a "growing group of idiots" by an admin and arbitrator because I '''sincerely''' think an admin should face a temporary penalty for as little as a snide remark. Receive, perhaps not; face, absolutely. In ambi's reply, I see defense at all costs, including the cost of an offensive comment. This is not "wikilove", as far as I know it. This clearly is much more than "no big deal" to ambi, but I don't resent that. I do hope that administrators can remove their ego from the equation and see the image that this sort of comment projects, if it isn't actively refuted by other admins. The very fact that my opinion is characterized as a "problem with authority" says that ambi thinks of her adminship as "authority". Is that the original intent? (From [[Wikipedia:Administrators]] "Administrators are not imbued with any special authority".) If the above were my post, I hope that my response would be to come back an hour later and say "Hey, I was out of line calling people who disagree with me a 'growing group of idiots'. Someone please apply a temporary ban on my account and notify the offended parties." Then I hope I would accept the ban, then get back to work. If being asked to be civil in public in all cases is not possible, then we have to ask that admins carry less of their ego around. If they cannot, and that means an occasional hour or two, or six or twenty four off, then so be it. I'm not calling for admin lynchings, and I will support no such ideas. But what I am asking for is for admins to hold ''themselves'' to a higher standard '''voluntarily'''. I think such real, observable gestures of sincere apology are the essence of "wikilove", but I don't know for sure because I only been around about 8 months total (including time as an anon). Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 13:36:07 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 06:36:07 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anarchy and punishment (was: RickK leaving) Message-ID: Anarchy and punishment don't go well together, and I'm glad Ambi brought them up. Thanks to the US military, the world has the Internet. Okay, it would have come about sooner or later, but the same fun-loving guys who launched the GPS satellites funded much of the research: the Pentagon deserves a little credit. A drop. A smidgen. But due to the Internet's design criteria - notably, that it should keep working despite nuclear war, and route around failure points automatically - there is no central control, no government. But many people have this "working model" of society, as well as Internet collaboration : that THEY can each be the boss, the ruler, the one who metes out punishments for all those who do not conform to their standards. It's tempting; I know; I've succumbed many times to the Lure of Authority. And I think Jimbo was very wise not to appoint me to the arbcom - but to the Mediation Committee instead. But I wish we would ALL stop it. Stop all these vendettas and punishments and Lone Ranger campaigns to make the world over the way WE ALONE know is right. Let's find ways to cooperate together on this encyclopedia project. Something other than anarchy, please. And don't let's set up a court system either. There's got to be a better way. Uncle Ed From anthonydipierro at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 13:40:55 2005 From: anthonydipierro at hotmail.com (Anthony DiPierro) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:40:55 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Automatically checking for copyright violations In-Reply-To: <20050621112233.1C6151190B6E@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: >Seriously though, I have seen a case where a Wikipedian slapped a >copyvio tag on something because it shared some phrases with a webpage. >The author complained that he had spent hours reading multiple sources, >and rewriting the information therein in his own words. That is >unequivocally acceptable under copyright law, and the tag was soon >removed. I find it hard to believe that one could have accurately found the original source of the text without the copy being copyright infringement, especially if the author had actually used "his own words". Of course, the specific details are important, but to say that it is "unequivocally acceptable" is grossly inaccurate. I've also seen situations where an author has claimed to have spend hours reading multiple sources and rewriting the information using his own words, but then after looking at the page history it becomes obvious that he just copied the words and then changed some of them. >There's no need to be paranoid. We should be careful not to >accuse people of plagiarism who are merely paraphrasing or rewriting. Paraphrasing someone without attribution *is* plagiarism. It isn't copyright infringement, if you've done it properly, but it's still plagiarism. Even if you are only paraphrasing someone, you're supposed to cite your source. I'm not sure if it's feasible to identify the original source of a work by checking phrases in an automated manner, but if we do in fact find the original source of a work, and that source isn't already identified, we absolutely need to do something. Whether that means identify the source or simply delete as a copyright infringement depends on both the similarity of the two works and the license status of the original. Anthony _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 21 13:44:49 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 07:44:49 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2A59B6DB-3A35-4B28-8F0E-32DCA90B0E48@ctelco.net> No I don't have it in for you. When I looked at the case I had no opinion, had not even thought about common era notation or about you. I don't remember anything about you from CheeseDreams. Having spent a day going over your edits and those of the others involved and reviewing Wikipedia policies and locating a bunch of pages and votes on the topic I made some PROPOSED decisions. Not a final decision, just proposed decisions, which were never adopted, and it looks like won't be. Based on the proposed decisions you decided to throw in the towel. As to the underlying controversy, Wikipedia opinion is divided, apparently about equally. It is up to the community at large to determine how to resolve the matter. I have one suggestion, however: Having a definite decision is sometimes better than having the right decision. That said, deciding what notation to use for eras is a community decision. My proposed decision simply stated what is true, that common era notation is finding favor in the scholarly community. May I suggest you drop all this crap and go back to editing. I am bruised too but intend to consider the next case on the docket and do the best that I can. Fred On Jun 21, 2005, at 3:15 AM, Jon wrote: > It seems Fred has it in for me - whether this is because he shares > the views of the BCE/CE lobby and so is unable to step back and be > neutral or because he still has it in for me over the CheeseDreams > incident, I don't know. But it's getting out of hand. > > Why can't the ArbCom just stop all the content argument? It's that > (along with attempts to delete [[2005 English cricket season]]) > that turned me off WP and made it no longer fun. That's why jguk > isn't there editing anymore - because it's no longer fun, not > because I am trying to use my editing absence as part of any > greater ploy. > > The content wars continue apace though. Those who oppose my view > are trying to get ArbCom to decide I am wrong to espouse my view - > though they have even more forcefully than me tried to impose their > views over a much longer period than me. But, hey - that's > political correctness for you - the PC lobby are not noted for > their tolerance and understanding of others' views. It's coming to > something when edits such as http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > title=Msha%27sha%27iya&diff=0 and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/ > index.php?title=1879_in_archaeology&diff=prev&oldid=15475197 are > held against someone! I struggle to find how anyone finds those > edits unreasonable - indeed, they very much do put usual formation > of dates into the article! However, Fred and Jayjg think these > edits are so bad as to actually be reprehensible! Surely this whole > ArbCom thing has already gone beyond reason! > > There is a straightforward question behind all this that the ArbCom > has not even addressed - what should happen when some users try to > implement a failed proposal and are reverted by other users? > > Decide this question and leave all other issues alone (it is as > unfair to admonish SouthernComfort as it is me - we were both > hastened along quite deliberately by Slrubenstein as it is). > > Jguk > > > --------------------------------- > How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps > for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 13:48:30 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:48:30 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> What's the alternative -- start banning people indiscriminantly who act anti-social? I can tell you, if you think people are hostile now... If you're getting sick of it, take a break for a week. Stop reading the mailing list. Keep out of VFD. Etc. Because in a collective project of this sort -- one which doesn't have the "entrance fee" that a collective programming project does -- you're going to get nutzos out the wazoo. There's no other way around it. Better be ready for it. Better find ways to cope. Either that, or leave in a huff. Whatever gets you through the day. I don't think any of us are being paid for this -- we're here by choice. So exercise it if you must. You'd be missed for a week or two and then you'd be like all of the other Missing Wikipedians. This is not a project about individual people or personalities, it is about collective effort. We all do our part, and we're all replaceable. Even Jimbo. That's why it is such an interesting and provocative idea. I tell academics about this project -- academia being pretty much an antithesis in many ways -- and they say (actual quote here), "That sounds insane." They're right. That's why it's a good idea. But be realistic about it. The more popular Wikipedia becomes, the more newspaper and magazines it is covered in, the more it becomes a big lightbulb in the forest drawing all sorts of bugs to it. Some of them are good contributors. Some of them are not. There's no quick and fair way to distinguish between the two, and dispensing admin justice left and right is just going to end up with MORE people camping around trying to disrupt things, not less. There's a "Chinese proverb" I read somewhere which goes: "All people are brothers. So expect trouble." FF On 6/21/05, Rebecca wrote: > I swear, this whole discussion is making me want to follow you out of Wikipedia. > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots who just > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with authority. > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that admins should > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting really sick > of this. > > -- ambi > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 14:34:16 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:34:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* Message-ID: > --- Rebecca wrote: > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots > who just > > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with > authority. > > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that > admins should > > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting > really sick > > of this. > > Then somebody will need to bring some cases against them to > the ArbCom. If some users are causing trouble and > contributing very little to the main namespace, then we > should get rid of them. We need to ask this question of them: > Does having them around help us toward our primary goal of > creating the best encyclopedia possible? If not, then they > are parasites/trolls that should be shown the door. > > -- mav And also Michael Turley (user:Unfocused) wrote > I '''sincerely''' think an admin should face a temporary penalty > for as little as a snide remark. Receive, perhaps not; face, > absolutely. I agree with all three of you, and (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln in another context), I am "willing to have the experiment tried on me". >From now on, I shall endeavor to make no more snide remarks. I might be silly. I may say something sarcastic - but not aimed at any person or group. (Like the first sentence of this paragraph could sound silly or sarcastic.) I've been sloppy. I've been careless. I have *NOT* considered the feelings of others ANYWHERE nearly well enough. I'm taking Rebecca and Daniel's word's to heart. In my terms, I see them as a call to repentance. If others join me, and it starts a trend, all the better. Maybe it will even become policy. Who knows? Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 14:35:39 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:35:39 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <20050621133458.4BEE612D5A@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621133458.4BEE612D5A@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > > The very fact that my opinion is characterized as a "problem with authority" says that ambi thinks of her adminship as "authority". Is that the original intent? (From [[Wikipedia:Administrators]] "Administrators are not imbued with any special authority".) Ambi is an arbcom member. Arbcom has at least some authority. -- geni From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 15:07:37 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:07:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposed policy:Troublemakers not welcome here Message-ID: > --- Rebecca wrote: > > I have no idea why we tolerate this growing group of idiots > who just > > camp out on wikien-l and VFD with some sort of problem with > authority. > > I just saw one of them (who has barely made any edits to the main > > namespace in the last fortnight) seriously suggest that > admins should > > be desysopped for as little as a snide remark. I'm getting > really sick > > of this. > > Then somebody will need to bring some cases against them to > the ArbCom. If some users are causing trouble and > contributing very little to the main namespace, then we > should get rid of them. We need to ask this question of them: > Does having them around help us toward our primary goal of > creating the best encyclopedia possible? If not, then they > are parasites/trolls that should be shown the door. > > -- mav I agree, and I think this should be made policy. I came to Wikipedia for one reason, and one reason only. To help make a great encyclopedia which is free for all. In fact, I'm so good at it that I've been *hired* by another encyclopedia project - which is using mailman for its mailing list and MediaWiki for its articles. Sorry, it's not open to the public yet, but Jimbo and Angela know about it. Anyway, our little community (in the other project) places priority on the success of the project and thus we all get along very well. Troublemakers are not welcome there. Managing volunteers is a bit harder, I'll grant you, but the same standard should apply. If you're more trouble than you're worth, here's the door. You want another chance, fine. Come back next tomorrow (or next week) and we'll see. Let's make this an official policy. I'd be more than happy to have this standard applied to me. Have I been pulling my weight the last few weeks? No? Then boot me the hell out. Am I rubbing people the wrong way, making snide remarks, moving and refactoring text too boldly? Fine. Tell me to stop. User:Ta Bu Shi Da Yu did just that, I haven't touched the gitmo book abuse page since last week. (In fact, it's partly because of Tabu's leadership that I supported him for admin; it's nearly unanimous, by the way.) But if we had a more orderly crew, then no one would WANT to take matters in their own hands like I did recently: I thought I saw NPOV violations, and I sprang into action like a blizzard (or maybe a hailstorm - sorry if I bruised anybody's head). RickK thought he saw a violation -- what was it, copyright material by coolcat? -- and jumped into high gear. It takes WEEKS to get the arbcom to act. Did you ever try filling out the required paperwork? It's easier to get a driver's license. We need something else. I know we can find it. We just have to want it enough. Uncle Ed From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Tue Jun 21 16:28:46 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:28:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42B8403E.5090508@shaw.ca> Jon wrote: >Why can't the ArbCom just stop all the content argument? It's that (along with attempts to delete [[2005 English cricket season]]) > Thought I should just pop in here and point out that there's been no attempt to delete [[2005 English circket season]] that I'm aware of. A few have questioned whether Wikipedia should be going into the level of detail that the pages on individual cricket matches go into, but I haven't seen anything suggesting a large enough consensus for them to be successfully VfDed. The main issue with that group of pages is just their _format_, specifically the large-scale use of transclusion to put copies of articles into multiple other articles and the use of subpages. Changing those formatting issues wouldn't involve deleting anything. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 15:22:41 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 08:22:41 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) Message-ID: Sorry to keep changing subject headings, but there thread are tough to follow. Professer Lih wrote: > I would like to see article protection as a preferred first > step before blocking someone over 3RR. The 3RR would be > better if it required this. And as much as people say, "It's > just a 24 hour ban, get over it," most would consider it a > stain on their reputation within the community if they were > blocked. As we can see from the RfA votes, these things do > get dredged up. What about reviving the idea of blocking a user from editing a particular article? If someone blocked me from editing one of the gitmo articles for a couple of days, I'd "get the message" and I wouldn't feel the need for a dramatic exit. As a matter of fact, I'm blocked right now - but only by virtue of voluntarily following the advice of Ta Bu Shi. (Technically, I'm not blocked, but I'm avoiding the page as he suggested.) This would be great for newbies, especially the "unsigned-in" at libraries and school. It's a big shock to be blocked from all edits. You can't even say "sorry" on a talk page! But being blocked from editing Elvis Presley for one hour - while you can TALK ABOUT YOUR EDITS on the talk page - would be great. I bet our team of programmers have already written the code for this feature. How about it, Tim Starling? Can you and Magnus and Brion provide something like this? Uncle Ed From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Tue Jun 21 16:39:07 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:39:07 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> Fastfission wrote: >What's the alternative -- start banning people indiscriminantly who >act anti-social? I can tell you, if you think people are hostile >now... > > If they're being banned for a reason (acting anti-social), then they aren't being banned indiscriminately. Anyway, I suspect that the current "problems" aren't really particularly worse than they used to be back in the "golden age". I've been here almost since the beginning and there have always been these sorts of acrimonious arguments about who's being mean to whom. Personally, I suspect there have been worse periods in Wikipedia's past; I don't have any statistics or anything but just anecdotally I don't think I'm seeing as much bad behavior lately as I can recall in some previous episodes. I credit the ArbCom's actions for much of that, again just based on personal opinion. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 21 16:12:53 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:12:53 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <2A59B6DB-3A35-4B28-8F0E-32DCA90B0E48@ctelco.net> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <2A59B6DB-3A35-4B28-8F0E-32DCA90B0E48@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050621161253.GS7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050621 23:45]: > My proposed decision simply stated what is true, that common era > notation is finding favor in the scholarly community. That's a bit US POV-centric. It's certainly not true outside the US. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 21 16:14:48 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:14:48 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <42B8403E.5090508@shaw.ca> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <42B8403E.5090508@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <20050621161448.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> > The main issue with that group of pages is just > their _format_, specifically the large-scale use of transclusion to put > copies of articles into multiple other articles and the use of subpages. Transclusion of article text is a VERY bad thing. It's basically a way to put a handle into lots of articles to change them without it showing on recent changes. I really don't see why wikiprojects think they can vote to pull shit like this, and why those templates shouldn't just be subst: and then promptly deleted. - d. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 16:15:54 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:15:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <5309126705062109156c8056a4@mail.gmail.com> > Anyway, I suspect that the current "problems" aren't really particularly > worse than they used to be back in the "golden age". I've been here > almost since the beginning and there have always been these sorts of > acrimonious arguments about who's being mean to whom. Personally, I > suspect there have been worse periods in Wikipedia's past; I don't have > any statistics or anything but just anecdotally I don't think I'm seeing > as much bad behavior lately as I can recall in some previous episodes. I > credit the ArbCom's actions for much of that, again just based on > personal opinion. Oh no, let me rephrase. I don't think there was necessarily a "golden age" when we didn't have problems with antisocial users - we've always had that. I think the last few months have generally been the best period we've had, as we finally got rid of the obvious ones (i.e. Lir). Lately, though, this list seems to be taken up with a growing number of people who seem to take care not to break any bannable rules, but whose contributions to Wikipedia seem to consist entirely of trying to persecute admins (or hanging out on VFD). It's like the Red Faction all over again - except considerably more subtle. -- ambi From c.berlet at publiceye.org Tue Jun 21 16:12:52 2005 From: c.berlet at publiceye.org (Chip Berlet) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:12:52 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Really need mediator Message-ID: <477C2A7D4CCE994B8CF296DA69A31D3D39BC3F@server.publiceye.local> Hi, I really need a mediator to deal with the editing disagreements between me and Sam Spade. I requested mediation some time ago. Here is Sam Spade's latest: "First your spurious accusation of plagiarism, and now you accuse me of vandalism. This, combined with dozens of other ugly statements on your part seem to be leading up to a rather damining arbcom case. I suggest you chill the fuck out. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade]] 15:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)" After I pointed out an obvious case of plagiarism by him on the [[Political Correctness]] page he seemed to start following me around Wiki provoking confrontations. His most recent effort was pasting a entire old contested section back into the [[Fascism]] article--complete with duplicate sentences and much duplicated material. When this was pointed out, he suggested it was the job of the other editors to find the duplicate material and delete it. This is vandalism. Please help. I know some people value Sam Spade as an editor, but my experience is that when he does not get his way, he becomes a bully, promoting a very POV right-wing bias. I am on the political left, but do try to edit here on Wiki in an NPOV way. A centrist mediator would be best to divide out what is political disagreement and what is personal antagonism. So I am resorting to this list in an effort to find an unbiased mediator. [[User:Cberlet|Chip Berlet]] From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 16:19:36 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:19:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49bdc743050621091913b8976@mail.gmail.com> I also think this is an excellent idea Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/21/05, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Sorry to keep changing subject headings, but there thread are tough to > follow. > > Professer Lih wrote: > > > I would like to see article protection as a preferred first > > step before blocking someone over 3RR. The 3RR would be > > better if it required this. And as much as people say, "It's > > just a 24 hour ban, get over it," most would consider it a > > stain on their reputation within the community if they were > > blocked. As we can see from the RfA votes, these things do > > get dredged up. > > What about reviving the idea of blocking a user from editing a > particular article? If someone blocked me from editing one of the gitmo > articles for a couple of days, I'd "get the message" and I wouldn't feel > the need for a dramatic exit. > > As a matter of fact, I'm blocked right now - but only by virtue of > voluntarily following the advice of Ta Bu Shi. (Technically, I'm not > blocked, but I'm avoiding the page as he suggested.) > > This would be great for newbies, especially the "unsigned-in" at > libraries and school. It's a big shock to be blocked from all edits. You > can't even say "sorry" on a talk page! But being blocked from editing > Elvis Presley for one hour - while you can TALK ABOUT YOUR EDITS on the > talk page - would be great. > > I bet our team of programmers have already written the code for this > feature. How about it, Tim Starling? Can you and Magnus and Brion > provide something like this? > > Uncle Ed > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 16:53:29 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 09:53:29 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B84609.9080500@telus.net> Dan Grey wrote: >Haven't people made attempts at formulating a policy for de-sysopping >before now, and been shot down in flames? > Particularly by those who see such a response as an act of self-preservation. >Admins, by and large, behave perfectly well. I would hope that the >community is selecting those who are trustworthy to be admins, and >that peer-pressure from the responsible majority will keep the odd >rouge in line. > > I presume you mean "rogue". :-) I agree that most do behave perfectly well, and the same can be said about most contributors. Choosing trustworthy admins is just a pseudo-democratic crap-shoot. Most of us don't participate in the voting; we have more useful things to do. The only functioning standard is the ability to get votes in an "election" that is only attended by people interested in elections, and thus reflecting the POVs of that group. The person who quietly and without controversy continues to work and build in his own special area is probably not represented. I would like to see more objective criteria for candidacy as sysops. These could cover time spent, number of edits, number of original contributions, social skills, etc. Unless a person meets these criteria, he would not be eligible to receive votes. Peer pressure will work well in most cases, but there will still be problem sysops. Notably these are individuals who do a tremendous amount of good work, but whose good works are often offset by an inability to muster the social skills such as patience needed to deal with others holding a different opinion. Ec From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 21 17:10:54 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:10:54 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621161253.GS7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <2A59B6DB-3A35-4B28-8F0E-32DCA90B0E48@ctelco.net> <20050621161253.GS7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <7E8EB282-88E7-49D5-9744-34134BCDDBB5@ctelco.net> It seems to have been adopted as part of the curriculum in the UK. Fred On Jun 21, 2005, at 10:12 AM, David Gerard wrote: > Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050621 23:45]: > > >> My proposed decision simply stated what is true, that common era >> notation is finding favor in the scholarly community. >> > > > That's a bit US POV-centric. It's certainly not true outside the US. > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 17:06:53 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:06:53 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205062103287a9c9743@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <34a27deb0506210255f1903d9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205062103287a9c9743@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B8492D.5030607@telus.net> Skyring wrote: >On 6/21/05, blankfaze wrote: > > >>I hear you, ambi. Seems like each day this place and the people here make me >>want to be here less and less. So much hostility, incompetence, malice... >>It's not like it used to be, that's for sure. >> >> >Sounds like a management problem to me. What's changed between "the >good old days" and now? > Lack of management maybe? Ec From avenier at venier.net Tue Jun 21 17:49:30 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:49:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> Theresa Knott wrote: >This sort of thing could easily be sorted out though. We could contact >the publishers directly "Do you give permission for this material to >be on Wikipedia?" > > This is precisely the problem. CoolCat will not identify himself or the publisher, so we have no way to establish that we have a reasonable belief that we have permission. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 17:56:57 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:56:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> Rebecca a ?crit: > On 6/21/05, Anthere wrote: > >>I would recommand some rules I proposed more than a year ago on meta. I >>believe a few projects follow them as well. There are two ideas >> >>* an editor is gone, does not edit any more ---> he will be removed >>sysop status. If he needs them back, he can ask and sysop position is >>granted back pretty easily. But we do not pretend we have 600 sysops >>while only 100 are active. > > > Why? We've never had a problem with an editor returning from hiatus > and mysteriously going nuts. This was proposed once before, and turned > down very strongly, as it is a solution without a problem. If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were 3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the project quite well, know the people, know the rules... and I believe this is also why there is this requirement of number of edits which the english wikipedia insist so much upon. I do not say it is good or not good, I just observe it. I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors. Trust, or the way trust is "measured" as changed over the years. If it was not the case, some editors who have been active for more than 3 years on wikipedia, who have been sysops for more than 2 years... would not lose sysophood on the german wikipedia these days. >>* an editor must be lightly confirmed once a year. Without making a big >>mess of it. If several people question the status, it will just be removed. > > > This is a terrible, terrible idea, Anthere. The standards at the > moment are fairly good for newish users, as a means of working out > whether they are trusted enough by the community to become admin > users. Anyone who edits in controversial areas, does RC patrol, or is > involved in any meta issues at all invariably makes enemies on > Wikipedia, with a couple of exceptions who have the patience and > diplomacy of a saint (ala Jwrozenzweig or Michael Snow). If you sack > an editor as an admin because they had to be voted again at the end of > a year and they've made some enemies (as opposed to doing something > seriously wrong), you're bound to have a lot of editors mysteriously > resigning a little after one year after becoming an admin. I've said > it before, and I've said it again - this is a volunteer project. If > you punish good, long-term users without very good reason, they will > quit. And this is a Bad Thing for the project as a whole. > > -- ambi Hmmmm, you have a point. Well, I do think that if someone is doing a *good* job, he can afford to make some ennemies, but still be trusted enough by the community or by a large enough number of the community, so that a couple of votes against him will *not* remove him sysop status. On the other hand, if this sysop has made SO MANY ennemies during his activity as a sysop, so many that he has say 60% of editors voting against him staying a sysop... well, I would say this person should maybe not stay sysop. It might be that it drives him away to remove him his status, which would be extremely unfortunate. But I see no sense in keeping a problematic editor sysop, only to avoid losing him as an editor. This is mostly a question of trust. We can all agree we sometimes disagree with others on some decisions. That does not mean we consider them bad persons or do not trust them. We just ponctually disagree on one issue. If we are a good community, when the time comes for voting, we can decide to agree we trust a person, even though we think he acts as a cowboy sometimes. If we are a good balanced community, good long term sysops will not be "punished". Trust can be gained, or lost. But if it is lost, I see no point in pretending it is still there. It means work for the community to "check" each action of a non-trusted sysop. Imho. Ant From sean at epoptic.org Tue Jun 21 18:01:14 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:01:14 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> (message from Andrew Venier on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:49:30 -0500) References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> Message-ID: <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> > Theresa Knott wrote: > > >This sort of thing could easily be sorted out though. We could contact > >the publishers directly "Do you give permission for this material to > >be on Wikipedia?" > > > > > This is precisely the problem. CoolCat will not identify himself or the > publisher, so we have no way to establish that we have a reasonable > belief that we have permission. I am very much copyright-unparanoid, but in the absence of any credible indication that the entity calling itself CoolCat wrote the material, we must presume the opposite. If CoolCat disagrees with that presumption, the burden of proof is on she/he/it. -- Sean Barrett | Evil is dangerous in proportion to its sean at epoptic.com | virtues, not its vices. --S.M. Stirling From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 17:56:16 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:56:16 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B854C0.7050307@telus.net> Theresa Knott wrote: >>As has been pointed out on the relevant talk page, having written >>something (if we choose to believe an unidentified pseudonymous user) is >>not necessarily sufficient to establish ownership. CoolCat claimed that >>text was prepared for a large offline (i.e. print) distribution. We >>have no way of knowing if that was work-for-hire, for example. >> >> >True. We have no way of knowing that anything that anyone writes for >wikipedia really belongs to them. All we can do is assume that they >are telling the truth when they claim it's thier own work. > If I were minded to submit copyvio material, I would not cut and paste from another website. I could use OCR then cut and paste from that. Or I could do my own translation of a copyright protected work. What online searches will reveal will only be a small part of copyvios. >>When it comes to copyright problems, all one has to do is anonymously >>claim "I wrote it" when it is found to have been published earier >>elsewhere? That can't be right. >> >> >This sort of thing could easily be sorted out though. We could contact >the publishers directly "Do you give permission for this material to >be on Wikipedia?" > That's assuming that the publisher owns the copyright. If it's from an unsigned article that's probably so as a work-for-hire. A signed article is a different matter. We should presume that that author has the right to use what he wrote in any manner that he sees fit. If he has some restrictive licensing arrangement with the publisher he may be in breech of contract, but we are in no position to make that judgement. Ec From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 17:49:51 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:49:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Rhobite > >RickK has deleted his own talk page. I think it should be undeleted, >and RickK should be de-sysop'ed. Other admins have deleted their own Talk: and User: pages upon leaving without sanction or even comment. Other editors have had their Talk: and User: pages deleted for them upon leaving, and have subsequently returned without having them restored. Jay. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 18:09:52 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 11:09:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> Fastfission wrote: >But that's again because being an administrator is supposed to be "no >big deal" or whatever Jimbo said about it. It generally just means >"this person has been around for awhile and does not have some sort of >pathological editing problem that makes large amounts of people hate >them." It is not a title that is supposed to relate to any particular >POV except "Wikipedia is a good thing" which even then you can find >some variety in. > If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL admins there could be no claim of descrimination. Ec From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 18:35:01 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 04:35:01 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> Message-ID: <5309126705062111352f0aefb9@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status > should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be > automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three > month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced > humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL > admins there could be no claim of descrimination. Oh, come off it, Ec. You treat sysop status like it's being elected President of the United States. It is a mop and a broom that occasionally proves to be somewhat useful. It isn't a source of power or any such thing. It is just that taking that mop and broom away without a damn good reason - in effect, punishing people, is not helpful, as in a volunteer project, punishing people without good reason will make them leave. Or alternatively, having privileges that in many cases are never used controversially taken away for three months for no apparent reason ("enforced humility" counts as no apparent reason in my book) would likely have the same effect. Seriously, guys. Why not stop trying to fight the power, and go write an encyclopedia? From james at jdforrester.org Tue Jun 21 18:38:47 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:38:47 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> Message-ID: <200506211838.j5LIcqqk013751@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:10 PM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status > should be no big deal as well. Fatal exception: Parse error. Getting to be a sysop is "no big deal" because it just means that you've gained our trust, and almost everyone in the world could probably do that, if they wished to do so. Thus, by removing sysop status means telling the target that they have failed to live up to this oh-so-easy thing. It is, in fact, an absolutely massive thing to do. I can't see how this isn't absolutely obvious to everyone, really - perhaps they live in non-Euclidian spaces? :-) Yours, -- James D. Forrester -- Wikimedia: [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] Mail: james at jdforrester.org | jon at eh.org | csvla at dcs.warwick.ac.uk IM : (MSN) jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 18:39:31 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 04:39:31 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, Anthere wrote: > If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were > 3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the > project quite well, know the people, know the rules... and I believe > this is also why there is this requirement of number of edits which the > english wikipedia insist so much upon. I do not say it is good or not > good, I just observe it. Have we ever had someone return from hiatus and not know the rules - or have serious problems because of changes made while they're away? I've never seen such a case. > I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he > would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors. If this becomes an issue, deal with it. As it has never happened before, I'm a bit cynical. > Trust can be gained, or lost. But if it is lost, I see no point in > pretending it is still there. It means work for the community to "check" > each action of a non-trusted sysop. And where's the evidence that this is the case? We've had three sysops desysopped, and even then, I don't recall anyone having to specifically check each of their actions. There's a big difference between angering a small, but vocal bunch of people who hang around VFD and RFA all the time, and having serious issues that actually need action. In the eventuality that that does happen, this is what we have the arbitration committee for. -- ambi From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 18:48:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:48:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Jon > >Why can't the ArbCom just stop all the content argument? > I don't see this as a content argument, but rather an issue of someone attempting to impose a POV on hundreds of Wikipedia articles over a period of many months, even though he knows his POV is supported neither by policy nor consensus, and has been opposed by any number of Wikipedia editors. >The content wars continue apace though. Those who oppose my view are trying >to get ArbCom >to decide I am wrong to espouse my view See above. >However, Fred and Jayjg think these edits are so bad as to actually be >reprehensible! How deceptive. Two edits aren't the issue. Over 1,000 edits on over 700 articles are. >There is a straightforward question behind all this that the ArbCom has not >even addressed - what >should happen when some users try to implement a failed proposal and are >reverted by other >users? You must be referring to yourself here, as you tried to change the Manual of Style to promote your view that only BC/AD should be used, and were reverted by other users on that and on your subsequent attempts to change articles to follow your position. >Decide this question and leave all other issues alone (it is as unfair to >admonish SouthernComfort as >it is me - we were both hastened along quite deliberately by Slrubenstein >as it is). It all boils down to Slrubenstein does it? You've been deleting BCE/CE from Wikipedia for months before Slrubenstein made his proposal. Jay. From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 21 18:49:17 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:49:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom Message-ID: <20050621184917.28064.qmail@web25404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Fred - let me clarify the position as far as the English and Welsh national curriculum is concerned. In 2002 the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which sets the English and Welsh National Curriculum for state schools, for the first time added into the history curriculum that children should be taught what BCE/CE means. Nothing more than that - just what it means. That in itself caused angry letters to be written to some newspapers, and the Evening Standard article to which someone else has already provided the URL to. The QCA (no doubt aware of the public outcry that would occur if they did anything different) made clear that this does not mean they are introducing BCE/CE notation - they themselves continue and will continue to use BC/AD notation. They did note that children could, if they wished, use BCE/CE notation. Despite the QCA continuing to use BC/AD notation itself, a very very small number of renegate "right-on" teachers have insisted their pupils use BCE/CE - only for an angry response from parents to follow. In summary - the English and Welsh national curriculum requires children to be taught what BCE/CE means. The QCA continues and will continue to use BC/AD notation, which remains the form of notation used throughout the QCA's syllabuses. Wherever there have been attempts by a small number of teachers acting on their own initiative to require BCE/CE notation in UK, they have normally been met by an angry response. Jon Fred Bauder wrote: It seems to have been adopted as part of the curriculum in the UK. Fred On Jun 21, 2005, at 10:12 AM, David Gerard wrote: > Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050621 23:45]: > > >> My proposed decision simply stated what is true, that common era >> notation is finding favor in the scholarly community. >> > > > That's a bit US POV-centric. It's certainly not true outside the US. > > > - d. > > > > --------------------------------- How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos From michaelturley at myway.com Tue Jun 21 18:51:14 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:51:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: automatic annual revocation of admin Message-ID: <20050621185114.760C23A36@mprdmxin.myway.com> Ray Saintonge wrote: >Fastfission wrote: > >>But that's again because being an administrator is supposed to be "no >>big deal" or whatever Jimbo said about it. It generally just means >>"this person has been around for awhile and does not have some sort of >>pathological editing problem that makes large amounts of people hate >>them." It is not a title that is supposed to relate to any particular >>POV except "Wikipedia is a good thing" which even then you can find >>some variety in. >> >If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status >should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be >automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three >month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced >humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL >admins there could be no claim of descrimination. > >Ec This an interesting idea, at least to me. The primary problem I see is that three months without admin tools after one year with is a total of 15 months in an admin cycle. 3 months out of 15 is 20%. That's far too much to lose, if the goal is just to ensure a few people don't develop a calcified bad attitude. It certainly would encourage administrators to be especially civil, if they knew they had to renew their appointments periodically. But the cost is probably too high. Ultimately, I think the solution is going to be more coaxing and encouragement (and reward) of the behavior we want most, and discouragement of that which we don't. And yes, that does include reprimands and punishments, starting with as minor as we can conceive of, and going upward as far as we need to. But my original point was that it should be no big deal when there are very minor punishments applied. The ideal goal is that good administrators will recognize and acknowledge their own occasional outbursts as inappropriate, and ''request'' these minor punishments, in large part to show good faith and a level playing field to those who aren't administrators, as well as to set an example. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 18:51:22 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:51:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than"no big dea In-Reply-To: <530912670506210227697900e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Rebecca > >I'm getting really damned sick of all this admin-bashing on wikien-l. >We seem to be getting a small clique of very loud users who seem to >contribute remarkably little to the project apart from persecuting >users who actually *do* (and loudly defending those that don't). A small clique of very loud users who keep whining that someone else is the clique. Quite often they are failed candidates for various positions additional power on Wikipedia themselves. >Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy. If you start punishing good >users without a very good reason, they will leave. This is a volunteer >project - we rely on the people who are prepared to put in hours and >hours of work. The people that are prepared to do this (without >causing scores of controversy), become admins. We've seen enough good >users leave because of people - and you know who are - who seem to get >some bizarre kick out of chasing good users away from the project. Yep. Jay. From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 18:55:58 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:55:58 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <98dd099a050621115582ab7c8@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Bryan Derksen wrote: > Fastfission wrote: > > >What's the alternative -- start banning people indiscriminantly who > >act anti-social? I can tell you, if you think people are hostile > >now... > > > > > If they're being banned for a reason (acting anti-social), then they > aren't being banned indiscriminately. Hmm, I meant it more in a sense of "quickly and without due process" -- I apologize for my poor choice of diction (much less my spelling -- that word in particular for some reason never comes out correctly). FF From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 19:00:03 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:00:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <5309126705062111352f0aefb9@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> <5309126705062111352f0aefb9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B863B3.60101@telus.net> Rebecca wrote: >On 6/22/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status >>should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be >>automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three >>month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced >>humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL >>admins there could be no claim of descrimination. >> >> >Oh, come off it, Ec. You treat sysop status like it's being elected >President of the United States. It is a mop and a broom that >occasionally proves to be somewhat useful. It isn't a source of power >or any such thing. It is just that taking that mop and broom away >without a damn good reason - in effect, punishing people, is not >helpful, as in a volunteer project, punishing people without good >reason will make them leave. Or alternatively, having privileges that >in many cases are never used controversially taken away for three >months for no apparent reason ("enforced humility" counts as no >apparent reason in my book) would likely have the same effect. >Seriously, guys. Why not stop trying to fight the power, and go write >an encyclopedia? > I'm glad to hear you prove my point. US presidency? Don't you think that the world would be well served by having GWB take three months off? :-) If being a sysop is not a source of power they won't miss it, and they won't be missed since at any given time there will always be enough left to wield the mop and broom. How is it that being required to take a vacation is "punishing"? You say that it isn't a source of power, but then ask people to "stop trying to fight the power." Isn't that just a little inconsistent? Ec From erik_moeller at gmx.de Tue Jun 21 19:14:19 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:14:19 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42B8670B.6050702@gmx.de> Anthere: > If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were > 3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the > project quite well, know the people, know the rules.. ... > I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he > would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors. I think it is completely fair to indicate on the list of administrators if an admin hasn't made edits for some months or even years. In fact, this is exactly what we're doing on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_administrators This helps users to know whom they can contact for help and expect an answer. However, revoking someone's status just because they *might* become active again without knowing the rules seems to violate the "Assume Good Faith" principle. If an admin pauses for 6 months and then goes back to performing admin operations, I expect them to make an effort to look at what's changed first. If they don't make such an effort themselves, again, it is not our duty to punish them, but to revert actions which have been made accidentally in violation of newly established rules, and to educate them. Adminship is about trust. If we trust a person, we should know that they will try to do the right thing, even under changed circumstances. Therefore, we shouldn't have to take someone's privileges away just to make sure they don't do anything bad -- because this could indicate to them that we no longer *trust* them. I don't want to send this kind of message to people like Mintguy, Vicky Rosenzweig, April, Salsa Shark, Optim, Mirwin, Maximus Rex, or Zoe. I believe this is especially true if an admin is still active on *Wikimedia*, but just not on the same project anymore. Erik From michaelturley at myway.com Tue Jun 21 19:17:26 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:17:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: problem with power structure? "Not I", said the fly. Message-ID: <20050621191726.B9A7E398E@mprdmxin.myway.com> Tim Starling wrote: >This is of course the exact opposite to the position of Michael Turley >and Erik, who believe that the problem is in the existence of a power >structure, rather than the solution. Some Wikipedians believe that all >our problems can be traced to a deviation from anarchy, and that the >solution lies in denigrating would-be leaders by calling them "janitors" >or "bureaucrats". I respectfully disagree with this philosophy, I put my >hope in enlightened democratic leadership rather than the mob. > >Some people complain that those in power are a cabal, rather than an >accountable and democratic body. I'd prefer it if they'd use a more >accurate word (despots?), but besides that, it will remain a perfectly >valid criticism for as long as there is no easy way for the community to >remove them from power. > >-- Tim Starling I believe you've mischaracterized me. I do not believe that there is a problem in the existence of a power structure. There needs to be a clearly defined power structure. But I do believe that there is a lack of real accountability to the very highest standards and ideals that this project claims to be founded on. When RfCs are dismissed on the premise of 'this contributor just gives too much effort to Wikipedia to reprimand', and when an arbitrator calls someone a jerk without a unanimous grumble of disapproval as the '''first''' reaction, just to post two examples, we're not living up to the welcoming concepts that so attracted me here in the first place. I can live with it, but I'd rather look for ways to change it. If people call me a troll, or a member of a pack of idiots, for wanting to see people nudged toward the implementation of the ideals, then I can live with that, too. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:28:08 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:28:08 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status > should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be > automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three > month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced > humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL > admins there could be no claim of descrimination. Yes, people who are doing their job well deserve to lose it. Kelly From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 19:27:27 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:27:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: automatic annual revocation of admin Message-ID: >Three months of enforced >humility might be good for some people. I'll never forget the time one of my Moonie friends said something like this. I said, "If I humiliate you, will that make you humble? What if I start treating you like a slave and say things like, 'Fetch me a cold drink, you worthless piece of scum!'?" He was black and I was white. I nearly got the ass-whupping of my life before he could see that I was just making a point. Ah, those carefree college days. Now, can we puh-LEASE get back to working on articles? Ed Poor From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 19:21:40 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 12:21:40 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <200506211838.j5LIcqqk013751@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506211838.j5LIcqqk013751@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <42B868C4.9020707@telus.net> James D. Forrester wrote: >On Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:10 PM, Ray Saintonge >wrote: > > >>If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status >>should be no big deal as well. >> >> >Fatal exception: Parse error. > >Getting to be a sysop is "no big deal" because it just means that you've >gained our trust, and almost everyone in the world could probably do that, >if they wished to do so. Thus, by removing sysop status means telling the >target that they have failed to live up to this oh-so-easy thing. It is, in >fact, an absolutely massive thing to do. > >I can't see how this isn't absolutely obvious to everyone, really - perhaps >they live in non-Euclidian spaces? :-) > And I was under the impression that the Wiki had done the same thing to encyclopedias that Lobachevsky had done to Euclidean space. :-) Ec From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:34:23 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:34:23 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > I am very much copyright-unparanoid, but in the absence of any > credible indication that the entity calling itself CoolCat wrote the > material, we must presume the opposite. If CoolCat disagrees with > that presumption, the burden of proof is on she/he/it. Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? Kelly From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:36:32 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:36:32 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <20050621133458.4BEE612D5A@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: >From: "michaelturley at myway.com" >I '''sincerely''' think an admin should face a temporary penalty for as >little as a snide remark. >Receive, perhaps not; face, absolutely. If we're going to start sanctioning people for nasty comments, there are far more serious examples out there. As is typical, a certain group of people want to set an absurdly high code of conduct for admins, who actually contribute hugely to the project, while the daily onslaught of insults, swearing, personal attacks, and general nastiness from all sorts of non-admin editors gets ignored because we want to reform them, not scare them away. After all, with enough patience, forberance, and wikilove, some day, on some article, they might even make a valuable edit. Jay. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:40:35 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:40:35 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Really need mediator In-Reply-To: <477C2A7D4CCE994B8CF296DA69A31D3D39BC3F@server.publiceye.local> References: <477C2A7D4CCE994B8CF296DA69A31D3D39BC3F@server.publiceye.local> Message-ID: Drop by [[WP:MC]] if you want to see list of current mediators or go to [[Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal]] for and give a quick summary to draw some attention of other people interested in mediating disputes. -Mgm On 6/21/05, Chip Berlet wrote: > Hi, > > I really need a mediator to deal with the editing disagreements between me and Sam Spade. I requested mediation some time ago. > > Here is Sam Spade's latest: > > "First your spurious accusation of plagiarism, and now you accuse me of vandalism. This, combined with dozens of other ugly statements on your part seem to be leading up to a rather damining arbcom case. I suggest you chill the fuck out. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade]] 15:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)" > > After I pointed out an obvious case of plagiarism by him on the [[Political Correctness]] page he seemed to start following me around Wiki provoking confrontations. His most recent effort was pasting a entire old contested section back into the [[Fascism]] article--complete with duplicate sentences and much duplicated material. When this was pointed out, he suggested it was the job of the other editors to find the duplicate material and delete it. This is vandalism. > > Please help. I know some people value Sam Spade as an editor, but my experience is that when he does not get his way, he becomes a bully, promoting a very POV right-wing bias. I am on the political left, but do try to edit here on Wiki in an NPOV way. A centrist mediator would be best to divide out what is political disagreement and what is personal antagonism. > > So I am resorting to this list in an effort to find an unbiased mediator. > > [[User:Cberlet|Chip Berlet]] > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:43:53 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:43:53 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: They did? I don't think it's right to delete user talk pages when they contain significant amounts of discussion. So those deserve as much attention as Rick's page. I don't think Rick needs to be sanctioned for it, though. But I doubt he'd mind de-sysoping if he's serious about leaving. --Mgm On 6/21/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Rhobite > > > >RickK has deleted his own talk page. I think it should be undeleted, > >and RickK should be de-sysop'ed. > > Other admins have deleted their own Talk: and User: pages upon leaving > without sanction or even comment. Other editors have had their Talk: and > User: pages deleted for them upon leaving, and have subsequently returned > without having them restored. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 21 19:58:38 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:58:38 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > >They did? Yes. >I don't think it's right to delete user talk pages when they >contain significant amounts of discussion. So those deserve as much >attention as Rick's page. What kind of attention, and from whom? >I don't think Rick needs to be sanctioned >for it, though. But I doubt he'd mind de-sysoping if he's serious >about leaving. I think de-sysopping would be like kicking him when he's down. Most people who leave when upset return anyway. Jay. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 21 19:45:05 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:45:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Ed Poor puts the ME in melodrama Message-ID: Ray wrote: > I'm glad to hear you prove my point. US presidency? Don't you think > that the world would be well served by having GWB take three > months off? > :-) > > If being a sysop is not a source of power they won't miss it, > and they > won't be missed since at any given time there will always be > enough left > to wield the mop and broom. How is it that being required to take a > vacation is "punishing"? > > You say that it isn't a source of power, but then ask people to "stop > trying to fight the power." Isn't that just a little inconsistent? Okay, I have a confession to make. Are you all sitting down? Good. /deep breath/ Hi, my name's Ed, and I'm a Wikiholic. * Hi, Ed! I feel inordinate pride in being a Wikipedia Administrator. * /a chorus of murmurs fills the room/ Even though Jimbo said it should be no big deal. * Be strong, Ed! We're here for you, Ed! And when they said /choke, sob/ * Yes? That they might take /gasp/ my ... Oh, I can't say it ... * You can do it, Ed! Er, could I have a glass of water, please. * /audience member brings him a paper cup filled with water/ /sips, pauses/ Well, I ... From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 20:08:58 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:08:58 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/21/05, JAY JG wrote: > I think de-sysopping would be like kicking him when he's down. Most people > who leave when upset return anyway. Agreed here, we should just restore the page and only consider desysoping if shows malicious intent by continuing to redelete the page. From perrin at apotheon.com Tue Jun 21 20:24:51 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:24:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anarchy and punishment (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050621202451.GA1577@apotheon.com> On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 06:36:07AM -0700, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Anarchy and punishment don't go well together, and I'm glad Ambi brought > them up. > > Thanks to the US military, the world has the Internet. Okay, it would > have come about sooner or later, but the same fun-loving guys who > launched the GPS satellites funded much of the research: the Pentagon > deserves a little credit. A drop. A smidgen. > > But due to the Internet's design criteria - notably, that it should keep > working despite nuclear war, and route around failure points > automatically - there is no central control, no government. > > But many people have this "working model" of society, as well as > Internet collaboration : that THEY can each be the boss, the ruler, the > one who metes out punishments for all those who do not conform to their > standards. It's tempting; I know; I've succumbed many times to the Lure > of Authority. And I think Jimbo was very wise not to appoint me to the > arbcom - but to the Mediation Committee instead. > > But I wish we would ALL stop it. Stop all these vendettas and > punishments and Lone Ranger campaigns to make the world over the way WE > ALONE know is right. > > Let's find ways to cooperate together on this encyclopedia project. > Something other than anarchy, please. And don't let's set up a court > system either. There's got to be a better way. Beautifully put. I agree, keeping in mind that I haven't read any of what preceded this message in this thread, and am unlikely to. Taken in a vacuum, though, I agree with this 100%. Fat chance, though. Spite is a primary motivator of humans everywhere. -- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 20:19:17 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:19:17 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: automatic annual revocation of admin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42B87645.7000405@telus.net> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >>Three months of enforced >>humility might be good for some people. >> >> >I'll never forget the time one of my Moonie friends said something like >this. I said, "If I humiliate you, will that make you humble? What if I >start treating you like a slave and say things like, 'Fetch me a cold >drink, you worthless piece of scum!'?" > >He was black and I was white. I nearly got the ass-whupping of my life >before he could see that I was just making a point. Ah, those carefree >college days. > In an equal humiliation plan no one needs to stand below anyone else. :-) Ec From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 20:21:54 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:21:54 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> Message-ID: <42B876E2.8010405@telus.net> Kelly Martin wrote: >On 6/21/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status >>should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be >>automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three >>month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced >>humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL >>admins there could be no claim of descrimination. >> >> >Yes, people who are doing their job well deserve to lose it. > > For them consider it a vacation with full salary. Ec From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 20:32:50 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:32:50 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, michaelturley at myway.com > If we truly want to live up to the perception and ideal that adminship is "no big deal", it should be a matter of routine to revoke admin priviledges for a few hours for something as little as a single foul mouthed comment, even if provoked and egged on by peers. If this is done, perhaps we will see less admins defending their actions at any cost, and more "shrugging it off" and proceeding with business. I don't agree. Admins non-admin activities should be kept to the same fairly low standard that user edits are usually held to.. we can't fit human interaction into nice little boxes, so there isn't a good way to define how people should behave for regular users or administrators. So an admin should be blocked in the same way we'd block any other contributor, ... a fairly infrequent event for substantial contributors as all admins are... only dished out when it's clear they need to cool off. Now, there are cases where adminship itself should be revoked. But that should only happen in cases of specific abuse of those abilities. Administrators are just regular users, there is nothing wondrous and mysterious that admin power grants.. only the ability to edit protected pages, to protect pages, to block and unblock, to see deleted content, restore deleted content, and delete content, and the autorevert button. All of these activities leave a written record. It would be nice if all users could have access to these abilities, but due to the potential of difficult to correct abuse we must limit these abilities. It is highly likely that after mediawiki 1.5 is in use we may being to issue and remove admin powers in tiers as well. There are some administrative actions which should be unacceptable and result in quick deadminship with little judgement applied, for example unblocking yourself. There are other activities (admin action revert wars) that should indicate administrative cool offs like 3rr, but it's not easy to achieve that today due to technical limitations. Standard blocks might be acceptable in the same role. I think we've complicated adminship by imposing additional unspoken requirements on the position. Technical adminship should remain as it was intended: will you use the admin functions to further the ends of wikipedia rather than your own personal agenda? If so you should have access to them. We should have another class of users if we wish to award kindness, respectability, community involvement. The two groups don't always map 1:1 and the requirements to keep the positions shouldn't be the same. We shouldn't remove admin functions for someone who is a jerk but almost always uses the functions correctly (i.e. avoids using them in their own disputes), but I don't want to send new users to go talk to them. In the case of RickK, not only did he cross the line we set for all editors by excessive reverting of a disputed issue, but he abused his admin powers by blocking the party that disagreed with him and then protecting the page when additional editors engaged. A 24 hour cool of was appropriate if not for the 3RR than for the sloppy use of admin functions. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 21 20:35:37 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:35:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42B87A19.2050904@telus.net> Kelly Martin wrote: >On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > >>I am very much copyright-unparanoid, but in the absence of any >>credible indication that the entity calling itself CoolCat wrote the >>material, we must presume the opposite. If CoolCat disagrees with >>that presumption, the burden of proof is on she/he/it. >> >> >Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? > > No need to stop doing that. Verifiability also applies. In most situations the contributor's copyright will go unchallenged; that's a presumption of good faith. Anyone can raise a reasonable doubt (as opposed to a random challenge); that's when the contributor's burden of response kicks in. If he says that his work is completely original that shifts the burden, because he cannot be asked to show something that does not exist. If the similarity of his contributions to something else goes beyond coincidence, then he has a need to clarify the situation. Ec From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 20:56:24 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 16:56:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Alphax wrote: > This is why I look forward to graduated user rights levels. The > abilities to block, delete, protect, and revert should all be assigned > individually, not as a lump sum just for "doing a few hours RC patrol, > having a bajillion edits and working on a featured article". Sure, those > things make a person a good Wikipedian, but does that justify adminship? Actually, yes.. and no. Adminship should be granted to everyone who has the ability to correctly use the admin functions correctly almost all of the time. This means never using them as a favor, to add bias, or to slant power in a dispute. This is a pretty low bar and it's the only bar we need over those functions to keep wikipedia working well. I'm not sure that granular access will help all that much as most people who can be trusted to use any one of them could probably use them all without issue (cept perhaps the revert button). For practical reasons we can't just give adminship to all editors and only take it away from the abusers: because abusers would keep inventing new identities to keep getting adminship. But that doesn't leave us with holding a near popularity contest as the only option: We could require that once a user demonstrates a substantial time and effort investment in the main namespace they are automatically admined absent any preexisting strong evidence that they are already a problem editor. (So even if a troll wants to keep getting adminship to abuse it, he must do a kiloedit or two to the actual articles, ... sounds like a fair trade even it means occasionally we get a troll admin that causes a little damage before we deadmin them). We could control the influx of new people causing a lot of work for those monitoring their behavior by only adding a fixed number every month, selected at random from the top 10% by edit count of eligible nonadmin users) . I know many think that edit count is a poor judge, but if you only count the main namespace I think the sort of people who will make good users of the admin fuctions will tend to rack up the edits (by doing rc partol and such). Once a user abused their administrative powers, it should be revoked... with the usual allowances for minor screwups and human nature. It has been pointed out elsewhere, that adminship shouldn't be a wonderful award. As a result we probably should deal with adminship behavioural burps by temp-deadmining, but rather by a temp block. I think there is also the room for setting aside special titles and roles to recognize our appreciation of substantial contributors of all forms... But it is silly of us to conflate this honor with the award of some technical functions. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 21:08:35 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:08:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Andrew Venier wrote: > When it comes to copyright problems, all one has to do is anonymously > claim "I wrote it" when it is found to have been published earier > elsewhere? That can't be right. I agree completely, but at the same time we have imposed an even lower standard in the past, especially on images. It's not appropriate to suddenly 'fix' our behavior for a single user that we have decided we dislike. And that the copyvio claim has been argued with means we should not act with extreme haste. There was no need to aggressively revert the changes, in fact, such reversions probably do nothing to strengthen our legal standing even if the text is in violation since the copyvio version was still in the history. If you'd like to assist me in pushing stricter copyright conformance I'd love the help... Can you think of away to educate users that works peformed off of copyrighted score, even if the orignal music was written a zillion years ago, are almost always covered under the copyright of the score? Or how about "this shouldn't deserve copyright" isn't acceptable for photographs of household goods stolen off the Internet? From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 21:32:11 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:32:11 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Such a feature would make things a lot simpler -- geni From svante.welin at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 21:32:55 2005 From: svante.welin at gmail.com (Svante Welin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:32:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia ideals Message-ID: <298f23870506211432404ae043@mail.gmail.com> Hello, my name is Svante Welin, and I am a Swedish freelance journalist writing an article about the Wikipedia project, focusing mostly on the Swedish Wikipedia. One thing I'd like to know more about, though - and here is where I hope you can help out - is more on the idealistic issue of the Wikipedia project. What I'm saying is... I've found lot of information on the servers, statistics and technical data history of the Wikipedia project. Even though this is interesting, I'm looking for something more. What do people behind the project think about the potentially revolutionary democratic encyclopedia Wikipedia has put into place? Pros? Cons? What future do you think Wikipedia could have, what are the possibilities? Any other thoughts related to these questions are welcome. Especially from people who've been involved in the project from the beginning, or for a long period of time. Thanks, Svante Welin Sweden From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 22:27:30 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:27:30 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> <5309126705062111352f0aefb9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B89452.9040808@yahoo.com> Rebecca a ?crit: > On 6/22/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > >>If being an administrator is no big deal then removing that status >>should be no big deal as well. Perhaps being desysopped should be >>automatic for everybody afte maybe a year. There could then be a three >>month waiting period before being readmitted. Three months of enforced >>humility might be good for some people. Since this would apply to ALL >>admins there could be no claim of descrimination. > > > Oh, come off it, Ec. You treat sysop status like it's being elected > President of the United States. It is a mop and a broom that > occasionally proves to be somewhat useful. It isn't a source of power > or any such thing. It is just that taking that mop and broom away > without a damn good reason - in effect, punishing people, is not > helpful, as in a volunteer project, punishing people without good > reason will make them leave. Prayer of the evening. May the holder of a broom and a mop In my house feel welcome To take care of spider nets and dust The mopper just fired herself. I From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 22:40:29 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:40:29 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> Rebecca a ?crit: > On 6/22/05, Anthere wrote: > >>If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they were >>3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop knows the >>project quite well, know the people, know the rules... and I believe >>this is also why there is this requirement of number of edits which the >>english wikipedia insist so much upon. I do not say it is good or not >>good, I just observe it. > > > Have we ever had someone return from hiatus and not know the rules - > or have serious problems because of changes made while they're away? > I've never seen such a case. I do not know the rules any more. In particular the specificities on the 3R rules :-) I will not use sysop power any more on en.wikipedia but for issues which appear entirely obvious to me; because I think I could possibly not do what is currently supported by the community. Not that it is an issue at all, just a statement. >>I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... he >>would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors. > > > If this becomes an issue, deal with it. As it has never happened > before, I'm a bit cynical. > > >>Trust can be gained, or lost. But if it is lost, I see no point in >>pretending it is still there. It means work for the community to "check" >>each action of a non-trusted sysop. > > > And where's the evidence that this is the case? We've had three sysops > desysopped, and even then, I don't recall anyone having to > specifically check each of their actions. There's a big difference > between angering a small, but vocal bunch of people who hang around > VFD and RFA all the time, and having serious issues that actually need > action. In the eventuality that that does happen, this is what we have > the arbitration committee for. > > -- ambi Hmmm, whatever. I do not want to imply you are wrong and I am right Ambi. Please do not. Only that your certainty in the previous mail that it would be " a terrible, terrible idea, Anthere" is just a tiny bit shaken by the fact already two projects as I know of, chose this way of reconfirmation of sysophood (annually I think, not certain though). I do not list meta within these two, as indeed it is a bit special project, with less chance of edit wars (though there are some). But the point is, some communities on other wikipedia projects chose this path voluntarily. There is no real reason why a community would be entirely right to go one way and another entirely wrong to go another, and vice-versa. I do not know which is the best way and I doubt I could find out alone. But this path was already chosen voluntarily by *consensus*. So, it can't be entirely a terrible idea :-). Ant From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 22:44:44 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:44:44 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK deleted his talk page References: Message-ID: <42B8985C.9010805@yahoo.com> Gregory Maxwell a ?crit: > On 6/21/05, JAY JG wrote: > >>I think de-sysopping would be like kicking him when he's down. Most people >>who leave when upset return anyway. > > > Agreed here, we should just restore the page and only consider > desysoping if shows malicious intent by continuing to redelete the > page. The page should be undeleted because it is under GFDL. Rick deleting his page should absolutely not be an argument for punishment. He is just upset. Let him the time to cool down :-) From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 22:53:24 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:53:24 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <42B8670B.6050702@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42B89A64.9050408@yahoo.com> Erik Moeller a ?crit: > Anthere: > >> If only because rules and habits are no more the same now that they >> were 3 years ago. There is an expectation that the candidate sysop >> knows the project quite well, know the people, know the rules.. > > ... > >> I also think that if an editor away for 3 years just came back now... >> he would neither know the rules, nor be known himself by current editors. > > > I think it is completely fair to indicate on the list of administrators > if an admin hasn't made edits for some months or even years. In fact, > this is exactly what we're doing on > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_administrators > > This helps users to know whom they can contact for help and expect an > answer. > > However, revoking someone's status just because they *might* become > active again without knowing the rules seems to violate the "Assume Good > Faith" principle. If an admin pauses for 6 months and then goes back to > performing admin operations, I expect them to make an effort to look at > what's changed first. If they don't make such an effort themselves, > again, it is not our duty to punish them, but to revert actions which > have been made accidentally in violation of newly established rules, and > to educate them. > > Adminship is about trust. If we trust a person, we should know that they > will try to do the right thing, even under changed circumstances. > Therefore, we shouldn't have to take someone's privileges away just to > make sure they don't do anything bad -- because this could indicate to > them that we no longer *trust* them. I don't want to send this kind of > message to people like Mintguy, Vicky Rosenzweig, April, Salsa Shark, > Optim, Mirwin, Maximus Rex, or Zoe. > > I believe this is especially true if an admin is still active on > *Wikimedia*, but just not on the same project anymore. > > Erik Maybe I need to remind why this rule was instaured on meta. There is an history on it. Which lead me to propose this, while I would probably not agree with it on a project such as fr.wikipedia. There was a time where meta sysops were not elected at all. Anyone who was sysop on one project somewhere, and asked to be sysop on meta, was granted sysophood. It is fine for english editors. Sysops are elected first and we know they are trusted. This is not the case for some small languages, where we give sysophood pretty easily, without any vote or just one support, because the project is so small there is less than 5 people on it. As a result, several very unknown editors were named sysops on small languages, and became sysops on meta automatically. One of the big problem of meta is its multilingualism, which makes vandal hunting doubly difficult. Enough editors (well, no one opposed) considered it problematic that totally unknown and very little involved editors became sysops on meta, as meta has its own community. In this perspective, the reconfirmation and removal of status of editors inactive on meta made sense, and ihmo still make sense. As you say it yourself, adminship is about trust. But when totally unknown editors, never elected, are sysops, there is no trust. Ant From dangrey at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 22:56:31 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:56:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Annual 're-affirmation' would be a nightmare on WP - there's, what, 400+ admins? That means we'd need to do _more_ than one of these _every day_. This - all of this discussion in fact - still looks like a solution hunting *desperately* for a problem. Dan On 21/06/05, Anthere wrote: > > > Rebecca a ?crit: > > On 6/22/05, Anthere wrote: > Hmmm, whatever. > I do not want to imply you are wrong and I am right Ambi. Please do not. > > Only that your certainty in the previous mail that it would be > " a terrible, terrible idea, Anthere" is just a tiny bit shaken by the > fact already two projects as I know of, chose this way of reconfirmation > of sysophood (annually I think, not certain though). I do not list meta > within these two, as indeed it is a bit special project, with less > chance of edit wars (though there are some). > > But the point is, some communities on other wikipedia projects chose > this path voluntarily. There is no real reason why a community would be > entirely right to go one way and another entirely wrong to go another, > and vice-versa. I do not know which is the best way and I doubt I could > find out alone. But this path was already chosen voluntarily by > *consensus*. So, it can't be entirely a terrible idea :-). > > Ant > From skyring at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 23:10:39 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:10:39 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050621161069498e40@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, Dan Grey wrote: > Annual 're-affirmation' would be a nightmare on WP - there's, what, > 400+ admins? That means we'd need to do _more_ than one of these > _every day_. > > This - all of this discussion in fact - still looks like a solution > hunting *desperately* for a problem. I thought the subject line summarised it well. -- Peter in Canberra From ronthewarhero at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 21 23:14:33 2005 From: ronthewarhero at yahoo.co.uk (Chris Owen) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:14:33 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy proposal on dealing with disputes over names Message-ID: <20050621231433.58546.qmail@web86910.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> We seem to have a lot of nationalist edit wars over placenames. I'm sure not many people will have forgotten the Gdansk/Danzig fiasco. A similar row is currently going on at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macedonian_Slavs (Greeks and ex-Yugoslavs fighting over names, yet again; they're actively trolling for votes on Wikipedia and offline as well). I'm sure we'll have similar arguments about other disputed names in future. I believe that what we need is a consistent approach to dealing with such issues. I've put together a proposal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ChrisO/Naming_disputes which sets out some criteria for resolving naming disputes. These boil down to: * The most common use in English of a name takes precedence; * If the common name conflicts with the official name, use the common name ''except'' for conflicting scientific and dialect names; * If neither the common name nor the official name is prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) that the subject uses to describe itself or themselves. Objective criteria that should be considered are: * Is the name in common usage in English? * Is it the official current name of the subject (official in terms of being used in a legal context, e.g. a constitution?) * Is it the name used by the subject to describe itself or themselves? * If an historic name is mentioned in the article, is it in an accurate context? Subjective criteria that should not be used are: * Does the subject have a moral right to use the name? * Does the subject have a legal right to use the name? * Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or moral rights? * Is the use of the name politically unacceptable? Of course, there's more to it than that - notably that really intractable disputes should be resolved by a neutral committee of administrators (not the ArbCom, which shouldn't waste its time on low-level disputes of this sort). The alternative is to put such questions to votes that will just end up being pissing contests between rival POV-pushers, which is what we're doing at the moment. Comments welcomed... - ChrisO ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 21 23:15:52 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:15:52 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42B89FA8.4000607@yahoo.com> Dan Grey a ?crit: > Annual 're-affirmation' would be a nightmare on WP - there's, what, > 400+ admins? That means we'd need to do _more_ than one of these > _every day_. > > This - all of this discussion in fact - still looks like a solution > hunting *desperately* for a problem. > > > Dan Hummm. Right. So to summarize. It all started with Alphax claiming "it takes the intervention of a steward (which I've always thought of as being comparable to a Herculean effort) for someone to have admin priveleges removed". I think this is not an Herculean effort at all. You can reach us any time on meta or on irc. Sorry for abusing your time. I was not "hunting" for a problem, but trying to clarify a false perception. ant From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 23:17:51 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:17:51 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: <42B8985C.9010805@yahoo.com> References: <42B8985C.9010805@yahoo.com> Message-ID: > The page should be undeleted because it is under GFDL. > Rick deleting his page should absolutely not be an argument for > punishment. He is just upset. Let him the time to cool down :-) It's been undeleted -- geni From dangrey at gmail.com Tue Jun 21 23:22:02 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:22:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B89FA8.4000607@yahoo.com> References: <20050621052653.527FE12D43@mprdmxin.myway.com> <42B7AEF3.7020702@gmail.com> <42B7F1EF.7090703@yahoo.com> <530912670506210422118e3566@mail.gmail.com> <42B854E9.1050805@yahoo.com> <53091267050621113966d0e2f4@mail.gmail.com> <42B8975D.8090900@yahoo.com> <42B89FA8.4000607@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Maybe I've missed something, but what's the big deal? What is this all about? This seems to have all been kicked off by the RickK incident. An admin broke a rule and was treated accordingly, as any other editor who knew the rule would've been, admin or not. Job done. (The fact he threw a hissy fit as a result is neither here nor there. That's his problem.) Then we seemed to make some quantum leap - now trying to put up all kinds of test and hoops for admins to jump through - why, for goodness sake?! Do we have hoards of marauding admins blocking genuine users at will, deleting stuff randomly, and protecting pages when they shouldn't? Er, no, we don't. What we do have in the admins is a community of people who have been recognized as being trust-worthy. They work together and discuss problems and far more often than not come to reasonable, logical solutions. Dan From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 21 23:35:17 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:35:17 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621184917.28064.qmail@web25404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050621184917.28064.qmail@web25404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050621233517.GU7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Jon (thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk) [050622 04:49]: > In summary - the English and Welsh national curriculum requires children to be taught what BCE/CE means. The QCA continues and will continue to use BC/AD notation, which remains the form of notation used throughout the QCA's syllabuses. Wherever there have been attempts by a small number of teachers acting on their own initiative to require BCE/CE notation in UK, they have normally been met by an angry response. Yep. As I said, the push for BCE/CE is essentially US POV-centric. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 21 23:40:18 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:40:18 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: problem with power structure? "Not I", said the fly. In-Reply-To: <20050621191726.B9A7E398E@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050621191726.B9A7E398E@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <20050621234018.GV7309@thingy.apana.org.au> michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) [050622 05:17]: > But I do believe that there is a lack of real accountability to the very highest standards and ideals that this project claims to be founded on. The Arbitration Committee does exist and looks into admin abuse. So this statement is trivially factually incorrect. But I assume you wrote it sincerely, so I presume you mean you aren't seeing enough admins penalised for your liking. What concrete examples do you have (not generalities) that you consider makes mechanisms for more admin penalties an urgent need? - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 21 23:44:09 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:44:09 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Really need mediator In-Reply-To: References: <477C2A7D4CCE994B8CF296DA69A31D3D39BC3F@server.publiceye.local> Message-ID: <20050621234409.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050622 05:41]: > Drop by [[WP:MC]] if you want to see list of current mediators or go > to [[Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal]] for and give a quick summary to draw > some attention of other people interested in mediating disputes. They did that ... - d. From sean at epoptic.org Wed Jun 22 00:02:46 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:02:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: (message from Kelly Martin on Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:34:23 -0500) References: <49bdc743050620124311bb35a0@mail.gmail.com> <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> > On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > I am very much copyright-unparanoid, but in the absence of any > > credible indication that the entity calling itself CoolCat wrote the > > material, we must presume the opposite. If CoolCat disagrees with > > that presumption, the burden of proof is on she/he/it. > > Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? It was overruled by the DMCA. To put it a little less tersely, what we have here is a user who is presuming too much on our good faith. CoolCat submitted material that is also published elsewhere. When questioned (politely, I assume), CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim. If I were to start uploading Encarta articles, and when challenged on their copyright status, claim to be the sole owner of their copyright, are you going to say "okay, I'm going to assume your claim is made in good faith," or are you going to ask for more information supporting my surprising claim, or are you going to copyvio the appropriate articles and ban me so I'll stop? As Jimbo so wonderfully put it, this is a game of Calvinball, and the Wikipedia is Calvin. The "assume good faith" rule only applies until the Wikipedia starts losing. Then we realize that Friday the Thirteenth falls on Wednesday next month, which means that all unauthenticated claims of copyright ownership have to leave the playground. -- Sean Barrett | Tee-Eye-Double-Guh-Er! That spells "Tigger"! sean at epoptic.com | From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 00:03:29 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:03:29 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Policy proposal on dealing with disputes over names In-Reply-To: <20050621231433.58546.qmail@web86910.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050621231433.58546.qmail@web86910.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050622000328.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Chris Owen (ronthewarhero at yahoo.co.uk) [050622 09:14]: > We seem to have a lot of nationalist edit wars over > placenames. I'm sure not many people will have > forgotten the Gdansk/Danzig fiasco. A similar row is > currently going on at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macedonian_Slavs > (Greeks and ex-Yugoslavs fighting over names, yet > again; they're actively trolling for votes on > Wikipedia and offline as well). That's wonderful. If we have smoking-gun evidence of this, it should be added to the page to note the utter invalidity of the poll. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ChrisO/Naming_disputes > * The most common use in English of a name takes > precedence; > * If the common name conflicts with the official name, > use the common name ''except'' for conflicting > scientific and dialect names; > * If neither the common name nor the official name is > prevalent, use the name (or a translation thereof) > that the subject uses to describe itself or > themselves. > Objective criteria that should be considered are: > * Is the name in common usage in English? > * Is it the official current name of the subject > (official in terms of being used in a legal context, > e.g. a constitution?) > * Is it the name used by the subject to describe > itself or themselves? > * If an historic name is mentioned in the article, is > it in an accurate context? > Subjective criteria that should not be used are: > * Does the subject have a moral right to use the name? > * Does the subject have a legal right to use the name? > * Does the name infringe on someone else's legal or > moral rights? > * Is the use of the name politically unacceptable? OH YES PLEASE. I think the above cut through the problem obviously and elegantly. > Of course, there's more to it than that - notably that > really intractable disputes should be resolved by a > neutral committee of administrators (not the ArbCom, > which shouldn't waste its time on low-level disputes > of this sort). The alternative is to put such > questions to votes that will just end up being pissing > contests between rival POV-pushers, which is what > we're doing at the moment. What they need is just someone with even a faint sense of proportion looking at them, and that's what the AC is chosen for (even if sometimes it's like the sausage factory on the inside). I don't think deciding per these criteria would unduly load us at present. It certainly beats cases warring over the proper number angels to set dancing on the head of a pin as per policy. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 00:14:57 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:14:57 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed Message-ID: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Position vacant: WIKI ANGEL OF DEATH. Low pay, fantastic opportunities, lots of cookies *. Requires: immaculate judgement, sharp scythe, efficient attitude. Automatically pissing off querulous idiots advantageous. Apply at Special:Recentchanges or Special:Newpages. With RickK taking (what is hopefully just) a rest, we need admins manning the pumps.People think of me as an ardent inclusionist, but I don't think anyone can call themselves an "ardent inclusionist" after doing Newpages patrol. About 20-40%, depending on time of day, will be immediately speedyable. Really, about 20-40%. You'll gain a deep and personal insight into what makes someone into an axewielding deletionist. ("HITLER? IF HE'S SO DAMN NOTABLE HE CAN WRITE HIS OWN ARTICLE! DELETE!") Anyway, we need patrollers. Please get on Special:Newpages and Special:Recentchanges and do your bit to hold the tide back. (r3m0t is beta-testing some very nice tools for making RC patrol a lot easier, and Newpages would easily be handled in the same sort of way. If you have Firefox with Greasemonkey, have a word with him on IRC. CoolCat also has some nice tools working with IRC, as does CryptoDerk. Have a look.) - d. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:17:35 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:17:35 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Really need mediator In-Reply-To: <20050621234409.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <477C2A7D4CCE994B8CF296DA69A31D3D39BC3F@server.publiceye.local> <20050621234409.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <49bdc7430506211717215e93a2@mail.gmail.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sam_Spade/To_do_list_1 Thats what I have collected so far. Its a useful example for interested parties, as well as a groundwork for potential mediators. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050622 05:41]: > > > Drop by [[WP:MC]] if you want to see list of current mediators or go > > to [[Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal]] for and give a quick summary to draw > > some attention of other people interested in mediating disputes. > > > They did that ... > > > - d. > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From DavidCarson at perception.com.au Wed Jun 22 00:20:01 2005 From: DavidCarson at perception.com.au (David Carson) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:20:01 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed Message-ID: <3E52F1A447071349BAC3060B43E1710FC0889B@perception-1.Perception.local> Heya, > You'll gain a deep and personal insight into what makes someone into an > axewielding deletionist. ("HITLER? IF HE'S SO DAMN NOTABLE HE CAN WRITE > HIS OWN ARTICLE! DELETE!") '''Delete''', vanity, non-notable German bureaucrat. --~~~~ Cheers! David... This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Perception. Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. Perception accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 00:22:52 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:22:52 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <3E52F1A447071349BAC3060B43E1710FC0889B@perception-1.Perception.local> References: <3E52F1A447071349BAC3060B43E1710FC0889B@perception-1.Perception.local> Message-ID: <20050622002252.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> David Carson (DavidCarson at perception.com.au) [050622 10:18]: > > You'll gain a deep and personal insight into what makes someone into an > > axewielding deletionist. ("HITLER? IF HE'S SO DAMN NOTABLE HE CAN WRITE > > HIS OWN ARTICLE! DELETE!") > '''Delete''', vanity, non-notable German bureaucrat. --~~~~ *Only made corporal? Who cares? Monorchism isn't encyclopedic in itsel either. Delete - ~~~~ BTW, in the job ad, I lied about the cookies. - d. From skyring at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:27:23 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:27:23 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <550ccb82050621172743f88535@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > > Position vacant: WIKI ANGEL OF DEATH. Low pay, fantastic opportunities, > lots of cookies *. Requires: immaculate judgement, sharp scythe, efficient > attitude. Automatically pissing off querulous idiots advantageous. Apply at > Special:Recentchanges or Special:Newpages. I took a look at NewPages yesterday. But every time I'm bored I spice up my life with RecentChanges, and there's always something I can stick my nose into. Half the time it's a vandal of some sort and it's fun to sit on their IP address and check out what else they've been doing. OK. I have a weird idea of fun. -- Peter in Canberra From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:35:58 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:35:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050621172743f88535@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb82050621172743f88535@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Nothing like a elaxing time on RC patrol. suddenly all the wikipolitics just fade away and it's just you and a bunch of vandels who never seem to learn. -- geni From t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au Wed Jun 22 00:39:02 2005 From: t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au (Tim Starling) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:39:02 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Poor, Edmund W wrote: > What about reviving the idea of blocking a user from editing a > particular article? If someone blocked me from editing one of the gitmo > articles for a couple of days, I'd "get the message" and I wouldn't feel > the need for a dramatic exit. Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually well-supported. -- Tim Starling From shimgray at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:40:03 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:40:03 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <20050622002252.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <3E52F1A447071349BAC3060B43E1710FC0889B@perception-1.Perception.local> <20050622002252.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 22/06/05, David Gerard wrote: > David Carson (DavidCarson at perception.com.au) [050622 10:18]: > > > > You'll gain a deep and personal insight into what makes someone into an > > > axewielding deletionist. ("HITLER? IF HE'S SO DAMN NOTABLE HE CAN WRITE > > > HIS OWN ARTICLE! DELETE!") > > > '''Delete''', vanity, non-notable German bureaucrat. --~~~~ > > *Only made corporal? Who cares? Monorchism isn't encyclopedic in itsel > either. Delete - ~~~~ Merge and redirect to [[List of minor Chaplin characters]]? > BTW, in the job ad, I lied about the cookies. Heh. Newpages is an... education. I spent some time on there last week; one or two pages worth provided a couple of dozen speedy deletions (most of which someone else caught first), a fight on WP:TFD (complete with vote-editing, wild accusations of vandalism, et al), a requested undelete, a set of vandalism to be traced, one article ending up being written from scratch, and an interesting study of the politics of Andorra for a couple of hours. It's that sort of thing that made me the man I am today. (Namely, one very far behind on his deadlines.) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:42:31 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:42:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet > refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim. So what do you expect someone to provide to substantiate a claim of original authorship? A copyright regiserted with the copyright office? ... right. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 00:42:33 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:42:33 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050622 10:39]: > Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related > features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually > well-supported. It would certainly make 3RR blocks much less controversial. Mind you, I'm now trying to think of possible social side effects. - d. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 22 01:58:10 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:58:10 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: <42B876E2.8010405@telus.net> References: <20050621061242.3A4C61AC0291@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B7B663.3090808@earthlink.net> <42B7BC1F.6060108@gmx.de> <98dd099a05062105493e6c6de3@mail.gmail.com> <42B857F0.5030705@telus.net> <42B876E2.8010405@telus.net> Message-ID: <42B8C5B2.2020804@shaw.ca> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Kelly Martin wrote: > >> Yes, people who are doing their job well deserve to lose it. >> > For them consider it a vacation with full salary. > I would rather have a 20% raise, personally. From svante.welin at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:51:46 2005 From: svante.welin at gmail.com (Svante Welin) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:51:46 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Contact with Chinese wikipedians Message-ID: <298f2387050621175124dd3c04@mail.gmail.com> I would be grateful if any more experienced Chinese Wikipedia users, or Chinese administrators, could contact me on this e-mail adress. I am writing an article on Wikipedia for a Swedish magazine, and would like to do a short interview over e-mail with a Chinese wikipedian about how using Wikipedia in the PRC is. If anyone has any contact information to Chinese wikipedians, that would be great too. Thanks! Svante Welin Sweden From shimgray at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:51:56 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:51:56 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 22/06/05, David Gerard wrote: > Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050622 10:39]: > > > Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related > > features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually > > well-supported. > > It would certainly make 3RR blocks much less controversial. > > Mind you, I'm now trying to think of possible social side effects. There's really not much to object to about it; you're not giving admins a more powerful tool, you're giving them a more nuanced one. It allows blockings for vandalism ("we don't trust you to edit wiki at all") to be differentiated from blockings related to a specific article ("we think you should go cool off somewhere else"), and as such is less likely to cause someone to react angrily to a block. It also removes a lot of the tensions you get from page protection - I've seen, as I recall, one massive fight because a protected page was briefly unprotected so someone could (gasp!) re-format the list of references, which was clearly a massive misuse of admin powers, condoning of vandalism, what have you - because in many cases the page wouldn't be protected generally, but the two or three warring editors blocked from editing it. It'd remain otherwise open - though presumably closely watched with an eye to blocking/protection for "unrelated" edits. On the other hand, once you have this in place, a general block becomes a much more significant thing - there's your negative social effect. A short "article block" is one thing, but to block them from editing *anywhere*! Massive abuse of power! Disproportionate response! &c. So that's an effect; whether it's positive or negative is arguable. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:53:57 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:53:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, David Gerard wrote: > It would certainly make 3RR blocks much less controversial. > Mind you, I'm now trying to think of possible social side effects. It would be a nice tool, but it I suspect it would make 3RR ineffective: We can't give people time to cool off if we're only telling them they must take their war to another page. The idea behind 3RR is to have some time to cool off and for many users that means taking a walk away from Wikipedia. If we do set this up we should also make sure that it quietly places a simmlar block on the IP. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 22 02:10:24 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:10:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621161448.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050621091520.59445.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <42B8403E.5090508@shaw.ca> <20050621161448.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42B8C890.8010101@shaw.ca> David Gerard wrote: >Transclusion of article text is a VERY bad thing. It's basically a way to >put a handle into lots of articles to change them without it showing on >recent changes. I really don't see why wikiprojects think they can vote to >pull shit like this, and why those templates shouldn't just be subst: and >then promptly deleted. > > I also think the transclusion is a Bad Thing, but I don't think the text should be subst:ed since that would leave Wikipedia with multiple copies of the same text scattered around. If they later need fixing it's unlikely that a new arrival will know where to find the other copies. I believe these transcluded articles should simply be linked to instead, just like every other similar case on Wikipedia where there's a "summary" article covering multiple detailed "sectional" articles (TV shows or movie franchises, for example). The discussion of this issue seems to have petered out about ten days ago on all the talk: pages where I was following it, does anyone know if there's more recent discussion someplace I've missed? From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 00:58:51 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:58:51 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/22/05, Tim Starling wrote: > Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > What about reviving the idea of blocking a user from editing a > > particular article? If someone blocked me from editing one of the gitmo > > articles for a couple of days, I'd "get the message" and I wouldn't feel > > the need for a dramatic exit. > > Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related > features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually > well-supported. > > -- Tim Starling It would be hand If you want a shared ip to stop doing something. -- geni From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:05:05 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:05:05 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05062118054fc57538@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet > > refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim. > > So what do you expect someone to provide to substantiate a claim of > original authorship? A copyright regiserted with the copyright > office? ... right. No, nothing that fancy. A real name would be a good start. -User:Fuzheado From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 22 02:19:57 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:19:57 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42B8CACD.104@shaw.ca> Gregory Maxwell wrote: >On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > >>CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet >>refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim. >> >> >So what do you expect someone to provide to substantiate a claim of >original authorship? A copyright regiserted with the copyright >office? ... right. > ObSimpsonsQuote: Twitchy Police Academy Student: "When do we get the freakin' GUNS!?" Chief Wiggum: "Hey, I told you before, you don't get a gun until you tell me your name." I'm not involved in this dispute at all, but one of the other emails in this thread mentioned that CoolCat refuses to give his real name or the name of the publisher. This doesn't seem like a particularly onerous request to make. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:11:18 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:11:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/21/05, geni wrote: > It would be hand If you want a shared ip to stop doing something. Oh, thats probably worth it alone.. though, it won't help the random drive by vandals, because they'll just as happily go on editing some other page. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Jun 22 02:25:23 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:25:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <5309126705062109156c8056a4@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> <5309126705062109156c8056a4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B8CC13.4040005@shaw.ca> Rebecca wrote: >Oh no, let me rephrase. I don't think there was necessarily a "golden >age" when we didn't have problems with antisocial users - we've always >had that. I think the last few months have generally been the best >period we've had, as we finally got rid of the obvious ones (i.e. >Lir). Lately, though, this list seems to be taken up with a growing >number of people who seem to take care not to break any bannable >rules, but whose contributions to Wikipedia seem to consist entirely >of trying to persecute admins (or hanging out on VFD). It's like the >Red Faction all over again - except considerably more subtle. > > Ah, I see. I don't have a clear enough intuitive grasp of the frequency to agree or disagree, but that does seem plausible to me; Wikipedia's developing immune system has been forcing troublemakers to evolve into new forms. I guess I'm just lucky I haven't run afoul of the new breed much. :) From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:18:26 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:18:26 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <2ed171fb0506211818504d9ab4@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > Tim Starling (t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050622 10:39]: > > > Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related > > features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually > > well-supported. > > It would certainly make 3RR blocks much less controversial. > Mind you, I'm now trying to think of possible social side effects. Making 3RR blocks more fine grained could avoid lots of bad blood. Some possible side effects: - Shunting "angst" to other related articles, though probably not significant - Management interface for the access control list for (# of articles) x (# of users) - An article level block would probably be less stigmatized, so possibility of more blocks happening -User:Fuzheado From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:19:31 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:19:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head* In-Reply-To: <42B8CC13.4040005@shaw.ca> References: <20050620055612.49504.qmail@web60622.mail.yahoo.com> <5309126705062102366d92ce1b@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050621064810ce0353@mail.gmail.com> <42B842AB.8040900@shaw.ca> <5309126705062109156c8056a4@mail.gmail.com> <42B8CC13.4040005@shaw.ca> Message-ID: > Ah, I see. I don't have a clear enough intuitive grasp of the frequency > to agree or disagree, but that does seem plausible to me; Wikipedia's > developing immune system has been forcing troublemakers to evolve into > new forms. I guess I'm just lucky I haven't run afoul of the new breed > much. :) Hang around the 3RR reporting page some time. Edit warriours have largely adapted to deal with that now. more advance forms of technical vandalism tend not to do so well since for the most part they are delt with quickly by developers. -- geni From morven at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:23:29 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:23:29 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> On 6/21/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/21/05, Sean Barrett wrote: > > CoolCat made the important claim of being the copyright owner, yet > > refused to supply critical pieces of data to support that claim. > > So what do you expect someone to provide to substantiate a claim of > original authorship? A copyright regiserted with the copyright > office? ... right. >From a quick reading of the article's talk page, CoolCat would not provide anything except the assertion of authorship, claiming a desire for anonymity precluded anything else. The pointing out that associating yourself with being the author of another site's article could ruin that anonymity anyway didn't produce any results. The largest reason, I think, why CoolCat's assertion did not help was that this user has been found to have violated copyright before. "Assume good faith until burned", I guess. -Matt From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:25:25 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:25:25 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb0506211818504d9ab4@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622004233.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <2ed171fb0506211818504d9ab4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Andrew Lih wrote: > - An article level block would probably be less stigmatized, so > possibility of more blocks happening This is a good reason against their use... all blocks no matter how small or how deserved are something of a slap... To a normal editor it's a reminder that there is some more powerful force that will take away your ability to edit if you run afoul of them and you can't figure out a way to evade the block. ... They will make people want to lash back, and if they have no means to block someone themselves some will find another way to hurt back. Blocks are bad energy, they are needed and we should not be afraid to use them where they are required, but we don't want to create the image that any sort of block is harmless. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:31:36 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:31:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Matt Brown wrote: > From a quick reading of the article's talk page, CoolCat would not > provide anything except the assertion of authorship, claiming a desire > for anonymity precluded anything else. The pointing out that > associating yourself with being the author of another site's article > could ruin that anonymity anyway didn't produce any results. > > The largest reason, I think, why CoolCat's assertion did not help was > that this user has been found to have violated copyright before. > "Assume good faith until burned", I guess. Well for whatever it's worth, I've had a private conversation with him and I find his story compelling. I don't know if I can really offer any more than that. I would just like to reiterate that even if I am mistaken this is far from the most likely disputed copyright claim on the project at all... and I'd really like to know where all the 'ohh copyvio are bad' folks are hiding every time I go up against a stuborn user whos feelings are hurt that I want to delete their beloved google image search. :-/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 01:58:55 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:58:55 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Tim Starling > >Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > What about reviving the idea of blocking a user from editing a > > particular article? If someone blocked me from editing one of the gitmo > > articles for a couple of days, I'd "get the message" and I wouldn't feel > > the need for a dramatic exit. > >Are there any objections to this? I'm accustomed to all blocking-related >features being controversial, but this one seems to be unusually >well-supported. > >-- Tim Starling In my experience, when this kind of person is blocked from editing one article (e.g. via page protection), he or she typically moves on to start edit warring on a related article. A good example is one of the people currently being proposed for RfAR, who has managed to get perhaps 10 articles protected so far, one after another, returning to the originals for further revert warring when they are unprotected again. Jay. From t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au Wed Jun 22 02:14:11 2005 From: t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au (Tim Starling) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:14:11 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: JAY JG wrote: > In my experience, when this kind of person is blocked from editing one > article (e.g. via page protection), he or she typically moves on to > start edit warring on a related article. A good example is one of the > people currently being proposed for RfAR, who has managed to get perhaps > 10 articles protected so far, one after another, returning to the > originals for further revert warring when they are unprotected again. Well, the feature I have in mind would allow the user to be blocked from an arbitrary list of articles. In the scenario you refer to, the effect would be the same for the badly behaving user, they would continue to move from article to article. The difference is that other editors would still be able to edit the articles left behind. Since the collateral damage is lower, action could be taken sooner, and the bad user would run out of related articles to edit more quickly. -- Tim Starling From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 02:25:48 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:25:48 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5309126705062119256640ae93@mail.gmail.com> Or alternatively, they could just be blocked from Wikipedia. I take it this would not need to be used in all cases. :) -- ambi On 6/22/05, Tim Starling wrote: > JAY JG wrote: > > In my experience, when this kind of person is blocked from editing one > > article (e.g. via page protection), he or she typically moves on to > > start edit warring on a related article. A good example is one of the > > people currently being proposed for RfAR, who has managed to get perhaps > > 10 articles protected so far, one after another, returning to the > > originals for further revert warring when they are unprotected again. > > Well, the feature I have in mind would allow the user to be blocked from > an arbitrary list of articles. In the scenario you refer to, the effect > would be the same for the badly behaving user, they would continue to > move from article to article. The difference is that other editors would > still be able to edit the articles left behind. Since the collateral > damage is lower, action could be taken sooner, and the bad user would > run out of related articles to edit more quickly. > > -- Tim Starling > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 02:59:08 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:59:08 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/05, Matt Brown wrote: > The largest reason, I think, why CoolCat's assertion did not help was > that this user has been found to have violated copyright before. > "Assume good faith until burned", I guess. I've seen CoolCat repeatedly accused of copyright infringement but the ones I've reviewed I've found that those accusations lacked substance. He's involved in one of the more contentious edit wars (Kurd issues in Turkey) that we have running right now and there are some people who will stoop to underhanded techniques to "win". Apparently, alleging copyright infringement is a very effective technique to silence your opponents. And it seems that we're playing right into that strategy. Kelly From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 03:52:26 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:52:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Tim Starling > >JAY JG wrote: > > In my experience, when this kind of person is blocked from editing one > > article (e.g. via page protection), he or she typically moves on to > > start edit warring on a related article. A good example is one of the > > people currently being proposed for RfAR, who has managed to get perhaps > > 10 articles protected so far, one after another, returning to the > > originals for further revert warring when they are unprotected again. > >Well, the feature I have in mind would allow the user to be blocked from >an arbitrary list of articles. In the scenario you refer to, the effect >would be the same for the badly behaving user, they would continue to >move from article to article. The difference is that other editors would >still be able to edit the articles left behind. Since the collateral >damage is lower, action could be taken sooner, and the bad user would >run out of related articles to edit more quickly. For how long would these individual article blocks remain? Jay. From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 03:57:28 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:57:28 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ed171fb050621205766660da4@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. -User:Fuzheado From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 04:21:04 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 00:21:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050621205766660da4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > > > > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? > >Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the >blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation >could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original after 24 hours. Jay. From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 04:36:39 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:36:39 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: References: <2ed171fb050621205766660da4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050621213624eb70e1@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original after > 24 hours. Then perhaps the 9RR (or 3 x 3RR) rule will result in a ban from all editing. :) A persistent "reverter" on one article will have to wait 24 hours, but he'll be facing a legion of admins ready to hit the block button again. It is highly likely the invidivudal will run out of patience first. -User:Fuzheado From puddlduk at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 04:51:48 2005 From: puddlduk at gmail.com (Puddl Duk) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:51:48 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e323040506212151319bb5c2@mail.gmail.com> > > Well for whatever it's worth, I've had a private conversation with him > and I find his story compelling. I don't know if I can really offer > any more than that. > > I would just like to reiterate that even if I am mistaken this is far > from the most likely disputed copyright claim on the project at all... > and I'd really like to know where all the 'ohh copyvio are bad' folks > are hiding every time I go up against a stuborn user whos feelings are > hurt that I want to delete their beloved google image search. :-/ It seems that a lot of people have had ''private'' conversations with Coolcat. Some glaring admissions are the administrators processing his copyvios (myself in a couple of cases). I've been treated very harshly by people who have apperantly heard these stories, and yet these administrators take no action except bashing me (see [[Talk:GAP_Project]]). I don't reject the possibility that Coolcat is the copyright owner of the stuff he keeps submitting (on the GAP_Project). But I won't accept anonymous licence granting of previously published material when clearing copyright violations. This is the same criteria I applied to all copyvio's I've processed. Duk From puddlduk at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 05:01:00 2005 From: puddlduk at gmail.com (Puddl Duk) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 22:01:00 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e32304050621220137e2f06d@mail.gmail.com> > I've seen CoolCat repeatedly accused of copyright infringement but the > ones I've reviewed I've found that those accusations lacked substance. > He's involved in one of the more contentious edit wars (Kurd issues > in Turkey) that we have running right now and there are some people > who will stoop to underhanded techniques to "win". Apparently, > alleging copyright infringement is a very effective technique to > silence your opponents. And it seems that we're playing right into > that strategy. > > Kelly Take a look at [[Diagnosis: Murder]]. After copying from two different websites he claims he got permission from one of them, but can't remember which. Based on this he files a request for Undeletion of the copyright violations. I've yet to see an apology from him for the original plagiarism and copyright violation. Duk From el.ceeh at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 06:04:14 2005 From: el.ceeh at gmail.com (El C) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:04:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rick Message-ID: I feel sad, despirited and demoralized to see that you have left, Rick. I won't expend anymore words. All the best to you. Yours, El_C From michaelturley at myway.com Wed Jun 22 06:17:17 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:17:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: problem with power structure? Message-ID: <20050622061717.054FA39BF@mprdmxin.myway.com> michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) [050622 05:17]: > >> But I do believe that there is a lack of real accountability to the very highest standards and ideals that this project claims to be founded on. > > >The Arbitration Committee does exist and looks into admin abuse. So this >statement is trivially factually incorrect. But I assume you wrote it >sincerely, so I presume you mean you aren't seeing enough admins penalised for >your liking. What concrete examples do you have (not generalities) that you >consider makes mechanisms for more admin penalties an urgent need? > > >- d. There's a difference between abuse and ideals. For example, civility at all times is one of the highest standards and ideals. "Don't abuse" is the rule. Be civil is the ideal. Yet when incivility comes up, such as calling someone a jerk, we got a "circle the wagons and defend the tribe" response from many members, including some that repeated the insult, mildly amplifying it into a judgement. Or the extraordinary tolerance of very aggessive newbie biting in the recent Willswikihelp incident. But I '''really''' don't want to talk about specific cases, because they're in the past. They're minor. I'd rather let them go. Maybe "admin penalty" is too strong, or even the wrong concept. Instead, I'd rather see some genuine disapproval in the admin community when someone "falls off the wagon" into incivility, regardless of who the incivility is directed to or what prompted it. If that requires a two or a ten minute, or even a ten or 24 hour involuntary block to express 'just strongly enough' that the administrator learns from it, then so be it. Start tiny, even at the "so small as to be nothing other than symbolic" level, and gradually rise from there. I think you'd be surprised at how effective symbolic gestures can be to an offended person. I'd rather see admins set an example, voluntarily requesting their own sanction for their own transgressions of civility. A 'penance for forgiveness' principle, perhaps. (Not that other users couldn't make the same requests, too.) Maybe "admin penance" is the term I'm flailing around for. Why all this fuss? I'd like to see a higher standard for admins, to ensure that they are always trying to set a better example for others rather than escalating hostilities. Right now, people forget occasionally, and the reaction has been "well, they're a good person all the rest of the time..." That's not consistent with the principle of "in service to others" that an admin should strive for. The Arbitration Committee cannot and should not enforce higher standards of civility and kindness. I think it will take a few good admins voluntarily setting a higher standard as example, and peer pressure from there. One subscriber to this list seems to want to kick out troublesome editors with a size twelve army boot. I'd rather push them in the direction we want them to go with a feather. It would require a thousand times more patience, but I think the end result would be better. Sure, there will still be trolls and vandals. But if they truly feel that the ones blocking them are held to a higher standard, more will convert to productive users. Or not become trolls and vandals in the first place. Think of some of the editor/trolls that persistently stick around, goading admins, perhaps even trying to trap admins in rule violations. If these people thought that the admins were already being held to a higher standard, how many do you think would still "have it in for" admins? If there was a community of higher standards, how many fewer do you think would see adminship as belonging to a "selfish power clique"? How many fewer would "fight the power" if "the power" was a group of people gently pressuring each other toward saintly behavior? Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I see room for improvement, and relatively easy paths to get there. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Jun 22 06:51:34 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:51:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> JAY JG wrote: >> > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? >> >> Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the >> blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation >> could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original > after 24 hours. The advantage is that it gives the antisocial more rope to hang themselves with, while simultaneously taking a lot of the sting out of being blocked, for those who aren't simply on Wikipedia to push an agenda. Yes, the battlefields may shift occasionally, but the process of building a case for arbitration against serious offenders can move much more rapidly. Then you won't have to wait as impatiently to get a sanction that lasts longer than 24 hours, in situations where this proves necessary. Back in the day when the three-revert rule was only a guideline, I brought an arbitration case against three of the most prolific revert warriors of the time. I think the arbitrators found the evidence persuasive in part because I could point to a long list of pages that had to be protected due to their revert wars. This is straightforward and a lot easier to deal with than wading through diffs to figure out who said what personal attack to whom. The same principle would apply to somebody who gets blocked from 10 different articles on closely related topics in short succession. With this kind of track record established, I'm confident that arbitration would quickly consider hearing such a case. --Michael Snow From dangrey at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 08:10:09 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 09:10:09 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050621213624eb70e1@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ed171fb050621205766660da4@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050621213624eb70e1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I think Tim's idea would be an excellent feature. IMO, the pros greatly outweigh the cons. We could at least trial it. Dan From zoney.ie at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 10:08:12 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:08:12 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050621233517.GU7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050621184917.28064.qmail@web25404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <20050621233517.GU7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4418c60e050622030873058806@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > Jon (thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk) [050622 04:49]: > > > In summary - the English and Welsh national curriculum requires children to be taught what BCE/CE means. The QCA continues and will continue to use BC/AD notation, which remains the form of notation used throughout the QCA's syllabuses. Wherever there have been attempts by a small number of teachers acting on their own initiative to require BCE/CE notation in UK, they have normally been met by an angry response. > > > Yep. As I said, the push for BCE/CE is essentially US POV-centric. > > > - d. > > Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". Now Wikipedia with NPOV policy certainly has to avoid siding with different POVs - but surely to use BCE/CE notation at all is indeed siding with a POV. Does every POV have to be accommodated on *some* articles in order to have NPOV? Surely sticking to BC/AD, as has been used for centuries and centuries in the English language (almost certainly the vast majority using it without religious or political intent), is the most sensible option? Wikipedia's ridiculous pandering to all the extremist POVs is not a good way to ensure NPOV in my opinion, and seriously dints its credability. I suspect many have no idea how absurd it appears to a non-USian to see BCE/CE spreading across Wikipedia (and judging by the biases most prevalent among Wikipedians - it seems likely to continue to increase and be used in what is at the least, a disproportionate amount of articles). HAH! NPOV? Wikipedia merely reflects the biases of its editors, both the majority and the minorities who push strongly for their POV. Zoney P.S. Long term, I cannot see how Wikipedia will avoid descending into anarchy. And unfortunately, I can see more of the current editors and admins choosing to leave (yes there are plenty more who will take over, but it's a bad way to do things). I hope I'm proved wrong though - the content Wikipedia has collated to date is impressive in size, and a fine body of articles are very good quality too. Sl?n go f?ill. -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 10:13:44 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:43:44 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <4418c60e050622030873058806@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050621184917.28064.qmail@web25404.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <20050621233517.GU7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <4418c60e050622030873058806@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B939D8.5010306@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Zoney wrote: > Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense > to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, > hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". > I agree with your post entirely. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCuTnY/RxM5Ph0xhMRApIWAJ9xuY/vl06iIerhsesqFQZUxtKFWgCffU+r ueZovKBguYQV1UG1sYt+EtE= =mneN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 10:37:24 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:37:24 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If there's more people who deleted talk pages with significant content, then I think that should be adressed. We should ask the community at large if they need to be undeleted. --Mgm On 6/21/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > > > >They did? > > Yes. > > >I don't think it's right to delete user talk pages when they > >contain significant amounts of discussion. So those deserve as much > >attention as Rick's page. > > What kind of attention, and from whom? > > >I don't think Rick needs to be sanctioned > >for it, though. But I doubt he'd mind de-sysoping if he's serious > >about leaving. > > I think de-sysopping would be like kicking him when he's down. Most people > who leave when upset return anyway. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 10:41:13 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:41:13 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > (r3m0t is beta-testing some very nice tools for making RC patrol a lot > easier, and Newpages would easily be handled in the same sort of way. If > you have Firefox with Greasemonkey, have a word with him on IRC. CoolCat > also has some nice tools working with IRC, as does CryptoDerk. Have a > look.) > Mind telling us if and where we can find r3m0t's and Coolcat's tools? --Mgm From dangrey at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 11:33:57 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:33:57 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: After a lot of digging (I went through RickK's talk page in the end - glad it was undeleted!) I've found #en.wikipedia.vandalism, which is Cool Cat's vandal-detector bot in its own channel on Freenode. r3m0t's thing is probably Humanbot, which is inactive at the moment (I only realised after install Greasemonkey and then the script - d'oh!) HTH Dan On 22/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > On 6/22/05, David Gerard wrote: > > (r3m0t is beta-testing some very nice tools for making RC patrol a lot > > easier, and Newpages would easily be handled in the same sort of way. If > > you have Firefox with Greasemonkey, have a word with him on IRC. CoolCat > > also has some nice tools working with IRC, as does CryptoDerk. Have a > > look.) > > > Mind telling us if and where we can find r3m0t's and Coolcat's tools? > > --Mgm > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 11:38:14 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:38:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, Dan Grey wrote: > After a lot of digging (I went through RickK's talk page in the end - > glad it was undeleted!) I've found #en.wikipedia.vandalism, which is > Cool Cat's vandal-detector bot in its own channel on Freenode. > > r3m0t's thing is probably Humanbot, which is inactive at the moment (I > only realised after install Greasemonkey and then the script - d'oh!) No, r3m0t is betaing a greasemonkey based tool that will preload recent changes for you to look at and approve or disapprove in various ways. I tested it the other day; it wasn't bad but it's really designed for nonadmins (it can mark stuff as speedy but it won't do the actual deletes and it doesn't use one-click rollback). I've got an idea for implementing CDVF as a server application (in Tomcat) to much the same effect. Kelly From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 22 11:45:26 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 04:45:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <4418c60e050622030873058806@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050622114527.67951.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Zoney wrote: > P.S. Long term, I cannot see how Wikipedia will avoid descending into > anarchy. And unfortunately, I can see more of the current editors and > admins choosing to leave (yes there are plenty more who will take > over, but it's a bad way to do things). People have been predicting this for years and it has not happened yet. Heck, I thought so as well when we jumped from 800 edits a day to 3000 within months of me starting in 2002. Whenever we get bigger, we adapt. If and when things get too bad, then for the sake of the encyclopedia we will need to start locking things down. I do not think we will be at that stage for some time and may even be able to adapt indefinitely. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Jun 22 14:03:19 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:03:19 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking (was: RickK leaving) Message-ID: I have created the following page to collect all the comments and positions relating to Tim's proposal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Per-article_blocking Please review, to ensure that I have quoted you correctly. Uncle Ed From thomas-edison at ziplip.com Wed Jun 22 14:59:25 2005 From: thomas-edison at ziplip.com (thomas-edison at ziplip.com) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:59:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous Message-ID: > in effect, punishing people, is not helpful, as in a volunteer > project, punishing people without good reason will make them > leave. Hey, I'm being punished without good reason! Most people would just leave. But... you're not gonna get rid of me that easily. :-) Let's just say, I'm not done rocking the boat. :-) ? 2005, Pioneer-12 From fastfission at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 15:36:53 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:36:53 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> I am sure this is what they are doing, but: Wouldn't it be easy to detect when article sizes or content fluctuated wildly and mark that as worth checking into? Wouldn't it also be easy to check for new articles created without any Wikilinks? That would probably flag a good heap of the random vandalism right off the bat (dedicated vandals would of course be more subtle, but that's not a new thing). A little red flag for profanities would also probably work as well. This seems like something which could be easily hardwired into MediaWiki -- if condition X, add a list to this edit to Special:Checkup or something like that. But I don't know much about that, and know the developers are few, so it is just a thought, and one they have probably already had. FF On 6/22/05, Kelly Martin wrote: > On 6/22/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > After a lot of digging (I went through RickK's talk page in the end - > > glad it was undeleted!) I've found #en.wikipedia.vandalism, which is > > Cool Cat's vandal-detector bot in its own channel on Freenode. > > > > r3m0t's thing is probably Humanbot, which is inactive at the moment (I > > only realised after install Greasemonkey and then the script - d'oh!) > > No, r3m0t is betaing a greasemonkey based tool that will preload > recent changes for you to look at and approve or disapprove in various > ways. I tested it the other day; it wasn't bad but it's really > designed for nonadmins (it can mark stuff as speedy but it won't do > the actual deletes and it doesn't use one-click rollback). > > I've got an idea for implementing CDVF as a server application (in > Tomcat) to much the same effect. > > Kelly > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 15:40:13 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:40:13 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I think a lot of edit wars and revert wars could be stopped if pages were more quickly protected and people were actually forced to try and work it out on talk beforehand. The negative aspect -- that the page was being prevented from other, legitimate edits -- is indeed quite negative, but no less so than if it is in the middle of edit wars, which make preserving newly added content near impossible. Is there a page for requesting protection? If there was some easy way to do it, I'd do it all the time. I'd much rather discuss disagreements on talk pages than change the articles, but most anons and POV pushers seem unwilling to do that unless forced. FF On 6/22/05, Michael Snow wrote: > JAY JG wrote: > > >> > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? > >> > >> Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the > >> blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation > >> could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. > > > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original > > after 24 hours. > > The advantage is that it gives the antisocial more rope to hang > themselves with, while simultaneously taking a lot of the sting out of > being blocked, for those who aren't simply on Wikipedia to push an > agenda. Yes, the battlefields may shift occasionally, but the process of > building a case for arbitration against serious offenders can move much > more rapidly. Then you won't have to wait as impatiently to get a > sanction that lasts longer than 24 hours, in situations where this > proves necessary. > > Back in the day when the three-revert rule was only a guideline, I > brought an arbitration case against three of the most prolific revert > warriors of the time. I think the arbitrators found the evidence > persuasive in part because I could point to a long list of pages that > had to be protected due to their revert wars. This is straightforward > and a lot easier to deal with than wading through diffs to figure out > who said what personal attack to whom. The same principle would apply to > somebody who gets blocked from 10 different articles on closely related > topics in short succession. With this kind of track record established, > I'm confident that arbitration would quickly consider hearing such a case. > > --Michael Snow > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 15:53:01 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:53:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Fastfission, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection Dan On 22/06/05, Fastfission wrote: > > Is there a page for requesting protection? If there was some easy way > to do it, I'd do it all the time. I'd much rather discuss > disagreements on talk pages than change the articles, but most anons > and POV pushers seem unwilling to do that unless forced. > > FF > > From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 16:16:42 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:16:42 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, Fastfission wrote: > I am sure this is what they are doing, but: > > Wouldn't it be easy to detect when article sizes or content fluctuated > wildly and mark that as worth checking into? Wouldn't it also be easy > to check for new articles created without any Wikilinks? That would > probably flag a good heap of the random vandalism right off the bat > (dedicated vandals would of course be more subtle, but that's not a > new thing). A little red flag for profanities would also probably work > as well. This seems like something which could be easily hardwired > into MediaWiki -- if condition X, add a list to this edit to > Special:Checkup or something like that. But I don't know much about > that, and know the developers are few, so it is just a thought, and > one they have probably already had. > > FF a lot of vanadlism involves adding or changeing only one word. With new articles anything small is worth cheack. However since using firefox you can check a page about once every 5 seconds (you open them in lagre batches and view the diffs) it is often quicker and simpler to cheack everything. -- geni From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 18:29:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:29:34 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <4418c60e050622030873058806@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Zoney > >Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense >to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, >hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". > >Now Wikipedia with NPOV policy certainly has to avoid siding with >different POVs - but surely to use BCE/CE notation at all is indeed >siding with a POV. Does every POV have to be accommodated on *some* >articles in order to have NPOV? > >Surely sticking to BC/AD, as has been used for centuries and centuries >in the English language (almost certainly the vast majority using it >without religious or political intent), is the most sensible option? > >Wikipedia's ridiculous pandering to all the extremist POVs is not a >good way to ensure NPOV in my opinion, and seriously dints its >credability. At the risk of repeating myself, the issue is not about which version is better, or "POV", or "extremist", but about attempts by editors to enforce their own views on the matter. And I don't think this list is the place to discuss the pro and con arguments regarding use of BCE/CE vs. BC/AD. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 18:42:17 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:42:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <42B939D8.5010306@gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Alphax > >Zoney wrote: > > Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense > > to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, > > hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". > > > > >I agree with your post entirely. > >- -- >Alphax Sigh. Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for "African-American" was used near-universally in the United States, and was seen as "neutral" as well. Before that the neutral and near-universally used term was "Negro". They're now seen as offensive, though I'm sure some older users of the terms see (or saw) their replacements as "nonsense" and a "POV lobby". Regardless, I imagine that none of the members of this list would use those terms today, and there are many other examples of this kind of thing (e.g. "Mohammedan"->"Moslem"->"Muslim"). Language changes, and English probably changes faster than most other languages; usages that were once thought neutral are now seen to contain inherent bias. This has happened with other terms in the past, and may be happening with BC/AD today. Now, can we move the debate about BCE/CE vs. BC/AD to where it belongs, on some policy page? Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 18:45:30 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:45:30 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > >If there's more people who deleted talk pages with significant >content, then I think that should be adressed. We should ask the >community at large if they need to be undeleted. O.K. You can start with User talk:Xed - 371 deleted edits there. Would you extend this to User pages with extensive edits? Jay. From james at jdforrester.org Wed Jun 22 18:48:01 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:48:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200506221848.j5MIm7aK013175@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Wednesday, June 22, 2005, at 19:42, Jay JG wrote: > Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for "African-American" > was used near-universally in the United States, and was seen > as "neutral" as well. Actually, using "African-American" instead of "black" is widely ridiculed in the UK, FWIW. But yes, I agree, language changes - the point is, the use of CE/BCE notation is a POV term like all the others whose time of being considered better than any others has not yet come, and may indeed never do so. [Snip] Yours, -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james at jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From avenier at venier.net Wed Jun 22 19:44:01 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:44:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I will be leaving the project In-Reply-To: References: <42B7A93A.9000507@venier.net> <1bfe3eb05062104512c8b90db@mail.gmail.com> <42B8532A.1030509@venier.net> <200506211801.j5LI1EAw004247@orwen.epoptic.com> <200506220002.j5M02ket004834@orwen.epoptic.com> <42f90dc0050621182350137ab5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B9BF81.5030700@venier.net> Kelly Martin wrote: >On 6/21/05, Matt Brown wrote: > > >>The largest reason, I think, why CoolCat's assertion did not help was >>that this user has been found to have violated copyright before. >>"Assume good faith until burned", I guess. >> >> > >I've seen CoolCat repeatedly accused of copyright infringement but the >ones I've reviewed I've found that those accusations lacked substance. > He's involved in one of the more contentious edit wars (Kurd issues >in Turkey) that we have running right now and there are some people >who will stoop to underhanded techniques to "win". Apparently, >alleging copyright infringement is a very effective technique to >silence your opponents. And it seems that we're playing right into >that strategy. > >Kelly > There's a very simple way to counter such an attack: don't copy and paste verbatim text from websites or other copyright sources and leave them unattributed. From fastfission at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 20:01:17 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:01:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account Message-ID: <98dd099a05062213017ffa6c99@mail.gmail.com> Is there a given anon IP address be blocked from editing unless it signs up with an account? I think this would be quite useful in situations of persistent vandalism from high schools or libraries, etc. It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something like that. Is this possible? FF From spyders at btinternet.com Wed Jun 22 20:13:48 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:13:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account References: <98dd099a05062213017ffa6c99@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> It's something to think about to implement, but its not possible at the moment. It would be good for the extreme cases of mass-vandalism (Cambridge University has IPs getting blocked/unblocked/warned almost constantly, for example). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fastfission" To: "English Wikipedia" Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 9:01 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account Is there a given anon IP address be blocked from editing unless it signs up with an account? I think this would be quite useful in situations of persistent vandalism from high schools or libraries, etc. It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something like that. Is this possible? FF _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 20:11:11 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:11:11 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, Fastfission wrote: > I am sure this is what they are doing, but: > > Wouldn't it be easy to detect when article sizes or content fluctuated > wildly and mark that as worth checking into? This is quite easy and CDVF already flags "large" edits. (I catch a lot of vandalism that way.) > Wouldn't it also be easy > to check for new articles created without any Wikilinks? That's harder because you have to actually fetch the edits to check for that. Kelly From fastfission at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 20:20:03 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:20:03 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> References: <98dd099a05062213017ffa6c99@mail.gmail.com> <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062213207d20b78@mail.gmail.com> I suppose what it would be, at a technical level, would be "account only, not IP" blocking, and you'd block edits from [[User:0.0.0.0]], etc. (At least, that's how I -- someone who has no idea how anon account editing works -- would imagine it to work). FF On 6/22/05, David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > It's something to think about to implement, but its not possible at the > moment. It would be good for the extreme cases of mass-vandalism (Cambridge > University has IPs getting blocked/unblocked/warned almost constantly, for > example). > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Fastfission" > To: "English Wikipedia" > Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 9:01 PM > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account > > > Is there a given anon IP address be blocked from editing unless it > signs up with an account? I think this would be quite useful in > situations of persistent vandalism from high schools or libraries, > etc. > > It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing > anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free > to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something > like that. Is this possible? > > FF > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From avenier at venier.net Wed Jun 22 20:33:44 2005 From: avenier at venier.net (Andrew Venier) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 15:33:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062213207d20b78@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05062213017ffa6c99@mail.gmail.com> <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> <98dd099a05062213207d20b78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42B9CB28.6020406@venier.net> Just FYI, this request is in bugzilla as item #550; there is some discussion of it there: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550 From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 20:47:08 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:47:08 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: >From: "Fastfission" >To: "English Wikipedia" >Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 9:01 PM >Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account > > >Is there a given anon IP address be blocked from editing unless it >signs up with an account? I think this would be quite useful in >situations of persistent vandalism from high schools or libraries, >etc. > >It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing >anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free >to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something >like that. Is this possible? Would that make it harder to stop sockpuppets? Jay. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 20:50:26 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:50:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: References: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > >It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing > >anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free > >to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something > >like that. Is this possible? > > Would that make it harder to stop sockpuppets? Only if we replaced the current functionality with this.. Better to make them both available and use the new one only for shared IPs. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 21:01:20 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 07:01:20 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <200506221848.j5MIm7aK013175@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> References: <200506221848.j5MIm7aK013175@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <20050622210120.GD7309@thingy.apana.org.au> James D. Forrester (james at jdforrester.org) [050623 04:48]: > On Wednesday, June 22, 2005, at 19:42, Jay JG wrote: > > Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for "African-American" > > was used near-universally in the United States, and was seen > > as "neutral" as well. > Actually, using "African-American" instead of "black" is widely ridiculed in > the UK, FWIW. Yeah, it tends toward "Afro-Caribbean", or just "Afro" on the Afro hair product shops in Walthamstow ;-) - d. From dangrey at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 21:51:04 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:51:04 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Here's a question for y'all as a newbie to RC patrolling. So I've got CDVF going, and I've imported the admins. So is it now simply a job of sitting here and trying to check diffs as quickly as possible? It strikes me that must waste *a lot* of effort - lots of people must check the same edit. Dan From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 21:57:05 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:57:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Yea, yea. I'm working on that. I've got a database running that imports all new changes, and will allow a client to retrieve changes and see who has checked them. I'm still diddling with the schema. On 6/22/05, Dan Grey wrote: > Here's a question for y'all as a newbie to RC patrolling. > > So I've got CDVF going, and I've imported the admins. So is it now > simply a job of sitting here and trying to check diffs as quickly as > possible? > > It strikes me that must waste *a lot* of effort - lots of people must > check the same edit. > > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Wed Jun 22 22:19:56 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:19:56 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: References: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <98dd099a050622151934d902f4@mail.gmail.com> That's exactly right. This wouldn't replace anything as is, it would just augment. I'm getting real sick of high school IP addresses that vandalize and then say, "Oh, must have been someone else." Better to just lock that down at a level where you can leave a message and be sure it is getting to the right person. But only in situations where it has been shown to be a recurrent problem, of course. FF On 6/22/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > > >It would just say something like, "This IP is blocked from editing > > >anonymously because of past problems with vandalism, but you are free > > >to start an account and then you can edit all you want" or something > > >like that. Is this possible? > > > > Would that make it harder to stop sockpuppets? > > Only if we replaced the current functionality with this.. > Better to make them both available and use the new one only for shared IPs. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Wed Jun 22 20:27:39 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:27:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, JAY JG wrote: At the risk of repeating myself, the issue is not about which version is better, or "POV", or "extremist", but about attempts by editors to enforce their own views on the matter. And I don't think this list is the place to discuss the pro and con arguments regarding use of BCE/CE vs. BC/AD. Then JAY JG wrote: > > Sigh. Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for "African-American" > was used near-universally in the United States, and was seen as "neutral" as > well. Before that the neutral and near-universally used term was "Negro". > They're now seen as offensive, though I'm sure some older users of the terms > see (or saw) their replacements as "nonsense" and a "POV lobby". > Regardless, I imagine that none of the members of this list would use those > terms today, and there are many other examples of this kind of thing (e.g. > "Mohammedan"->"Moslem"->"Muslim"). > > Language changes, and English probably changes faster than most other > languages; usages that were once thought neutral are now seen to contain > inherent bias. This has happened with other terms in the past, and may be > happening with BC/AD today. Now, can we move the debate about BCE/CE vs. > BC/AD to where it belongs, on some policy page? > If you want the conversation taken off-list, then take it off-list yourself. Don't use it as an attempt to get the final word. Geoff From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 22 22:49:50 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:49:50 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Geoff Burling >On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, JAY JG wrote: > >At the risk of repeating myself, the issue is not about which version is >better, or "POV", or "extremist", but about attempts by editors to enforce >their own views on the matter. And I don't think this list is the place to >discuss the pro and con arguments regarding use of BCE/CE vs. BC/AD. > >Then JAY JG wrote: > > > > Sigh. Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for >"African-American" > > was used near-universally in the United States, and was seen as >"neutral" as > > well. Before that the neutral and near-universally used term was >"Negro". > > They're now seen as offensive, though I'm sure some older users of the >terms > > see (or saw) their replacements as "nonsense" and a "POV lobby". > > Regardless, I imagine that none of the members of this list would use >those > > terms today, and there are many other examples of this kind of thing >(e.g. > > "Mohammedan"->"Moslem"->"Muslim"). > > > > Language changes, and English probably changes faster than most other > > languages; usages that were once thought neutral are now seen to contain > > inherent bias. This has happened with other terms in the past, and may >be > > happening with BC/AD today. Now, can we move the debate about BCE/CE >vs. > > BC/AD to where it belongs, on some policy page? > > >If you want the conversation taken off-list, then take it off-list >yourself. >Don't use it as an attempt to get the final word. And furthermore, BC/AD is completely POV. So there. :-P Jay. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 22 23:27:39 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:27:39 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050622232739.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050623 08:49]: >From: Geoff Burling > >If you want the conversation taken off-list, then take it off-list > >yourself. > >Don't use it as an attempt to get the final word. > And furthermore, BC/AD is completely POV. So there. :-P I understand that Before Cheese and After Cheese are henceforth standard on Uncyclopedia. - d. From saintonge at telus.net Thu Jun 23 00:11:33 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 17:11:33 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: > Sigh. Until 40 years ago or so the word "Colored" for > "African-American" was used near-universally in the United States, and > was seen as "neutral" as well. Before that the neutral and > near-universally used term was "Negro". They're now seen as > offensive, though I'm sure some older users of the terms see (or saw) > their replacements as "nonsense" and a "POV lobby". Regardless, I > imagine that none of the members of this list would use those terms > today, and there are many other examples of this kind of thing (e.g. > "Mohammedan"->"Moslem"->"Muslim"). Despite the current fad for the term "African-American" neither the United Negro College Fund nor the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have seen fit to change the names of their organizations. I avoid the term "African-American" because a person's citizenship is not apparent in his racial features, and I certainly would not want to offend a non-citizen by calling him "American". To me there is something offensive about a herd instinct that requires me to change my terminology to suit the whims and fashions of the day. > Language changes, and English probably changes faster than most other > languages; usages that were once thought neutral are now seen to > contain inherent bias. This has happened with other terms in the > past, and may be happening with BC/AD today. Language change is more complex than that. We learn our terminology at different times and different places. Paramount is its need to continue as an effective means of communication. These formerly neutral terms may still be neutral in another place, or with another segment of the same society, or in different circumstances. "Assuming good faith" includes assuming that the person using a particular term does so without intent to offend. Only the context of his words will show the difference. Ec From misfitgirl at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 01:44:58 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:44:58 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Anon IP blocking without account In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050622151934d902f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <003301c57766$e69178b0$fa449d51@hedlatora> <98dd099a050622151934d902f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53091267050622184425b94a1a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/23/05, Fastfission wrote: > That's exactly right. This wouldn't replace anything as is, it would > just augment. I'm getting real sick of high school IP addresses that > vandalize and then say, "Oh, must have been someone else." Better to > just lock that down at a level where you can leave a message and be > sure it is getting to the right person. But only in situations where > it has been shown to be a recurrent problem, of course. > > FF They're not always lying, though. I have my own IP when I edit from my room, but if I use the shared labs downstairs, I have to use one which could be any one of about four thousand students. I've had to unblock it a few times before - in cases like this, such a block would be really useful, though. -- ambi From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 02:07:52 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 04:07:52 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> Let's say that: There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has actually written much about it- until now. There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative, more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than the other; maybe not. You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad that the article gets locked? /Habj From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 02:29:04 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:59:04 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Yea, yea. I'm working on that. > > I've got a database running that imports all new changes, and will > allow a client to retrieve changes and see who has checked them. > > I'm still diddling with the schema. > > On 6/22/05, Dan Grey wrote: > >>Here's a question for y'all as a newbie to RC patrolling. >> >>So I've got CDVF going, and I've imported the admins. So is it now >>simply a job of sitting here and trying to check diffs as quickly as >>possible? >> >>It strikes me that must waste *a lot* of effort - lots of people must >>check the same edit. >> >> >>Dan > But that's no better than the old "mark this change as patrolled" system - - you are relying on someone else to check the diff! And what if they too are a vandal, or don't bother to fix it?? Anyway, with CDVF, admin reverts are already detected and removed from the table, and diffs can be manually removed from the table (click in the "X" column), so the number of diffs that actually need checking is lower than you might think. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCuh5w/RxM5Ph0xhMRAvrIAKCiQSrxPIdtibSkF2s9bvgFQjiMaACgnRBe coFJO6azhSxY/Etsw0iy7L8= =4Jgb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 23 03:06:50 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:06:50 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> References: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <295A0492-66EB-435B-B65B-E886590FD0E0@ctelco.net> For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome. Fred On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote: > Let's say that: > > There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for > some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the > subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has > actually written much about it- until now. > > There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and > try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side > immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a > version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it > is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand > what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative, > more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The > subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than > the other; maybe not. > > You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. > > What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But > then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever > problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these > people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is > the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad > that the article gets locked? > > /Habj > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 03:29:44 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 23:29:44 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/22/05, Alphax wrote: > >>Here's a question for y'all as a newbie to RC patrolling. > >> > >>So I've got CDVF going, and I've imported the admins. So is it now > >>simply a job of sitting here and trying to check diffs as quickly as > >>possible? > >> > >>It strikes me that must waste *a lot* of effort - lots of people must > >>check the same edit. > But that's no better than the old "mark this change as patrolled" system > - - you are relying on someone else to check the diff! And what if they > too are a vandal, or don't bother to fix it?? Anyway, with CDVF, admin > reverts are already detected and removed from the table, and diffs can > be manually removed from the table (click in the "X" column), so the > number of diffs that actually need checking is lower than you might think. Eh, I solve this by marking who patrolled it and the client will have complete visability into that.. So, you could make items not appear on your list if they've been patrolled by two people or one person you really trust. Or anything else you'd like. I can also store flags set by RCers so they can mark suspicious edits for later evaluation. Also, this will be totally decoupled from the realtime flow of edits... so you can work in realtime or you can look at the edits from last night that no one reviewed yet. I'm only working on the backend infrastructure (well I'm 80% done now I think), this will need to be integrated into CDVF before it's useful. I suspect the interface will take more time than the :30 minutes it took me to write an irc->sql gateway. :) From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 03:56:09 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:26:09 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BA32D9.9060905@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Eh, I solve this by marking who patrolled it and the client will have > complete visability into that.. > > So, you could make items not appear on your list if they've been > patrolled by two people or one person you really trust. Or anything > else you'd like. I can also store flags set by RCers so they can mark > suspicious edits for later evaluation. > > Also, this will be totally decoupled from the realtime flow of > edits... so you can work in realtime or you can look at the edits from > last night that no one reviewed yet. > > I'm only working on the backend infrastructure (well I'm 80% done now > I think), this will need to be integrated into CDVF before it's > useful. I suspect the interface will take more time than the :30 > minutes it took me to write an irc->sql gateway. :) > Awesome :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCujLZ/RxM5Ph0xhMRAnBKAJ0bgwqPJ2YbasBrMPMaFLEPU0DdmwCgsTzw +PWCuG+oCm1JNWbDVjXgfWc= =fpi7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From wikipedia at earthlink.net Thu Jun 23 04:08:13 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 21:08:13 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <20050622101515.617E71190AEE@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050622101515.617E71190AEE@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42BA35AD.5010400@earthlink.net> Zoney wrote: >Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense >to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, >hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". > >Now Wikipedia with NPOV policy certainly has to avoid siding with >different POVs - but surely to use BCE/CE notation at all is indeed >siding with a POV. Does every POV have to be accommodated on *some* >articles in order to have NPOV? > >Surely sticking to BC/AD, as has been used for centuries and centuries >in the English language (almost certainly the vast majority using it >without religious or political intent), is the most sensible option? > >Wikipedia's ridiculous pandering to all the extremist POVs is not a >good way to ensure NPOV in my opinion, and seriously dints its >credability. > >I suspect many have no idea how absurd it appears to a non-USian to >see BCE/CE spreading across Wikipedia > Just wanted to note how ironic it is to see an argument against BCE/CE, based on the universal use of BC/AD, while simultaneously using the term non-USian in place of the similarly universal term non-American. --Michael Snow From originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 04:33:02 2005 From: originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com (Deathphoenix) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:33:02 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: <42BA32D9.9060905@gmail.com> References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> <42BA32D9.9060905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BA3B7E.1090806@gmail.com> Alphax wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >Gregory Maxwell wrote: > > >>Eh, I solve this by marking who patrolled it and the client will have >>complete visability into that.. >> >>So, you could make items not appear on your list if they've been >>patrolled by two people or one person you really trust. Or anything >>else you'd like. I can also store flags set by RCers so they can mark >>suspicious edits for later evaluation. >> >>Also, this will be totally decoupled from the realtime flow of >>edits... so you can work in realtime or you can look at the edits from >>last night that no one reviewed yet. >> >>I'm only working on the backend infrastructure (well I'm 80% done now >>I think), this will need to be integrated into CDVF before it's >>useful. I suspect the interface will take more time than the :30 >>minutes it took me to write an irc->sql gateway. :) >> >> >> > >Awesome :) > > I agree. That's the RC checker from hell. From dangrey at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 06:57:19 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 07:57:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 23/06/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Eh, I solve this by marking who patrolled it and the client will have > complete visability into that.. > > So, you could make items not appear on your list if they've been > patrolled by two people or one person you really trust. Or anything > else you'd like. I can also store flags set by RCers so they can mark > suspicious edits for later evaluation. Which is *exactly* what I was thinking of (so :p Alphax and Geni! :-) ) The only problem I see is authentication - how can you be sure that the person patrolled the edit is really who they say they are? Dan From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 07:36:57 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:06:57 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Newpages and rc patrollers needed In-Reply-To: References: <20050622001456.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <98dd099a0506220836730e0149@mail.gmail.com> <42BA1E70.5090005@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BA6699.6010402@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dan Grey wrote: > Which is *exactly* what I was thinking of (so :p Alphax and Geni! :-) ) > > The only problem I see is authentication - how can you be sure that > the person patrolled the edit is really who they say they are? > (insert plan to integrate OpenGPG with MediaWiki here) Well, somehow, you would authenticate yourself with the database server, and then authenticate yourself with Wikipedia... or something... in the same way that IRC cloaks and username changes are done - make an edit under your login to confirm it is you. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCumaZ/RxM5Ph0xhMRAqnbAJwJxFysmlj4xLObw23dS+goqdg+hgCfWOcS yR2bt+SnQ6+v+uajxk0M+4k= =4mfW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From phil.boswell at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 07:57:42 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:57:42 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Content, reason and the ArbCom References: <20050622232739.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: "David Gerard" wrote in message news:20050622232739.GE7309 at thingy.apana.org.au... [snip] > I understand that Before Cheese and After Cheese are henceforth standard > on > Uncyclopedia. Shurely shome mishtake. "Before C_l_eese" and "After C_l_eese" would be much more suitable. We are still ostensibly a Pythonist society after all :-) -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 08:03:43 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:03:43 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RickK deleted his talk page In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, userpages don't usually contain information by other users, but I'd strongly recommend users intent on leaving to leave them up (for example, I'd hate for CryptoDerk to pull his userpage - and all the links to his vandal fighter in the process - if he ever decided on leaving). Since leaving users can't delete earlier votes or comments from other people's talk pages, it stands to reason discussion on their own talk page should remain as a historic record too. --Mgm On 6/22/05, JAY JG wrote: > >>From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm > > > >If there's more people who deleted talk pages with significant > >content, then I think that should be adressed. We should ask the > >community at large if they need to be undeleted. > > O.K. You can start with User talk:Xed - 371 deleted edits there. > > Would you extend this to User pages with extensive edits? > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 08:05:19 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:05:19 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <295A0492-66EB-435B-B65B-E886590FD0E0@ctelco.net> References: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> <295A0492-66EB-435B-B65B-E886590FD0E0@ctelco.net> Message-ID: If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute resolution. --Mgm On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some > people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both > views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real > source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome. > > Fred > > On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote: > > > Let's say that: > > > > There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for > > some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the > > subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has > > actually written much about it- until now. > > > > There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and > > try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side > > immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a > > version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it > > is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand > > what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative, > > more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The > > subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than > > the other; maybe not. > > > > You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. > > > > What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But > > then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever > > problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these > > people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is > > the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad > > that the article gets locked? > > > > /Habj > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From zoney.ie at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 09:56:48 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:56:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <42BA35AD.5010400@earthlink.net> References: <20050622101515.617E71190AEE@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BA35AD.5010400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4418c60e05062302564d9aa5ad@mail.gmail.com> On 6/23/05, Michael Snow wrote: > Zoney wrote: > > >Most importantly, the whole BCE/CE thing is a POV lobby. It's nonsense > >to suggest that changing a very common phrase in the English language, > >hitherto used near-universally, is "neutral". > > > >Now Wikipedia with NPOV policy certainly has to avoid siding with > >different POVs - but surely to use BCE/CE notation at all is indeed > >siding with a POV. Does every POV have to be accommodated on *some* > >articles in order to have NPOV? > > > >Surely sticking to BC/AD, as has been used for centuries and centuries > >in the English language (almost certainly the vast majority using it > >without religious or political intent), is the most sensible option? > > > >Wikipedia's ridiculous pandering to all the extremist POVs is not a > >good way to ensure NPOV in my opinion, and seriously dints its > >credability. > > > >I suspect many have no idea how absurd it appears to a non-USian to > >see BCE/CE spreading across Wikipedia > > > Just wanted to note how ironic it is to see an argument against BCE/CE, > based on the universal use of BC/AD, while simultaneously using the term > non-USian in place of the similarly universal term non-American. > > --Michael Snow Yeah, except I was using "USian" to be specific - and I'm not pretending it's not POV-pushing (i.e. recognise that US != America). It's not like I'd attempt to use USian rather than the ambiguous, but near-universally used, "American" in a Wikipedia article (although if I needed unambiguousness, I would use "U.S." and a suitable sentence wording). Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From thomas-edison at ziplip.com Thu Jun 23 11:43:37 2005 From: thomas-edison at ziplip.com (thomas-edison at ziplip.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 04:43:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists Message-ID: Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? At least this mailing list has a virtual forum. http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/ Also, I don't seem to get very good feedback here.... I guess I'll just have to post some more on the talk pages, even though people with no knowledge of copyright law will complain. Tough! ? 2005, Pioneer-12 p.s. I have been banned unfairly and no one has even bothered to ADDRESS that in a MONTH. Way to go, Wikipedia! Good job treating volunteer editors who are simply standing up for their rights like criminals. From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 12:35:27 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:35:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you are prepared to accept the rules of Wikipedia, then I have no doubt that you will be allowed back to edit. As it is, you were creating a worrying copyright problem, something that would be bet avoided. After all, what problem does it give you to put your comments under the GFDL? They still must be attributed to you. Sam On 6/23/05, thomas-edison @ ziplip. com wrote: > > > Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? At > least this mailing list has a virtual forum. > > http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/ > > Also, I don't seem to get very good feedback here.... I guess I'll just > have to post some more on the talk pages, even though people with no > knowledge of copyright law will complain. Tough! > > (c) 2005, Pioneer-12 > > p.s. I have been banned unfairly and no one has even bothered to ADDRESS > that in a MONTH. Way to go, Wikipedia! Good job treating volunteer > editors who are simply standing up for their rights like criminals. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 12:42:32 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:12:32 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42BAAE38.30500@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Sam Korn wrote: > If you are prepared to accept the rules of Wikipedia, then I have no doubt > that you will be allowed back to edit. As it is, you were creating a > worrying copyright problem, something that would be bet avoided. > > After all, what problem does it give you to put your comments under the > GFDL? They still must be attributed to you. > > Sam > > On 6/23/05, thomas-edison @ ziplip. com wrote: > >> >>Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? At >>least this mailing list has a virtual forum. >> >>http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/ >> >>Also, I don't seem to get very good feedback here.... I guess I'll just >>have to post some more on the talk pages, even though people with no >>knowledge of copyright law will complain. Tough! >> >>(c) 2005, Pioneer-12 >> >>p.s. I have been banned unfairly and no one has even bothered to ADDRESS >>that in a MONTH. Way to go, Wikipedia! Good job treating volunteer >>editors who are simply standing up for their rights like criminals. >> >> More than just attributed - any modification of them must be attributed to both you and whoever modified them. If you're worried about your comments being mangled, don't be. Or, PGP sign every comment you make, and then we can tell they haven't been altered :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCuq44/RxM5Ph0xhMRApfdAJ47/kZkuNH1DF3ZrGmlWSMwfsXA2wCgnebp qXGlwSXSrLgp3HymOLgh+OU= =/iUu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 12:48:36 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 14:48:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: And then there's people who simply don't discuss if the page is protected on their preferred version. Quite problematic if you've got two of those. WHat do you protect it on then? --Mgm On 6/22/05, Fastfission wrote: > I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I think a lot of edit wars > and revert wars could be stopped if pages were more quickly protected > and people were actually forced to try and work it out on talk > beforehand. > > The negative aspect -- that the page was being prevented from other, > legitimate edits -- is indeed quite negative, but no less so than if > it is in the middle of edit wars, which make preserving newly added > content near impossible. > > Is there a page for requesting protection? If there was some easy way > to do it, I'd do it all the time. I'd much rather discuss > disagreements on talk pages than change the articles, but most anons > and POV pushers seem unwilling to do that unless forced. > > FF > > On 6/22/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > JAY JG wrote: > > > > >> > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? > > >> > > >> Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the > > >> blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation > > >> could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. > > > > > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > > > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original > > > after 24 hours. > > > > The advantage is that it gives the antisocial more rope to hang > > themselves with, while simultaneously taking a lot of the sting out of > > being blocked, for those who aren't simply on Wikipedia to push an > > agenda. Yes, the battlefields may shift occasionally, but the process of > > building a case for arbitration against serious offenders can move much > > more rapidly. Then you won't have to wait as impatiently to get a > > sanction that lasts longer than 24 hours, in situations where this > > proves necessary. > > > > Back in the day when the three-revert rule was only a guideline, I > > brought an arbitration case against three of the most prolific revert > > warriors of the time. I think the arbitrators found the evidence > > persuasive in part because I could point to a long list of pages that > > had to be protected due to their revert wars. This is straightforward > > and a lot easier to deal with than wading through diffs to figure out > > who said what personal attack to whom. The same principle would apply to > > somebody who gets blocked from 10 different articles on closely related > > topics in short succession. With this kind of track record established, > > I'm confident that arbitration would quickly consider hearing such a case. > > > > --Michael Snow > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 13:03:09 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:03:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > And then there's people who simply don't discuss if the page is > protected on their preferred version. Quite problematic if you've got > two of those. WHat do you protect it on then? Protect a blanked page with only a message stating that there is a dispute (similar to {{twoversions}}). I think nl does that. Kelly From mindspillage at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 13:05:26 2005 From: mindspillage at gmail.com (Kat Walsh) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:05:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e253f560506230605db144cd@mail.gmail.com> On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > And then there's people who simply don't discuss if the page is > protected on their preferred version. Quite problematic if you've got > two of those. WHat do you protect it on then? > > --Mgm Well, here's one proposal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Protection_policy#Blanking_before_protection.3F (I do like the idea of per-article blocking, as well.) -Kat [[User:Mindspillage]] -- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams From AssCoAssc at aol.com Thu Jun 23 13:30:01 2005 From: AssCoAssc at aol.com (AssCoAssc at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:30:01 EDT Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 90 Message-ID: In a message dated 6/22/05 4:35:06 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org writes: > But yes, I agree, language changes - the point is, the use of > CE/BCE notation is a POV term like all the others whose time of being > considered better than any others has not yet come, and may indeed never do > so. > Sounds like original research "whose time of being has not yet come." Let's brush up on the sentence structure. From AssCoAssc at aol.com Thu Jun 23 13:35:10 2005 From: AssCoAssc at aol.com (AssCoAssc at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:35:10 EDT Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 92 Message-ID: <80.2a341343.2fec148e@aol.com> In a message dated 6/23/05 3:39:20 AM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org writes: > Just wanted to note how ironic it is to see an argument against BCE/CE, > based on the universal use of BC/AD, while simultaneously using the term > non-USian in place of the similarly universal term non-American. > These arguments stem from an "un-secularianish" agenda. From AssCoAssc at aol.com Thu Jun 23 13:41:05 2005 From: AssCoAssc at aol.com (AssCoAssc at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:41:05 EDT Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 93 Message-ID: <217.368b7bd.2fec15f1@aol.com> In a message dated 6/23/05 9:03:37 AM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org writes: > It's not like I'd attempt to use USian rather than the ambiguous, but > near-universally used, "American" in a Wikipedia article (although if > I needed unambiguousness, I would use "U.S." and a suitable sentence > wording). > I'm glad you intend to use abbreviations, grammar and syntax when you need "unambiguousness". . . . From michaelturley at myway.com Thu Jun 23 14:29:10 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:29:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] apology to the list Message-ID: <20050623142910.433EF12D1B@mprdmxin.myway.com> It was recently pointed out to me how poorly formated my messages are when they appear in the digest and archive versions of this list. I was unaware of this problem. I am considering changing email providers for the address I use to subscribe to this list. Until I change my email address, I will manually break my lines so they don't scroll rightward toward infinity. I hope this helps. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have had while reading my prior messages. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From kkrueger at whoi.edu Thu Jun 23 14:34:06 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:34:06 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 04:43:37AM -0700, thomas-edison at ziplip.com wrote: > Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? Mailing lists (and newsgroups) have some real advantages over Web forums. First off, everyone gets to choose what software they want to use to read mail in, whereas a Web forum means that everyone has to use the same software (namely, the forum software itself) even if it doesn't fit their needs. If you want to read a mailing list in a Web browser, you can use the Web archives (as you linked) or use a Webmail system such as Gmail. But those of us who want to read the list in a dedicated mail client like mutt or Thunderbird can do that too. We can apply spam-filters to the list traffic to block out an unwanted thread if we like. We can get digest mode. We can use a real text editor to compose messages, not a browser TEXTAREA widget. So a mailing list offers more choices. Second, most Web forum software has *remarkably poor* support for a lot of really basic discussion features, such as threading, quoting, and catching-up. Considering that the idea of threaded online discussions has been around for a couple of decades now (Usenet is 25 this year), you'd think that someone who was going to implement it anew would learn from (say) mail clients and Usenet newsreader software? But no, not particularly. Most forum software groups messages into "topics", not threads -- distinguished by the fact that a "topic" has a single root message and doesn't fork. Real discussions, of course, *do* fork, so Web forums poorly model the behavior of their users. Moreover, "topics" get unwieldy after 50 or so messages, leading forum administrators to pound on their users to "start a new topic" because the old one is "full". Huh? A thread doesn't get full. Also, how is it that Web forum software such as phpBB and DCForum can get so popular without having something as basic as a feature to reliably catch up on unread messages, or to view messages sorted by different criteria? Sure, there's usually a feature to see which topics *have* unread messages, but when there's a dozen topics each of 100+ posts, catching up across the whole forum is slow and irritating. In contrast, every mail client in the world can tell you which messages you've read and which you haven't -- and many can distinguish "message that has been presented to you in the message list, but you never actually looked at" from "message that you have never seen at all before". -- Karl A. Krueger From zoney.ie at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 14:45:48 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 15:45:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> References: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <4418c60e05062307453b10e04@mail.gmail.com> On 6/23/05, Karl A. Krueger wrote: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 04:43:37AM -0700, thomas-edison at ziplip.com wrote: > > Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? > > Mailing lists (and newsgroups) have some real advantages over Web > forums. > > First off, everyone gets to choose what software they want to use to > read mail in, whereas a Web forum means that everyone has to use the > same software (namely, the forum software itself) even if it doesn't fit > their needs. If you want to read a mailing list in a Web browser, you > can use the Web archives (as you linked) or use a Webmail system such as > Gmail. But those of us who want to read the list in a dedicated mail > client like mutt or Thunderbird can do that too. We can apply > spam-filters to the list traffic to block out an unwanted thread if we > like. We can get digest mode. We can use a real text editor to compose > messages, not a browser TEXTAREA widget. So a mailing list offers more > choices. > > Second, most Web forum software has *remarkably poor* support for a lot > of really basic discussion features, such as threading, quoting, and > catching-up. Considering that the idea of threaded online discussions > has been around for a couple of decades now (Usenet is 25 this year), > you'd think that someone who was going to implement it anew would learn > from (say) mail clients and Usenet newsreader software? But no, not > particularly. Most forum software groups messages into "topics", not > threads -- distinguished by the fact that a "topic" has a single root > message and doesn't fork. Real discussions, of course, *do* fork, so > Web forums poorly model the behavior of their users. Moreover, "topics" > get unwieldy after 50 or so messages, leading forum administrators to > pound on their users to "start a new topic" because the old one is > "full". Huh? A thread doesn't get full. > > Also, how is it that Web forum software such as phpBB and DCForum can > get so popular without having something as basic as a feature to > reliably catch up on unread messages, or to view messages sorted by > different criteria? Sure, there's usually a feature to see which topics > *have* unread messages, but when there's a dozen topics each of 100+ > posts, catching up across the whole forum is slow and irritating. In > contrast, every mail client in the world can tell you which messages > you've read and which you haven't -- and many can distinguish "message > that has been presented to you in the message list, but you never > actually looked at" from "message that you have never seen at all > before". > > -- > Karl A. Krueger > For once, this is on-topic. I would recommend Gmail for mailing lists. Personally, I like keeping WikiEN and other reasonably high-volume mailing lists away from my primary email account. Also, the threading, while not perfect, is great for a web based system, and the automatic/user-controlled collapsing/expansion of quoted text is fantastic. Ditto for read messages in the thread - all available while reading the most recent messages. One never has to worry about deleting messages or unwanted threads either (it's no harm to just leave it - as you'll never run out of space!) Also the search facility is very prompt compared to in-client searching of downloaded mail. I found it to be a good way of experiencing Gmail whilst not wanting to use Gmail for my personal mail. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 23 14:55:58 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 00:55:58 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> References: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <20050623145558.GI7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger at whoi.edu) [050624 00:33]: > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 04:43:37AM -0700, thomas-edison at ziplip.com wrote: > > Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? > Mailing lists (and newsgroups) have some real advantages over Web > forums. If you have newsreading software (Thunderbird or Outlook Express will do it), you can read and post to the Wikimedia lists using gmane.org - go to http://www.gmane.org/ for info. - d. From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 15:05:33 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:05:33 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05062308051c3c79c3@mail.gmail.com> Yeah, I don't know. But that seems to fall into the more general category of "people who won't discuss", of which there is no quick and simple solution that I know of. Yes yes, I could take a lot of time filling out an RfC. And then what? Move it to another stage of mediation? I don't have time for that -- it's not how I want to spend my Wikipedia experience. It's probably not how anybody wants to. And honestly, it's really not Wikipedia's best use of ME -- I'm not a mediator by heart, I'm someone who wants to add content by the truckloads and keep POV pushers out. But at the same time I believe strongly in due process. So I don't know. FF On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > And then there's people who simply don't discuss if the page is > protected on their preferred version. Quite problematic if you've got > two of those. WHat do you protect it on then? > > --Mgm > > On 6/22/05, Fastfission wrote: > > I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I think a lot of edit wars > > and revert wars could be stopped if pages were more quickly protected > > and people were actually forced to try and work it out on talk > > beforehand. > > > > The negative aspect -- that the page was being prevented from other, > > legitimate edits -- is indeed quite negative, but no less so than if > > it is in the middle of edit wars, which make preserving newly added > > content near impossible. > > > > Is there a page for requesting protection? If there was some easy way > > to do it, I'd do it all the time. I'd much rather discuss > > disagreements on talk pages than change the articles, but most anons > > and POV pushers seem unwilling to do that unless forced. > > > > FF > > > > On 6/22/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > > JAY JG wrote: > > > > > > >> > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? > > > >> > > > >> Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the > > > >> blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation > > > >> could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. > > > > > > > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > > > > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original > > > > after 24 hours. > > > > > > The advantage is that it gives the antisocial more rope to hang > > > themselves with, while simultaneously taking a lot of the sting out of > > > being blocked, for those who aren't simply on Wikipedia to push an > > > agenda. Yes, the battlefields may shift occasionally, but the process of > > > building a case for arbitration against serious offenders can move much > > > more rapidly. Then you won't have to wait as impatiently to get a > > > sanction that lasts longer than 24 hours, in situations where this > > > proves necessary. > > > > > > Back in the day when the three-revert rule was only a guideline, I > > > brought an arbitration case against three of the most prolific revert > > > warriors of the time. I think the arbitrators found the evidence > > > persuasive in part because I could point to a long list of pages that > > > had to be protected due to their revert wars. This is straightforward > > > and a lot easier to deal with than wading through diffs to figure out > > > who said what personal attack to whom. The same principle would apply to > > > somebody who gets blocked from 10 different articles on closely related > > > topics in short succession. With this kind of track record established, > > > I'm confident that arbitration would quickly consider hearing such a case. > > > > > > --Michael Snow > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 15:10:48 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:10:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: <4418c60e05062307453b10e04@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> <4418c60e05062307453b10e04@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050623081047fde18e@mail.gmail.com> I second this. Gmail does a great job of putting messages in similar threads together as well, which makes it almost like an online forum. I have a little flag which goes up anytime there is a thread I've written on, so I can see if there are replies, etc. I don't know if it is still "invite only" but if so, if anybody doesn't have one (or wants another) feel free to write to me personally (off list) and I'll send you an "invite" -- I've got 50 or so of them (as probably everybody with a gmail account). FF On 6/23/05, Zoney wrote: > On 6/23/05, Karl A. Krueger wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 04:43:37AM -0700, thomas-edison at ziplip.com wrote: > > > Mailing lists are just so inefficient.... why not just have a forum? > > > > Mailing lists (and newsgroups) have some real advantages over Web > > forums. > > > > First off, everyone gets to choose what software they want to use to > > read mail in, whereas a Web forum means that everyone has to use the > > same software (namely, the forum software itself) even if it doesn't fit > > their needs. If you want to read a mailing list in a Web browser, you > > can use the Web archives (as you linked) or use a Webmail system such as > > Gmail. But those of us who want to read the list in a dedicated mail > > client like mutt or Thunderbird can do that too. We can apply > > spam-filters to the list traffic to block out an unwanted thread if we > > like. We can get digest mode. We can use a real text editor to compose > > messages, not a browser TEXTAREA widget. So a mailing list offers more > > choices. > > > > Second, most Web forum software has *remarkably poor* support for a lot > > of really basic discussion features, such as threading, quoting, and > > catching-up. Considering that the idea of threaded online discussions > > has been around for a couple of decades now (Usenet is 25 this year), > > you'd think that someone who was going to implement it anew would learn > > from (say) mail clients and Usenet newsreader software? But no, not > > particularly. Most forum software groups messages into "topics", not > > threads -- distinguished by the fact that a "topic" has a single root > > message and doesn't fork. Real discussions, of course, *do* fork, so > > Web forums poorly model the behavior of their users. Moreover, "topics" > > get unwieldy after 50 or so messages, leading forum administrators to > > pound on their users to "start a new topic" because the old one is > > "full". Huh? A thread doesn't get full. > > > > Also, how is it that Web forum software such as phpBB and DCForum can > > get so popular without having something as basic as a feature to > > reliably catch up on unread messages, or to view messages sorted by > > different criteria? Sure, there's usually a feature to see which topics > > *have* unread messages, but when there's a dozen topics each of 100+ > > posts, catching up across the whole forum is slow and irritating. In > > contrast, every mail client in the world can tell you which messages > > you've read and which you haven't -- and many can distinguish "message > > that has been presented to you in the message list, but you never > > actually looked at" from "message that you have never seen at all > > before". > > > > -- > > Karl A. Krueger > > > > For once, this is on-topic. I would recommend Gmail for mailing lists. > Personally, I like keeping WikiEN and other reasonably high-volume > mailing lists away from my primary email account. > > Also, the threading, while not perfect, is great for a web based > system, and the automatic/user-controlled collapsing/expansion of > quoted text is fantastic. Ditto for read messages in the thread - all > available while reading the most recent messages. > > One never has to worry about deleting messages or unwanted threads > either (it's no harm to just leave it - as you'll never run out of > space!) Also the search facility is very prompt compared to in-client > searching of downloaded mail. > > I found it to be a good way of experiencing Gmail whilst not wanting > to use Gmail for my personal mail. > > Zoney > -- > ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 15:20:54 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:20:54 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05062308051c3c79c3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05062308051c3c79c3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Blanking doesn't seem very helpful at all when the page needs to be protected. All you need to do is make up a fuss between enough users and you can disrupt wikipedia until there's no tomorrow. Besides, no one can edit a blanked article into something else the parties might accept. --Mgm On 6/23/05, Fastfission wrote: > Yeah, I don't know. But that seems to fall into the more general > category of "people who won't discuss", of which there is no quick and > simple solution that I know of. > > Yes yes, I could take a lot of time filling out an RfC. And then what? > Move it to another stage of mediation? I don't have time for that -- > it's not how I want to spend my Wikipedia experience. It's probably > not how anybody wants to. And honestly, it's really not Wikipedia's > best use of ME -- I'm not a mediator by heart, I'm someone who wants > to add content by the truckloads and keep POV pushers out. But at the > same time I believe strongly in due process. So I don't know. > > FF > > On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > And then there's people who simply don't discuss if the page is > > protected on their preferred version. Quite problematic if you've got > > two of those. WHat do you protect it on then? > > > > --Mgm > > > > On 6/22/05, Fastfission wrote: > > > I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I think a lot of edit wars > > > and revert wars could be stopped if pages were more quickly protected > > > and people were actually forced to try and work it out on talk > > > beforehand. > > > > > > The negative aspect -- that the page was being prevented from other, > > > legitimate edits -- is indeed quite negative, but no less so than if > > > it is in the middle of edit wars, which make preserving newly added > > > content near impossible. > > > > > > Is there a page for requesting protection? If there was some easy way > > > to do it, I'd do it all the time. I'd much rather discuss > > > disagreements on talk pages than change the articles, but most anons > > > and POV pushers seem unwilling to do that unless forced. > > > > > > FF > > > > > > On 6/22/05, Michael Snow wrote: > > > > JAY JG wrote: > > > > > > > > >> > For how long would these individual article blocks remain? > > > > >> > > > > >> Just like current user blocks, the duration can be set by the > > > > >> blocker/admin. I would assume that a 24 hour block for a 3RR violation > > > > >> could for just the article in question, not for the entire Wikipedia. > > > > > > > > > > I fail to see the advantage then; they would likely just move on to > > > > > revert-warring on some other article, and then return to the original > > > > > after 24 hours. > > > > > > > > The advantage is that it gives the antisocial more rope to hang > > > > themselves with, while simultaneously taking a lot of the sting out of > > > > being blocked, for those who aren't simply on Wikipedia to push an > > > > agenda. Yes, the battlefields may shift occasionally, but the process of > > > > building a case for arbitration against serious offenders can move much > > > > more rapidly. Then you won't have to wait as impatiently to get a > > > > sanction that lasts longer than 24 hours, in situations where this > > > > proves necessary. > > > > > > > > Back in the day when the three-revert rule was only a guideline, I > > > > brought an arbitration case against three of the most prolific revert > > > > warriors of the time. I think the arbitrators found the evidence > > > > persuasive in part because I could point to a long list of pages that > > > > had to be protected due to their revert wars. This is straightforward > > > > and a lot easier to deal with than wading through diffs to figure out > > > > who said what personal attack to whom. The same principle would apply to > > > > somebody who gets blocked from 10 different articles on closely related > > > > topics in short succession. With this kind of track record established, > > > > I'm confident that arbitration would quickly consider hearing such a case. > > > > > > > > --Michael Snow > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 15:27:56 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:27:56 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> References: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050623082753f27de1@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Despite the current fad for the term "African-American" neither the > United Negro College Fund nor the National Association for the > Advancement of Colored People have seen fit to change the names of their > organizations. I avoid the term "African-American" because a person's > citizenship is not apparent in his racial features, and I certainly > would not want to offend a non-citizen by calling him "American". To me > there is something offensive about a herd instinct that requires me to > change my terminology to suit the whims and fashions of the day. These particular examples are not about "whims and fashions of the day" but a people who have historically labeled in a derogatory manner and who have no simple identification term attempting to find something they can live with. The two groups you named have names from the time they were created and get a lot out of the fact that they are historic. On its own printed matter the UCNF refers to its mission as supporting "historically black" college and uses the term "African American" (no hyphen). The NAACP also uses the term "African Americans." Just because they keep historic names does not mean that they have not seen it fit to change their overall terminology. This is not about "herd instinct" in the slightest, and this is a lousy example. One should in these cases, especially with issues which have LONG histories of abuse, try to be a bit respectful. If using your judgment to pick out the best term ("Black" and "African American" and "people of Africa descent" are all known to be acceptable as polite terms if used in good faith) based on the definition of "polite" of the day (or, in this case, the last 20 years or so) is too much for your brain to handle, I can't imagine how you possibly get through the day. There is nothing that irritates me more than people using the ridiculous excuse that they "can't keep up" or "can't be expected to remember" or things like that with this particular case when honestly there have been a total of only five or six "changes" and the last one was twenty years ago. Hopefully you are capable. > Language change is more complex than that. We learn our terminology at > different times and different places. Paramount is its need to continue > as an effective means of communication. These formerly neutral terms > may still be neutral in another place, or with another segment of the > same society, or in different circumstances. "Assuming good faith" > includes assuming that the person using a particular term does so > without intent to offend. Only the context of his words will show the > difference. We learn, and we continue to learn. Our language is not static, and neither are we. This is not rocket science, don't act as if it is truly difficult. If you want to insist on your own labelings and terminology -- fine. But don't pretend it is difficult to keep track of, unless you travel from country to country every different day of the week. FF From morven at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 16:43:37 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:43:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: RickK leaving: adminship has become much more than "no big deal" and that's poisonous In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42f90dc0050623094379bb9edf@mail.gmail.com> On 6/22/05, thomas-edison @ ziplip. com wrote: > Hey, I'm being punished without good reason! Most people would just leave. But... you're not gonna get rid of me that easily. :-) > > Let's just say, I'm not done rocking the boat. :-) You are not being punished; you are being barred from contributing since you refuse to accept the site's terms and conditions. -Matt From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 23 17:11:21 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:11:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge >Language change is more complex than that. We learn our terminology at >different times and different places. Paramount is its need to continue as >an effective means of communication. These formerly neutral terms may >still be neutral in another place, or with another segment of the same >society, or in different circumstances. "Assuming good faith" includes >assuming that the person using a particular term does so without intent to >offend. Only the context of his words will show the difference. Excuse me - I get the last word here. Use of BC/AD is evil and causes cancer. Jay. From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 17:14:50 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:14:50 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: References: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> Message-ID: See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_win_an_argument :-) Sam On 6/23/05, JAY JG wrote: > > >Wrom: > XCAXZOWCONEUQZAAFXISHJEXXIMQZUIVOTQNQEMSFDULHPQQWOYIYZUNNYCGPKYLEJGDGVCJVTLBXFGGMEPYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIPBARHDMNNSKVFVWRKJVZCMHVIBGDADRZFSQHYUCDDJBLVLMHAALPTCXLYRWTQTIPWIGYOKSTTZRCLBDXRQBGJSNBOHMKHJYFMYXOEAIJJPHSCRTNHGSWZIDREXCAXZOWCONEUQZAAFXISHJEXXIMQZUIVOTQNQEMSFDULHPQQWOYIYZUNNYCGPKYLEJGDGVCJVTLBXFGGMEPYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIPBARHDMNNSKVFVWRKJVZCMHVIBGDADRZFSQHYUCDDJBLVLMHAALPTCXLYRWTQTIPWIGYOKSTTZRCLBDXRQBGJSNBOHMKHJYFMYXOEAIJJPHSCRTNHGSWZIDREXCAXZOWCONEUQZAAFXISHJEXXIMQZUIVOTQNQEMSFDULHPQQWOYIYZUNNYCGPKYLEJGDGVCJVTLBXFGGMEPYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIPBARHDMNNSKVFVWRKJVZCMHVIBGDADRZFSQHYUCDDJBLVLMHAALPTCXLYRWTQTIPWIGYOKSTTZRCLBDXRQBGJSNBOHMKHJYFMYXOEAIJJPHSCRTNHGSWZIDREXCAXZOWCONEUQZAAFXISHJEXXIMQZUIVOTQNQEMSFDULHPQQWOYIYZUNNYCGPKYLEJGDGVCJVTLBXFGGMEPYOQKEDOTWFAOBUZXUWLSZLKBRNVWWCUFPEGAUTFJMVRESKPNKMBIPBARHDMNNSKVFVWRKJVZCMHVIBGDADRZFSQHYUCDDJ From jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk Thu Jun 23 18:28:13 2005 From: jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk (jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:28:13 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC Message-ID: <1119551293_1353@drn10msi01> I totally agree with Fastfission. There are probably quite a few editors who find themselves peacefully editing when suddenly a nasty POV-pusher comes crashing on the scene overwhelming a perfectly balanced article with biased rubbish. By the time a POV-pusher has been stopped, a large amount of damage has been done. Often, these edits are not reverted (to keep the peace?) but weaseled down. In other instances, a shouting match develops on the talk page, which then becomes the basis for an RFC. None of this helps the quality of the content. RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already tired and wants to go back to normal editing. Jfdwolff Fastfission wrote: >Yeah, I don't know. But that seems to fall into the more general >category of "people who won't discuss", of which there is no quick and >simple solution that I know of. >Yes yes, I could take a lot of time filling out an RfC. And then what? >Move it to another stage of mediation? I don't have time for that -- >it's not how I want to spend my Wikipedia experience. It's probably >not how anybody wants to. And honestly, it's really not Wikipedia's >best use of ME -- I'm not a mediator by heart, I'm someone who wants >to add content by the truckloads and keep POV pushers out. But at the >same time I believe strongly in due process. So I don't know. >FF From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 23 18:56:56 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 19:56:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom about to declare that the MoS is policy Message-ID: <20050623185701.75233.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS is just a non-binding guideline. This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the MoS as "policy" was removed. It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to complaints. Kind regards Jguk --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with voicemail From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 23 19:31:56 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:31:56 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom about to declare that the MoS is policy In-Reply-To: <20050623185701.75233.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050623185701.75233.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <82EA63D3-ADFF-4D03-81EF-88672FC12798@ctelco.net> 1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent format," see [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Eras). The prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent within an article." Fred On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:56 PM, Jon wrote: > ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is > making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be > about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is > policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS > is just a non-binding guideline. > > This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by > SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct > procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was > followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as > such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, > argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in > countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the > MoS as "policy" was removed. > > It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that > discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is > nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits > on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility > that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to > time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to > complaints. > > Kind regards > > Jguk > > > --------------------------------- > Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with > voicemail > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 19:59:20 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 20:59:20 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC In-Reply-To: <1119551293_1353@drn10msi01> References: <1119551293_1353@drn10msi01> Message-ID: On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already tired and wants to go back to normal editing. > > Jfdwolff In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to respond to RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good results, I might add. And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to Raul's RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content section - with the results being very well recieved. So please, don't write RfCs off. Dan From AssCoAssc at aol.com Thu Jun 23 20:03:14 2005 From: AssCoAssc at aol.com (AssCoAssc at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:03:14 EDT Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 95 Message-ID: <1fe.4379921.2fec6f82@aol.com> In a message dated 6/23/05 3:32:40 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org writes: > Excuse me - I get the last word here.? Use of BC/AD is evil and causes > cancer. > That caveman comic strip with the funny ants used "B.C.".... is Johnny Hart a reasonable authority on this matter? From james at jdforrester.org Thu Jun 23 20:54:32 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:54:32 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom about to declare that the MoS is policy In-Reply-To: <20050623185701.75233.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200506232054.j5NKsXaM005155@mail-relay-2.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Thursday, June 23, 2005 7:57 PM, Jon wrote: [Snip whether the MoS is policy] > SlimVirgin, supported by others, argued that it would need a > consensus vote. I truely hope that this is not in fact what SlimVirgin and the others meant, as, if so, it shows a distressingly great misunderstanding of what policy is; the result of votes it is not. A few examples at random would be No Personal Attacks, No Original Research, the Deletion Policy, the Sockpuppet policy, amongst others. Oh, and this little one called "NPOV". None of these started as consensus polls, nor were not considered 'policy' until they had managed to muster such support. And, BTW, you probably meant "consensus poll"; votes are binding, and we just don't /do/ binding polls, a.k.a. votes, on Wikipedia (even in the case of the selection of members of the Arbitration Committee, it is, in the end, just appointment by Jimbo as he sees fit, whether guided by the results of the poll of users or not). Yours, -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james at jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester at hotmail.com From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 23 20:58:25 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:58:25 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 23, Issue 95 In-Reply-To: <1fe.4379921.2fec6f82@aol.com> Message-ID: >From: AssCoAssc at aol.com >In a message dated 6/23/05 3:32:40 PM, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org >writes: > > > > Excuse me - I get the last word here. Use of BC/AD is evil and causes > > cancer. > > >That caveman comic strip with the funny ants used "B.C.".... >is Johnny Hart a reasonable authority on this matter? Well, I suspect he would have a strong opinion on the matter. He became a born-again Christian in the 90s, and the B.C. strip contents started reflecting that, which created some controversy. Jay. From originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 00:06:14 2005 From: originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com (Deathphoenix) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 20:06:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom about to declare that the MoS is policy In-Reply-To: <82EA63D3-ADFF-4D03-81EF-88672FC12798@ctelco.net> References: <20050623185701.75233.qmail@web25408.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <82EA63D3-ADFF-4D03-81EF-88672FC12798@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <42BB4E76.80106@gmail.com> If I may weigh in on the BC/AD BCE/BC debate, it seems that the best way to handle this is similar to how we deal with British/American English spelling: if an article already has BC/AD and is consistent, there is no need to change this to BCE/BC. In addition, I would think that articles on history (especially articles baesd before the BCE/BC notation) should keep the BC/AD notation. Fred Bauder wrote: > 1) Wikipedia has established a Wikipedia:Manual of Style for the > "purpose of making things easy to read by following a consistent > format," see [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29#Eras). The > prescriptions of Wikipedia's manual of style are not binding, but it > is suggested that with respect to eras that "Both the BCE/CE era > names and the BC/AD era names are acceptable, but be consistent > within an article." > > Fred > > On Jun 23, 2005, at 12:56 PM, Jon wrote: > >> ArbCom, unfortunately, but at least now with good intentions, is >> making another mistake on the BCE/CE arbitration. It appears to be >> about to declare that the MoS (or at least an extract of it) is >> policy. My understanding is this is not the case, and that the MoS >> is just a non-binding guideline. >> >> This understanding comes from a recent discussion, initiated by >> SlimVirgin, who argued that the MoS had never followed the correct >> procedure to become policy. I argued that it had - as it was >> followed generally by WPians and had been effectively accepted as >> such by the community. However, SlimVirgin, supported by others, >> argued that it would need a consensus vote. I didn't persevere in >> countering this argument for too long, and the designation of the >> MoS as "policy" was removed. >> >> It seems the ArbCom is about to reverse the effects of that >> discussion and declare a basic guideline as policy. As there is >> nothing in the general wording of the MoS to separate out the bits >> on BCE/CE notation from the rest, it leaves open the possibility >> that users not complying with the MoS (and most don't from time to >> time at least in some respects) are leaving themselves open to >> complaints. >> >> Kind regards >> >> Jguk >> >> >> --------------------------------- >> Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with >> voicemail >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 00:37:35 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 20:37:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Per-article blocking In-Reply-To: References: <20050622042107.CEA3E1AC0301@mail.wikimedia.org> <42B90A76.3020609@earthlink.net> <98dd099a05062208406cb25cfb@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05062308051c3c79c3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Blanking doesn't seem very helpful at all when the page needs to be > protected. All you need to do is make up a fuss between enough users > and you can disrupt wikipedia until there's no tomorrow. Besides, no > one can edit a blanked article into something else the parties might > accept. Obviously good sense is applied to determine if someone is just trying to create a disruption to cause a blanking, such a judgement is already used for protection. And protected pages shouldn't be edited, blank or not. Of course the history is available, and the discussion can take place on the talk page... where all sides will be encouraged to participate because their preferred version is not on top. :) From stephen.bain at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 04:19:02 2005 From: stephen.bain at gmail.com (Stephen Bain) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:19:02 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Licensing concern. In-Reply-To: <42B6495D.8090806@gmail.com> References: <42B6495D.8090806@gmail.com> Message-ID: I posted this on Uninvited Company's talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:UninvitedCompany As for my opinion on your licensing thing, I don't think your assumptions are accurate. People speak of the Wikipedia as 'an encyclopaedia', but really it is just a collection of millions of pieces of text interspersed with Mediawiki markup. The work is not indivisible, because all the separate contributions can be identified (that's what the history pages are there for). By using [[Special:Contributions]] you can identify each of the millions of edits, which are essentially individual works released under GFDL. The articles are derivative works, created by the Mediawiki software, derived from the initial edit. Indeed, the whole website is a collection of derivative works (which are themselves GFDL licensed). And whatever your opinion of the GFDL, you really have no option but to release your contributions under it. Indeed anyone who makes an edit implicitly accepts the Wikipedia licensing system. One can choose to multi-license, but any combination of licenses must include the GFDL (with the exception of public domain). Putting that aside, you can redistribute any derivative work (or a verbatim copy) you create from original works under the GFDL, as long as you distribute it under the GFDL also. That means you can't license the whole Wikipedia under, for example, a CC license. You can license your own contributions separately. Finally IANAL, but IAALS, albeit one in Australia and not familiar with United States law. --~~~~ On 6/20/05, Alphax wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Gregory Maxwell wrote: > > en:User:UninvitedCompany has a user page which contains text with a > > form much like a standard copyright grant, which makes the claim that > > because wikipedia or it's articles are a collective work by many > > authors that any contributor, no matter how minor (as his less than 3k > > edits are quite minor compared to the size of wikipedia as a whole > > which he lays claim to), is entitled to relicense the work as a whole > > under any license they see fit. He then goes on to use this to grant > > the entire wikipedia under CC-BY-SA because he has issues with the > > GFDL. Although he has been careful to pad his words with the > > expected IANALs, it is pretty clear his intention is to circumvent the > > licensing of Wikipedia and, failing that, to encourage others to > > disregard our licensing. > > > > > So I'd like to ask the community at large to please ask uninvited > > company to revise his user page. I don't think his claim has any more > > merit than pioneer12's disagreement with the form he submitted all his > > talk text through, but I think it's all the more negative because it > > purports to effect the licensing of work by authors other than him > > rather than just his own. > > > > While your insistence on the GFDL is admirable, I (and IANAL) feel > that the user page of UninvitedCompany does not present the same > problems as that of User:Pioneer-12, because UnivitedCompany is *not* > saying that they are refusing to license under the GFDL. > > As I see it (and again, IANAL), the statement on > [[User:UninvitedCompany]] (as of 04:25, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)), says: > > 1. I have contributed to Wikipedia > 2. Wikipedia is NOT a collection, but a single work (which, IMHO, is > contrary to consensus) > 3. Wikipedia is a single work with joint authorship (again, contrary to > consensus) > 4. Since Wikipedia is a single work, any author can license it however > they want, the rest of Wikipedia be damned (which is against the GFDL) > 5. I hereby multi-license my contributions under CC-BY-SA 1.0 and 2.0 > 6. IANAL so anything in 1-4 must be taken with a very large grain of > salt, and people should check before the distribute material > 7. This is a statement of intent, not a contract. > > The problems I see are in the status of Wikipedia as being a single work > rather than a collection of works; and the right of a single user > (namely UnivitedCompany) to change the license of the entire Wikipedia > by simply saying that they want their contributions to be under the > Creative Commons licenses. > > Now if I've read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multi-licensing > correctly (and again, IANAL), All Wikipedia articles are licensed under > the GFDL, and only the portions written by authors who have > multi-licensed under CC/BSD/whatever are licensed under those > alternative licenses. So (and again, IANAL): your contributions cannot > be licensed under anything except the GFDL unless you choose to do so, > and even then, *they are still under the GFDL*. > > - -- > Alphax > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. > Lewis > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCtkld/RxM5Ph0xhMRApxvAJ4jDybEl5oiiXab4608BUUuPB9LhgCffKLw > 53DYHkNh/qn4rCsdEjP65vo= > =+aip > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- Stephen Bain stephen.bain at gmail.com From saintonge at telus.net Fri Jun 24 06:40:11 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 23:40:11 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050623082753f27de1@mail.gmail.com> References: <42B9FE35.5070003@telus.net> <98dd099a050623082753f27de1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BBAACB.2050609@telus.net> Fastfission wrote: >On 6/22/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>Despite the current fad for the term "African-American" neither the >>United Negro College Fund nor the National Association for the >>Advancement of Colored People have seen fit to change the names of their >>organizations. I avoid the term "African-American" because a person's >>citizenship is not apparent in his racial features, and I certainly >>would not want to offend a non-citizen by calling him "American". To me >>there is something offensive about a herd instinct that requires me to >>change my terminology to suit the whims and fashions of the day. >> >> >These particular examples are not about "whims and fashions of the >day" but a people who have historically labeled in a derogatory manner >and who have no simple identification term attempting to find >something they can live with. > A person's racial characteristics are not evident from his participation in this list, and in general should not need to be referenced at all. Your presumptions about historically derogatory labels presume that all uses of these labels were derogatory. >The two groups you named have names from the time they were created >and get a lot out of the fact that they are historic. On its own >printed matter the UCNF refers to its mission as supporting >"historically black" college and uses the term "African American" (no >hyphen). The NAACP also uses the term "African Americans." Just >because they keep historic names does not mean that they have not seen >it fit to change their overall terminology. > >This is not about "herd instinct" in the slightest, and this is a >lousy example. One should in these cases, especially with issues which >have LONG histories of abuse, try to be a bit respectful. > Respectfulness goes two ways. Those who want to insist on politically correct vocabulary are just as much in need of lessons in being respectful. >If using >your judgment to pick out the best term ("Black" and "African >American" and "people of Africa descent" are all known to be >acceptable as polite terms if used in good faith) based on the >definition of "polite" of the day (or, in this case, the last 20 years >or so) is too much for your brain to handle, I can't imagine how you >possibly get through the day. There is nothing that irritates me more >than people using the ridiculous excuse that they "can't keep up" or >"can't be expected to remember" or things like that with this >particular case when honestly there have been a total of only five or >six "changes" and the last one was twenty years ago. Hopefully you are >capable. > In fact in most circumstances I am most likely to use "blacks". But I do not do so to please someone who has just displayed a make-believe show of being offended.. >>Language change is more complex than that. We learn our terminology at >>different times and different places. Paramount is its need to continue >>as an effective means of communication. These formerly neutral terms >>may still be neutral in another place, or with another segment of the >>same society, or in different circumstances. "Assuming good faith" >>includes assuming that the person using a particular term does so >>without intent to offend. Only the context of his words will show the >>difference. >> >> >We learn, and we continue to learn. Our language is not static, and >neither are we. This is not rocket science, don't act as if it is >truly difficult. If you want to insist on your own labelings and >terminology -- fine. But don't pretend it is difficult to keep track >of, unless you travel from country to country every different day of >the week. > I said nothing about it being difficult to track the changes. That was not my argument. My argument was against the imposition of political correctness. Ec From alphasigmax at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 07:44:46 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:14:46 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Content, reason and the ArbCom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42BBB9EE.3030500@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 JAY JG wrote: >> From: Ray Saintonge >> Language change is more complex than that. We learn our terminology >> at different times and different places. Paramount is its need to >> continue as an effective means of communication. These formerly >> neutral terms may still be neutral in another place, or with another >> segment of the same society, or in different circumstances. "Assuming >> good faith" includes assuming that the person using a particular term >> does so without intent to offend. Only the context of his words will >> show the difference. > > > Excuse me - I get the last word here. Use of BC/AD is evil and causes > cancer. > > Jay. > > Jimbo has said that there is nothing wrong with BC/AD, and he's American! So nyeh! :-P - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCu7nu/RxM5Ph0xhMRAuLSAJ9ldIE7Or9p9OPHFIUtZD3jAt3+AgCfZ3Kr n6oLzs+7gmIkGWzan+9DaJA= =aySh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From alphasigmax at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 07:48:17 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:18:17 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Silly mailing lists In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050623081047fde18e@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050623143406.GB3380@whoi.edu> <4418c60e05062307453b10e04@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050623081047fde18e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BBBAC1.7000100@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Fastfission wrote: > I second this. Gmail does a great job of putting messages in similar > threads together as well, which makes it almost like an online forum. > I have a little flag which goes up anytime there is a thread I've > written on, so I can see if there are replies, etc. > > I don't know if it is still "invite only" but if so, if anybody > doesn't have one (or wants another) feel free to write to me > personally (off list) and I'll send you an "invite" -- I've got 50 or > so of them (as probably everybody with a gmail account). > > FF > I get my Gmail forwarded to my regular account, and then Thunderbird filters them into nice threads :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCu7rA/RxM5Ph0xhMRAk7zAJ9CTXd5r9qZSM6DpzTnkPEqMHTA+gCdGv43 /8PqtEs5+EFirvZBu2aR+A8= =jEzD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From michaelturley at myway.com Fri Jun 24 12:06:02 2005 From: michaelturley at myway.com (michaelturley at myway.com) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:06:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Gmail invites: Thank you. Message-ID: <20050624120602.34A093963@mprdmxin.myway.com> Thanks to all who sent me Gmail invites. I'll set up an account there and see how much better it is for word wrap and threaded reading. Thanks again. Michael Turley User:Unfocused _______________________________________________ No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 12:07:48 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:07:48 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Gmail invites: Thank you. In-Reply-To: <20050624120602.34A093963@mprdmxin.myway.com> References: <20050624120602.34A093963@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: I guess I wasn't the only person with that idea then... -Mgm On 6/24/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > Thanks to all who sent me Gmail invites. > > I'll set up an account there and see how much > better it is for word wrap and threaded reading. > > Thanks again. > > Michael Turley > User:Unfocused > > _______________________________________________ > No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. > Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dangrey at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 12:31:50 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:31:50 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Gmail invites: Thank you. In-Reply-To: References: <20050624120602.34A093963@mprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: No, you weren't :-) Dan On 24/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I guess I wasn't the only person with that idea then... > -Mgm > > On 6/24/05, michaelturley at myway.com wrote: > > > > Thanks to all who sent me Gmail invites. > > > > I'll set up an account there and see how much > > better it is for word wrap and threaded reading. > > > > Thanks again. > > > > Michael Turley > > User:Unfocused > > > > _______________________________________________ > > No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. > > Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From byronandpam at webmail.co.za Fri Jun 24 13:22:48 2005 From: byronandpam at webmail.co.za (byron gamildien) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:22:48 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Gmail invites: Thank you. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 13:31:50 +0100 Dan Grey wrote: > No, you weren't :-) > > > Dan > > On 24/06/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm > wrote: > > I guess I wasn't the only person with that idea then... > > -Mgm > > > > On 6/24/05, michaelturley at myway.com > wrote: > > > > > > Thanks to all who sent me Gmail invites. > > > > > > I'll set up an account there and see how much > > > better it is for word wrap and threaded reading. > > > > > > Thanks again. > > > > > > Michael Turley > > > User:Unfocused > > >where the hell is my Gmail invite? > > > _______________________________________________ > > > No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding. > > > Make My Way your home on the Web - > http://www.myway.com > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _____________________________________________________________________ For super low premiums, click here http://www.dialdirect.co.za/quote From jake at waskett.org Fri Jun 24 14:45:57 2005 From: jake at waskett.org (Jake Waskett) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:45:57 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to be a really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: "troll, offensive user name".) As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large UK telco). manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net a) Could somebody please remove the block, and b) Could we please discuss establishing a policy that requires checking DNS before setting a block, to ensure that this situation does not arise? It is not the first time, and it is irritating to say the least, especially as it only takes a few seconds to check. Thanks. [[User:Jakew]] From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 15:41:08 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:41:08 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: I couldn't find the IP block. Anyway, autoblocks are done automatically even though they are contributed to the user who blocked the the user that was originally attached (in this case Abortion. I think he was quite right to block someone with the username Abortion. such a name is only going to cause problems. As for forced proxies, I'll leave those to someone else to discuss. --Mgm On 6/24/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to be a > really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently > used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: "troll, > offensive user name".) > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large UK > telco). > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > a) Could somebody please remove the block, and > b) Could we please discuss establishing a policy that requires checking DNS > before setting a block, to ensure that this situation does not arise? It is > not the first time, and it is irritating to say the least, especially as it > only takes a few seconds to check. > > Thanks. > > [[User:Jakew]] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jarlaxleartemis at msn.com Wed Jun 22 01:25:19 2005 From: jarlaxleartemis at msn.com (Jeremy Hanson) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:25:19 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Block has expired, but still can't edit. Message-ID: My block has expired, but I still can't edit anything. From mysociety at gmail.com Thu Jun 23 10:11:13 2005 From: mysociety at gmail.com (Tom Steinberg) Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:11:13 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A new tool being used to encourage wikipedia participation Message-ID: <985ee26d050623031130816f79@mail.gmail.com> Hello Everyone, I am the director of the charitable organisation mySociety, part of the UK's 'civic hacking' scene. I am writing because last week we launched a new site which some of our users have already turned towards helping both Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg: http://www.pledgebank.com/gutenberg (and more modestly) http://www.pledgebank.com/wikipediapage As you can see PledgeBank works by helping to reassure people that if they choose to do something of altruistic value, they won't be left doing it all on their own, effectively wasting their effort. PledgeBank could be a handy tool for building critical mass around new WikiUniverse projects, especially potentially niche ones. i.e, you can say you'll only start when enough people have signed up, like this guy is doing here: http://www.pledgebank.com/parking Anyway, that's all from me. If you've any thoughts, questions or comments, please get in touch. all the best, Tom Steinberg -- Director, mySociety 07811 082158 www.pledgebank.com From misfitgirl at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 16:34:37 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:34:37 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: <5309126705062409346ecf37bf@mail.gmail.com> On 6/25/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > a) Could somebody please remove the block, and > b) Could we please discuss establishing a policy that requires checking DNS > before setting a block, to ensure that this situation does not arise? It is > not the first time, and it is irritating to say the least, especially as it > only takes a few seconds to check. > > Thanks. > > [[User:Jakew]] As MacGyverMagic noted, the autoblocks are automatic - there was no opportunity for anyone to check whether anyone else was using the IP. I know it's a pain - I've got caught in at least two blocks because someone has been vandalising from somewhere else in my university, but it's easy enough to drop an admin a line and get the block undone if you're being innocently caught in it. -- ambi From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Jun 24 16:53:20 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:53:20 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Jake Waskett (jake at waskett.org) [050625 00:46]: > An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to be a > really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently > used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: "troll, > offensive user name".) > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large UK > telco). > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net Trouble is that admins can't actually see what IP a username is coming from. So there's no indication until someone calls it to their attention. Nice to see RickK blocking again though ;-) - d. From geniice at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 16:58:37 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:58:37 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: On 6/24/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to be a > really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently > used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: "troll, > offensive user name".) > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large UK > telco). > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > a) Could somebody please remove the block, and It should be clear now. Problem users fromNTL are anoying. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Jun 24 16:59:48 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:59:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) > >Nice to see RickK blocking again though ;-) Unfortunately that was an autoblock from a block several days ago. RickK hasn't edited in 3 days. :-( Jay. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 17:19:55 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:19:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Block has expired, but still can't edit. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Someone explicitly unblocked you two days ago. Do you get a message saying you are blocked? Maybe there's an autoblock left on your IP adress. (You could be trying to edit a protected page too, try another one too). --Mgm On 6/22/05, Jeremy Hanson wrote: > My block has expired, but I still can't edit anything. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From talrias at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 17:54:56 2005 From: talrias at gmail.com (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:54:56 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform Message-ID: Hi people, This is my first proper contribution to how Wikipedia is "run", and I'm jumping straight in the deep end! I would say 'please be gentle', but adminship is a serious issue, no matter who says "adminship is no big deal". My first contribution to Wikipedia was only back in November of 2004, when I fixed a couple of links regarding spin in politics. I unfortunately think this is somewhat how requests for adminship is going at the moment, with people quoting Jim Wales' comment about adminship when it suits them. I didn't contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis for a few weeks, I made a few edits relating to photosynthesis in plants, and a few spelling corrections and one instance of reverting vandalism, which I had encountered for the first time on Wikipedia. It was nothing major, just me dipping my toes in the water. As I am a forum moderator at a fairly large internet community, I'm quite used to spam, trolling and most importantly, controversy. While some rightly say that Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy and the community should not be the foremost target, it is important not to forget that it is hard to imagine what Wikipedia would be like without its community and consensus. Every time I look at Wikipedia I am reminded just how much I don't know. I pride myself on my general knowledge and I'm normally able to do a substantial part of any general knowledge crosswords, and I was gratified when one of my friends commented on it. The pursuit of knowledge is a lofty goal and I'm glad to be someone contributing to it, even with minor contributions like me, like spelling corrections, rewrites and aiming to improve comprehension and clarity of some Wikipedia articles which may not be written as well as they could have be. I have tried my hand at simple vandalism reversion for a set period of time - one time I managed 90 minutes, the second time a bit less. The reason I stopped was that /vandalism reversion is tedious/ - especially without the rollback feature. That people voting on the current votes for adminship expect people to have tried their hand at vandalism reversion (not just when they see it, but actively hunting it) is counter-productive - reverting simple vandalism is time wasted for people without rollback. We should give the ability to rollback liberally, but revoke that privilege liberally. If someone uses the rollback function for something other than vandalism, it should be rescinded. I think I am right in saying that the rollback feature was initially developed specifically to fight vandalism - I do not yet see any need to widen that remit. The page protection tool is another useful ability, being used to forcibly stop edit wars. I think it should be used in one more scenario - suspected copyright violations. As a relative newcomer I read the events leading up to RickK's departure with great interest. A suspected copyright violation should be protected until the situation is resolved - isn't that what the point of it is? I think that copyright paranoia is something to be wary of, however it shouldn't be dismissed. If a copyvio is suspected, the page should be protected as soon as possible (with the template in place) so we don't have the same repeat situation with revert warring over whether or not something is a copyright violation. I think we need a clearer policy for admins on this. Banning is a different issue, and something I believe new admins should be careful about doing. We have a 3RR policy, sure, but it's supposed to be for clear-cut cases of revert warring. When we get to the grey area about edit warring and defining vandalism I think we should be wary of using the 3RR to forcibly settle a dispute. Assuming good faith on behalf of the person who made the accusation should definitely be done (surely they had a reason, especially if they are a long-term contributor - making unsubstantiated copyvio reports might be vandalism). I think we should be less hasty with applying the 3RR rule if people are disagreeing over whether it should apply under the 3RR rules. Where am I going with this? I've reviewed the different admin abilities (excluding deleting, which we have a good policy for in my opinion), so what? I think we need to look at our admin appointment system as a whole. I am concerned, as some people have already voiced, that requesting adminship is becoming a popularity contest. Some people are elected with huge majorities, with a couple of dissenting voices from people who have had disagreements with the electee in the past. Without a reason for voting, it's difficult to tell what people are voting for. Are they voting for the person's character, or something else? I think Boothy443 is right to question the voting procedure (however I don't agree with the method of doing it). I am attempting to demean those admins who have been elected to adminship with large majorities and turnouts - but what does 50 names really show? The procedure in requests for adminship I do like is the discussion on opposition votes - the tone it sometimes takes may just have to come with the territory. When you vote at elections in the "real world", at least in the UK, you aren't voting for your concillor's or MP's character, you're voting for the policies that they stand for. This analogy is not quite apt to requesting adminship, as there is one set of policy formulated by everyone. But only today I read a story about a conman who convinced many people that he was a spy, and deceitfully conned thousands of pounds. I would contend that someone's outward personality is not, alone, a valid reason to give them administrative powers. But the issue arises - how does one determine whether someone would make a good admin without trusting that they would? I would argue that it's very difficult. Therefore I would like to propose a mentor system for new admins. If someone wishes to become an admin, they should find an existing admin who would willingly mentor them. When a mentor is found, the request would be put forward, and the adminship ability would be temporarily granted. During a set period (maybe 2-3 weeks) the mentor would monitor the actions of the adminee. A page for comments by other users and admins would exist. At the end of the period, the mentoring admin would provide a synopsis of the adminee's actions, and offer a decision on whether or not the admin should become a permanent admin, or returned to "normal user" status. A bureaucrat would be responsible for making the final call on whether to promote or not. An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take - these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin will face severe disciplinary action. This proposal, as it stands, does give admins more of a responsibility. I don't think this is a bad thing - admins do keep the wheels of Wikipedia turning. Changing the process to become an admin will result in it being thought less of as a status symbol and more of as a means to an end - ensuring that Wikipedia stands the test of time to become a fountain of knowledge - the reason I joined up to contribute, in my own way, to Wikipedia. Chris -- Chris Jenkinson ([[User:Talrias]]) http://talrias.net/ From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 18:09:57 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:09:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > conned thousands of pounds. I would contend that someone's outward > personality is not, alone, a valid reason to give them administrative > powers. But the issue arises - how does one determine whether someone > would make a good admin without trusting that they would? I would > argue that it's very difficult. > That's exactly the reason we ask people to show some involvement with admin duties before giving them those extra shiny buttons. From those edits we should be able to tell if they are trustworthy and committed to the project. IMO large majorities tell us, a lot of users have seen them around and agree the particular person being voted for is doing a good job and can be trusted with admin powers. Admin mentorship is a nice idea. I would certainly help new admins get their footing, but I'm afraid it takes time away from what admins should really be doing. Fighting vandalism, deleting nonsense and generally keeping things running. Finally, I think we should encourage people voting for adminship to tell their reasons. That avoids "me too" votes and forces oppose voters to explain themselves so others can seriously consider the points they make. --Mgm On 6/24/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > Hi people, > > This is my first proper contribution to how Wikipedia is "run", and > I'm jumping straight in the deep end! I would say 'please be gentle', > but adminship is a serious issue, no matter who says "adminship is no > big deal". > > My first contribution to Wikipedia was only back in November of 2004, > when I fixed a couple of links regarding spin in politics. I > unfortunately think this is somewhat how requests for adminship is > going at the moment, with people quoting Jim Wales' comment about > adminship when it suits them. > > I didn't contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis for a few weeks, I > made a few edits relating to photosynthesis in plants, and a few > spelling corrections and one instance of reverting vandalism, which I > had encountered for the first time on Wikipedia. It was nothing major, > just me dipping my toes in the water. As I am a forum moderator at a > fairly large internet community, I'm quite used to spam, trolling and > most importantly, controversy. While some rightly say that Wikipedia > is not an experiment in democracy and the community should not be the > foremost target, it is important not to forget that it is hard to > imagine what Wikipedia would be like without its community and > consensus. > > Every time I look at Wikipedia I am reminded just how much I don't > know. I pride myself on my general knowledge and I'm normally able to > do a substantial part of any general knowledge crosswords, and I was > gratified when one of my friends commented on it. The pursuit of > knowledge is a lofty goal and I'm glad to be someone contributing to > it, even with minor contributions like me, like spelling corrections, > rewrites and aiming to improve comprehension and clarity of some > Wikipedia articles which may not be written as well as they could have > be. > > I have tried my hand at simple vandalism reversion for a set period of > time - one time I managed 90 minutes, the second time a bit less. The > reason I stopped was that /vandalism reversion is tedious/ - > especially without the rollback feature. That people voting on the > current votes for adminship expect people to have tried their hand at > vandalism reversion (not just when they see it, but actively hunting > it) is counter-productive - reverting simple vandalism is time wasted > for people without rollback. We should give the ability to rollback > liberally, but revoke that privilege liberally. If someone uses the > rollback function for something other than vandalism, it should be > rescinded. I think I am right in saying that the rollback feature was > initially developed specifically to fight vandalism - I do not yet see > any need to widen that remit. > > The page protection tool is another useful ability, being used to > forcibly stop edit wars. I think it should be used in one more > scenario - suspected copyright violations. As a relative newcomer I > read the events leading up to RickK's departure with great interest. A > suspected copyright violation should be protected until the situation > is resolved - isn't that what the point of it is? I think that > copyright paranoia is something to be wary of, however it shouldn't be > dismissed. If a copyvio is suspected, the page should be protected as > soon as possible (with the template in place) so we don't have the > same repeat situation with revert warring over whether or not > something is a copyright violation. I think we need a clearer policy > for admins on this. > > Banning is a different issue, and something I believe new admins > should be careful about doing. We have a 3RR policy, sure, but it's > supposed to be for clear-cut cases of revert warring. When we get to > the grey area about edit warring and defining vandalism I think we > should be wary of using the 3RR to forcibly settle a dispute. Assuming > good faith on behalf of the person who made the accusation should > definitely be done (surely they had a reason, especially if they are a > long-term contributor - making unsubstantiated copyvio reports might > be vandalism). I think we should be less hasty with applying the 3RR > rule if people are disagreeing over whether it should apply under the > 3RR rules. > > Where am I going with this? I've reviewed the different admin > abilities (excluding deleting, which we have a good policy for in my > opinion), so what? I think we need to look at our admin appointment > system as a whole. > > I am concerned, as some people have already voiced, that requesting > adminship is becoming a popularity contest. Some people are elected > with huge majorities, with a couple of dissenting voices from people > who have had disagreements with the electee in the past. Without a > reason for voting, it's difficult to tell what people are voting for. > Are they voting for the person's character, or something else? I think > Boothy443 is right to question the voting procedure (however I don't > agree with the method of doing it). I am attempting to demean those > admins who have been elected to adminship with large majorities and > turnouts - but what does 50 names really show? > > The procedure in requests for adminship I do like is the discussion on > opposition votes - the tone it sometimes takes may just have to come > with the territory. When you vote at elections in the "real world", at > least in the UK, you aren't voting for your concillor's or MP's > character, you're voting for the policies that they stand for. This > analogy is not quite apt to requesting adminship, as there is one set > of policy formulated by everyone. But only today I read a story about > a conman who convinced many people that he was a spy, and deceitfully > Therefore I would like to propose a mentor system for new admins. If > someone wishes to become an admin, they should find an existing admin > who would willingly mentor them. When a mentor is found, the request > would be put forward, and the adminship ability would be temporarily > granted. During a set period (maybe 2-3 weeks) the mentor would > monitor the actions of the adminee. A page for comments by other users > and admins would exist. At the end of the period, the mentoring admin > would provide a synopsis of the adminee's actions, and offer a > decision on whether or not the admin should become a permanent admin, > or returned to "normal user" status. A bureaucrat would be > responsible for making the final call on whether to promote or not. > > An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential > malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated > without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship > procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be > tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take - > these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made > absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin > will face severe disciplinary action. > > This proposal, as it stands, does give admins more of a > responsibility. I don't think this is a bad thing - admins do keep the > wheels of Wikipedia turning. Changing the process to become an admin > will result in it being thought less of as a status symbol and more of > as a means to an end - ensuring that Wikipedia stands the test of time > to become a fountain of knowledge - the reason I joined up to > contribute, in my own way, to Wikipedia. > > Chris > > -- > Chris Jenkinson ([[User:Talrias]]) > http://talrias.net/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From andrew.lih at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 18:25:32 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:25:32 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ed171fb05062411255ea786b8@mail.gmail.com> Chris, the long thoughtful post on this issue is appreciated. I agree that article protection should be used more before the block button, and admins should be encouraged to do this. As for mentorship, I'm not convinced it needs to be done so formally since nominating someone for adminship is an implicit endorsement and vouching for that person's future as an admin. In contrast, a self-nomination is viewed with much more caution and usually goes through more scrutiny. Also, the scenario of someone "sneaking" through the adminship process is something we all fear, but we seem to have thwarted quite well. -User:Fuzheado On 6/25/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > conned thousands of pounds. I would contend that someone's outward > > personality is not, alone, a valid reason to give them administrative > > powers. But the issue arises - how does one determine whether someone > > would make a good admin without trusting that they would? I would > > argue that it's very difficult. > > > That's exactly the reason we ask people to show some involvement with > admin duties before giving them those extra shiny buttons. From those > edits we should be able to tell if they are trustworthy and committed > to the project. > > IMO large majorities tell us, a lot of users have seen them around and > agree the particular person being voted for is doing a good job and > can be trusted with admin powers. > > Admin mentorship is a nice idea. I would certainly help new admins get > their footing, but I'm afraid it takes time away from what admins > should really be doing. Fighting vandalism, deleting nonsense and > generally keeping things running. > > Finally, I think we should encourage people voting for adminship to > tell their reasons. That avoids "me too" votes and forces oppose > voters to explain themselves so others can seriously consider the > points they make. > > --Mgm > > On 6/24/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > > Hi people, > > > > This is my first proper contribution to how Wikipedia is "run", and > > I'm jumping straight in the deep end! I would say 'please be gentle', > > but adminship is a serious issue, no matter who says "adminship is no > > big deal". > > > > My first contribution to Wikipedia was only back in November of 2004, > > when I fixed a couple of links regarding spin in politics. I > > unfortunately think this is somewhat how requests for adminship is > > going at the moment, with people quoting Jim Wales' comment about > > adminship when it suits them. > > > > I didn't contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis for a few weeks, I > > made a few edits relating to photosynthesis in plants, and a few > > spelling corrections and one instance of reverting vandalism, which I > > had encountered for the first time on Wikipedia. It was nothing major, > > just me dipping my toes in the water. As I am a forum moderator at a > > fairly large internet community, I'm quite used to spam, trolling and > > most importantly, controversy. While some rightly say that Wikipedia > > is not an experiment in democracy and the community should not be the > > foremost target, it is important not to forget that it is hard to > > imagine what Wikipedia would be like without its community and > > consensus. > > > > Every time I look at Wikipedia I am reminded just how much I don't > > know. I pride myself on my general knowledge and I'm normally able to > > do a substantial part of any general knowledge crosswords, and I was > > gratified when one of my friends commented on it. The pursuit of > > knowledge is a lofty goal and I'm glad to be someone contributing to > > it, even with minor contributions like me, like spelling corrections, > > rewrites and aiming to improve comprehension and clarity of some > > Wikipedia articles which may not be written as well as they could have > > be. > > > > I have tried my hand at simple vandalism reversion for a set period of > > time - one time I managed 90 minutes, the second time a bit less. The > > reason I stopped was that /vandalism reversion is tedious/ - > > especially without the rollback feature. That people voting on the > > current votes for adminship expect people to have tried their hand at > > vandalism reversion (not just when they see it, but actively hunting > > it) is counter-productive - reverting simple vandalism is time wasted > > for people without rollback. We should give the ability to rollback > > liberally, but revoke that privilege liberally. If someone uses the > > rollback function for something other than vandalism, it should be > > rescinded. I think I am right in saying that the rollback feature was > > initially developed specifically to fight vandalism - I do not yet see > > any need to widen that remit. > > > > The page protection tool is another useful ability, being used to > > forcibly stop edit wars. I think it should be used in one more > > scenario - suspected copyright violations. As a relative newcomer I > > read the events leading up to RickK's departure with great interest. A > > suspected copyright violation should be protected until the situation > > is resolved - isn't that what the point of it is? I think that > > copyright paranoia is something to be wary of, however it shouldn't be > > dismissed. If a copyvio is suspected, the page should be protected as > > soon as possible (with the template in place) so we don't have the > > same repeat situation with revert warring over whether or not > > something is a copyright violation. I think we need a clearer policy > > for admins on this. > > > > Banning is a different issue, and something I believe new admins > > should be careful about doing. We have a 3RR policy, sure, but it's > > supposed to be for clear-cut cases of revert warring. When we get to > > the grey area about edit warring and defining vandalism I think we > > should be wary of using the 3RR to forcibly settle a dispute. Assuming > > good faith on behalf of the person who made the accusation should > > definitely be done (surely they had a reason, especially if they are a > > long-term contributor - making unsubstantiated copyvio reports might > > be vandalism). I think we should be less hasty with applying the 3RR > > rule if people are disagreeing over whether it should apply under the > > 3RR rules. > > > > Where am I going with this? I've reviewed the different admin > > abilities (excluding deleting, which we have a good policy for in my > > opinion), so what? I think we need to look at our admin appointment > > system as a whole. > > > > I am concerned, as some people have already voiced, that requesting > > adminship is becoming a popularity contest. Some people are elected > > with huge majorities, with a couple of dissenting voices from people > > who have had disagreements with the electee in the past. Without a > > reason for voting, it's difficult to tell what people are voting for. > > Are they voting for the person's character, or something else? I think > > Boothy443 is right to question the voting procedure (however I don't > > agree with the method of doing it). I am attempting to demean those > > admins who have been elected to adminship with large majorities and > > turnouts - but what does 50 names really show? > > > > The procedure in requests for adminship I do like is the discussion on > > opposition votes - the tone it sometimes takes may just have to come > > with the territory. When you vote at elections in the "real world", at > > least in the UK, you aren't voting for your concillor's or MP's > > character, you're voting for the policies that they stand for. This > > analogy is not quite apt to requesting adminship, as there is one set > > of policy formulated by everyone. But only today I read a story about > > a conman who convinced many people that he was a spy, and deceitfully > > > Therefore I would like to propose a mentor system for new admins. If > > someone wishes to become an admin, they should find an existing admin > > who would willingly mentor them. When a mentor is found, the request > > would be put forward, and the adminship ability would be temporarily > > granted. During a set period (maybe 2-3 weeks) the mentor would > > monitor the actions of the adminee. A page for comments by other users > > and admins would exist. At the end of the period, the mentoring admin > > would provide a synopsis of the adminee's actions, and offer a > > decision on whether or not the admin should become a permanent admin, > > or returned to "normal user" status. A bureaucrat would be > > responsible for making the final call on whether to promote or not. > > > > An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential > > malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated > > without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship > > procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be > > tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take - > > these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made > > absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin > > will face severe disciplinary action. > > > > This proposal, as it stands, does give admins more of a > > responsibility. I don't think this is a bad thing - admins do keep the > > wheels of Wikipedia turning. Changing the process to become an admin > > will result in it being thought less of as a status symbol and more of > > as a means to an end - ensuring that Wikipedia stands the test of time > > to become a fountain of knowledge - the reason I joined up to > > contribute, in my own way, to Wikipedia. > > > > Chris > > > > -- > > Chris Jenkinson ([[User:Talrias]]) > > http://talrias.net/ > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jake at waskett.org Fri Jun 24 20:33:05 2005 From: jake at waskett.org (Jake Waskett) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:33:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: <200506242133.05661.jake@waskett.org> On Friday 24 June 2005 17:58, geni wrote: > On 6/24/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > > An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to > > be a really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been > > recently used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: > > "troll, offensive user name".) > > > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large > > UK telco). > > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > > > a) Could somebody please remove the block, and > > It should be clear now. Problem users fromNTL are anoying. Thank you. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jake at waskett.org Fri Jun 24 20:38:33 2005 From: jake at waskett.org (Jake Waskett) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:38:33 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> On Friday 24 June 2005 17:53, David Gerard wrote: > Jake Waskett (jake at waskett.org) [050625 00:46]: > > An admin called RickK has blocked 62.252.192.8 (for what seems to me to > > be a really poor reason: Autoblocked because your IP address has been > > recently used by "Abortion". The reason given for Abortion's block is: > > "troll, offensive user name".) > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large > > UK telco). > > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > Trouble is that admins can't actually see what IP a username is coming > from. So there's no indication until someone calls it to their attention. Hmm. There seems to be a clash between anonymity and usability here, as is so often the case with security systems. Perhaps we could allow admins to see part of the reverse DNS, but not all of it. If we strip off the last two parts of the name (in this example, leaving just "manc-cache-5.server"), we'd get something that nine times out of ten would identify a proxy or not, but would not be personally identifiable. Reasonable? From talrias at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 20:50:53 2005 From: talrias at gmail.com (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:50:53 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/24/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > I am concerned, as some people have already voiced, that requesting > adminship is becoming a popularity contest. Some people are elected > with huge majorities, with a couple of dissenting voices from people > who have had disagreements with the electee in the past. Without a > reason for voting, it's difficult to tell what people are voting for. > Are they voting for the person's character, or something else? I think > Boothy443 is right to question the voting procedure (however I don't > agree with the method of doing it). I am attempting to demean those > admins who have been elected to adminship with large majorities and > turnouts - but what does 50 names really show? I of course mean "I am not attempting to demean [..]" :) Additional discussion of this is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Talrias/Adminship_reform Chris -- Chris Jenkinson http://talrias.net/ From geniice at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 23:09:15 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 00:09:15 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: > Hmm. There seems to be a clash between anonymity and usability here, as is so > often the case with security systems. > > Perhaps we could allow admins to see part of the reverse DNS, but not all of > it. If we strip off the last two parts of the name (in this example, leaving > just "manc-cache-5.server"), we'd get something that nine times out of ten > would identify a proxy or not, but would not be personally identifiable. > > Reasonable? In most cases we find out pretty fast and there are/were a few editors who I know if I block I'm going to have to kill the IP block. personaly I can't see the point of the ipblock at all. -- geni From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Jun 24 23:41:52 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:41:52 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050624234152.GL7309@thingy.apana.org.au> MacGyverMagic/Mgm (macgyvermagic at gmail.com) [050625 04:10]: > IMO large majorities tell us, a lot of users have seen them around and > agree the particular person being voted for is doing a good job and > can be trusted with admin powers. Seconded. That's also why those nominated by someone else usually get a LOT more votes than self-nominations. > Admin mentorship is a nice idea. I would certainly help new admins get > their footing, but I'm afraid it takes time away from what admins > should really be doing. Fighting vandalism, deleting nonsense and > generally keeping things running. In practice, most new admins will know other admins and be able to sanity-check with them. I recommend this highly. (My main advice for new admins is "Patience, young Jedi.") > Finally, I think we should encourage people voting for adminship to > tell their reasons. That avoids "me too" votes and forces oppose > voters to explain themselves so others can seriously consider the > points they make. Support votes are pretty self-explanatory - "I think they'll do well." There often isn't much to add. Oppose votes are a different sort of thing. But the message you're responding to is a good one with many good points to ponder. - d. From shimgray at gmail.com Fri Jun 24 23:55:50 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 00:55:50 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: On 24/06/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > On Friday 24 June 2005 17:53, David Gerard wrote: > > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > > > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a large > > > UK telco). > > > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > > > Trouble is that admins can't actually see what IP a username is coming > > from. So there's no indication until someone calls it to their attention. > > Hmm. There seems to be a clash between anonymity and usability here, as is so > often the case with security systems. > > Perhaps we could allow admins to see part of the reverse DNS, but not all of > it. If we strip off the last two parts of the name (in this example, leaving > just "manc-cache-5.server"), we'd get something that nine times out of ten > would identify a proxy or not, but would not be personally identifiable. Hmm. Set recent-changes to show only anons; 250 edits comes to about 175 unique IPs (busy people, these - one was there four or five times). Converting them to names, then stripping off the two trailing sections, we get this list - http://www.generalist.org.uk/wiki.txt (somewhere along the line it went to 126 addresses. Buggered if I know why.) Of those, only 20 have proxy or cache in the name. Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the reasonably sized sample above? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From geniice at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 00:14:21 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:14:21 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: References: <200506241545.57840.jake@waskett.org> <20050624165319.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: > > Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the > reasonably sized sample above? not very because the IP blocks don;'t kick in until someone edits from them so the person who does the intial block may never know.~~~~ -- geni From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 02:56:51 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 02:56:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? Message-ID: Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll was invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll considered trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use contentious language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked me yesterday too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't know what that was for. CW _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 04:13:46 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 04:13:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello Message-ID: Does this email work? _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From blankfaze at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 04:16:11 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:16:11 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34a27deb05062421165ea36e84@mail.gmail.com> On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > Does this email work? > > yes. -- ! blankfaze *so it goes* From sean at epoptic.org Sat Jun 25 04:19:16 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:19:16 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42BCDB44.1090707@epoptic.com> firstname lastname stated for the record: > Does this email work? No. From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 04:37:41 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 04:37:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello In-Reply-To: <42BCDB44.1090707@epoptic.com> Message-ID: Very funny. Well like I said I got banned for starting a poll and I'm pretty sure that's not against the rules. >From: Sean Barrett >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hello >Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:19:16 -0700 > >firstname lastname stated for the record: >>Does this email work? > >No. >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 04:42:51 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 04:42:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Hello In-Reply-To: <34a27deb05062421165ea36e84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Is this the wrong mailing list, just tell me and I'll go away. >From: blankfaze >Reply-To: blankfaze ,English Wikipedia > >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Hello >Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:16:11 -0500 > >On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > > > Does this email work? > > > > >yes. > >-- >! blankfaze >*so it goes* >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 05:01:50 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 05:01:50 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well I can't tell if this is getting through your spam filter, I got no answer from the first email so I'll ask it again. Also my user name is LittleRedRidingHood: >Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll >was invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll >considered trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use >contentious language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked >me yesterday too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't >know what that was for. > >CW Thanks and again I'm sorry if this is going to the wrong place. _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From blankfaze at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 05:07:07 2005 From: blankfaze at gmail.com (blankfaze) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 00:07:07 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34a27deb05062422075650e6b4@mail.gmail.com> On 6/25/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > Well I can't tell if this is getting through your spam filter, I got no > answer from the first email so I'll ask it again. Also my user name is > LittleRedRidingHood: > > >Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll > >was invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll > >considered trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use > >contentious language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He > blocked > >me yesterday too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still > don't > >know what that was for. > > > >CW > > Thanks and again I'm sorry if this is going to the wrong place. Christ! Please stop spamming. You've asked you question more than once. Wait patiently for an answer, don't keep asking it. -- ! blankfaze *so it goes* From dragons_flight at yahoo.com Sat Jun 25 05:32:30 2005 From: dragons_flight at yahoo.com (DF) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:32:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> The Issue Whether or not using the 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica to form a list of articles that Britannica has but Wikipedia doesn't constitutes a violation of Britannica's copyright? The list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2004_Encyclopedia_topics Background The WikiProject:Missing encyclopedia articles currently uses four very large lists of topics that appear in other encyclopedias but do not appear in Wikipedia. Of these lists, two are from sources whose copyright has expired, one is a composite of multiple unnamed sources, and the last is based on the 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica (hereafter "EB"). On the talk page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles#Copyright.3F, there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a copyright in the list of articles itself. Under US copyright law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), a mere list of facts, topics, names, etc. can be protected by copyright if the selection and/or arrangement of those items is, in and of itself, a creative expression. Since the selection of articles for an encyclopedia is certainly an act of creativity, this may grant EB a copyright over the list of articles in their encyclopedia. If true, then creating derivative works from their list of articles (i.e. by making a list of articles that they have but we don't) is likely to be a copyright violation. As can be seen from the talk page, not everyone agrees that this applies to the EB list. This includes conflicting opinions from users Jamesday and Postdlf, both of whom I respect for their legal acumen. Precedent In March 2004, a very similar situation occurred when someone created a list of missing topics based on the Columbia Encyclopedia. At that time, it was decided by community consensus to delete that list as a likely copyright violation. Archive of that discussion (look under March 2): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=2710783 In my opinion, the only real difference between the two cases is that the EB list has existed for four months without being challenged, whereas the Columbia list was challenged and removed almost immediately after its creation. So what now? Either we need to accept that such a list, though potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern to keep around. OR We need to come to some agreement that such lists will be maintained despite the potential liability. In which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is ultimately the one who is liable. Thoughts? Related links WikiProject: Missing encyclopedia articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles Feist v. Rural: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service US Copyright Code: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/toc.html -DF User:Dragons flight From misfitgirl at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 05:35:50 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:35:50 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> On 6/25/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential > malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated > without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship > procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be > tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take - > these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made > absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin > will face severe disciplinary action. This is the case now. We've had three admins face disciplinary action over admin abuses before, all leading to de-sysopping, and more recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting rampage. This sort of thing is specifically what the arbitration committee is for. There is no need to create an additional lynch mob so that a handful of users can settle scores with people who - they freely admit - have done nothing wrong, but they just don't like. -- ambi From morven at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 06:29:29 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42f90dc005062423297f814a3a@mail.gmail.com> Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll was > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll considered > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use contentious > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked me yesterday > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't know what > that was for. > > CW > > _________________________________________________________________ > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 07:10:35 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:10:35 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Yes, we had admins face disciplinary action before, but there's also a large number of accusations that never even reach a stage of serious discussion, because they ask for de-sysoping on a knee-jerk reaction - merely for the admin disagreeing with them or for moving a page (which anyone can do). Arbitration should suffice. --Mgm On 6/25/05, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/25/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > > An obvious flaw, so far, with this system, is that a potential > > malicious user can go through the adminee period, get nominated > > without a hitch, and then cause trouble. This is why a deadminship > > procedure would need to be created - abuses of power should /not/ be > > tolerated. Currently there are irrevocable actions admins can take - > > these must either be fixed in code, or more appropriately, it made > > absolutely clear that anyone who takes malicious actions as an admin > > will face severe disciplinary action. > > This is the case now. We've had three admins face disciplinary action > over admin abuses before, all leading to de-sysopping, and more > recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting > rampage. This sort of thing is specifically what the arbitration > committee is for. There is no need to create an additional lynch mob > so that a handful of users can settle scores with people who - they > freely admit - have done nothing wrong, but they just don't like. > > -- ambi > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 07:13:49 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:13:49 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: No, I don't think a list of alphabetically ordered article names is in any way creative or copyrightable. The other list could - IMO of course - be reinstated, but asking Jimbo is probably a safe thing to do. -Mgm On 6/25/05, DF wrote: > The Issue > > Whether or not using the 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica > to form a list of articles that Britannica has but > Wikipedia doesn't constitutes a violation of > Britannica's copyright? > > The list: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2004_Encyclopedia_topics > > Background > > The WikiProject:Missing encyclopedia articles > currently uses four very large lists of topics that > appear in other encyclopedias but do not appear in > Wikipedia. Of these lists, two are from sources whose > copyright has expired, one is a composite of multiple > unnamed sources, and the last is based on the 2004 > Encyclopedia Britannica (hereafter "EB"). > > On the talk page, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles#Copyright.3F, > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a > copyright in the list of articles itself. Under US > copyright law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), a mere list of > facts, topics, names, etc. can be protected by > copyright if the selection and/or arrangement of those > items is, in and of itself, a creative expression. > Since the selection of articles for an encyclopedia is > certainly an act of creativity, this may grant EB a > copyright over the list of articles in their > encyclopedia. If true, then creating derivative works > from their list of articles (i.e. by making a list of > articles that they have but we don't) is likely to be > a copyright violation. > > As can be seen from the talk page, not everyone agrees > that this applies to the EB list. This includes > conflicting opinions from users Jamesday and Postdlf, > both of whom I respect for their legal acumen. > > Precedent > > In March 2004, a very similar situation occurred when > someone created a list of missing topics based on the > Columbia Encyclopedia. At that time, it was decided > by community consensus to delete that list as a likely > copyright violation. > > Archive of that discussion (look under March 2): > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=2710783 > > In my opinion, the only real difference between the > two cases is that the EB list has existed for four > months without being challenged, whereas the Columbia > list was challenged and removed almost immediately > after its creation. > > > So what now? > > Either we need to accept that such a list, though > potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern > to keep around. > > OR > > We need to come to some agreement that such lists will > be maintained despite the potential liability. In > which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is > ultimately the one who is liable. > > > Thoughts? > > > Related links > > WikiProject: Missing encyclopedia articles: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles > Feist v. Rural: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service > US Copyright Code: > http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/toc.html > > > -DF > User:Dragons flight > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 07:38:05 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 07:38:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005062423297f814a3a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Well I can't ignore him, he's done this twice and he'll probably do it again. I started a poll and he banned me. Is this fair? How can I ignore it? Every time I work on that article he bans me. >From: Matt Brown >Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia > >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 > >Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. > >On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll >was > > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll >considered > > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use >contentious > > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked me >yesterday > > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't know what > > that was for. > > > > CW > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sat Jun 25 09:18:18 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:18:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005062423297f814a3a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Well, this sucks. Instead of telling me what I did wrong, first you people tell me to wait for an answer, and then you tell me to ignore the guy whose blocking me. >From: Matt Brown >Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia > >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 > >Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. > >On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old poll >was > > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll >considered > > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use >contentious > > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked me >yesterday > > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't know what > > that was for. > > > > CW > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Jun 25 10:51:39 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 04:51:39 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: If Safeway made a list of products offered by WalMart which Safeway did not offer? Fred On Jun 24, 2005, at 11:32 PM, DF wrote: > The Issue > > Whether or not using the 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica > to form a list of articles that Britannica has but > Wikipedia doesn't constitutes a violation of > Britannica's copyright? > > The list: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2004_Encyclopedia_topics > > Background > > The WikiProject:Missing encyclopedia articles > currently uses four very large lists of topics that > appear in other encyclopedias but do not appear in > Wikipedia. Of these lists, two are from sources whose > copyright has expired, one is a composite of multiple > unnamed sources, and the last is based on the 2004 > Encyclopedia Britannica (hereafter "EB"). > > On the talk page, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles#Copyright.3F, > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a > copyright in the list of articles itself. Under US > copyright law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), a mere list of > facts, topics, names, etc. can be protected by > copyright if the selection and/or arrangement of those > items is, in and of itself, a creative expression. > Since the selection of articles for an encyclopedia is > certainly an act of creativity, this may grant EB a > copyright over the list of articles in their > encyclopedia. If true, then creating derivative works > from their list of articles (i.e. by making a list of > articles that they have but we don't) is likely to be > a copyright violation. > > As can be seen from the talk page, not everyone agrees > that this applies to the EB list. This includes > conflicting opinions from users Jamesday and Postdlf, > both of whom I respect for their legal acumen. > > Precedent > > In March 2004, a very similar situation occurred when > someone created a list of missing topics based on the > Columbia Encyclopedia. At that time, it was decided > by community consensus to delete that list as a likely > copyright violation. > > Archive of that discussion (look under March 2): > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=2710783 > > In my opinion, the only real difference between the > two cases is that the EB list has existed for four > months without being challenged, whereas the Columbia > list was challenged and removed almost immediately > after its creation. > > > So what now? > > Either we need to accept that such a list, though > potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern > to keep around. > > OR > > We need to come to some agreement that such lists will > be maintained despite the potential liability. In > which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is > ultimately the one who is liable. > > > Thoughts? > > > Related links > > WikiProject: Missing encyclopedia articles: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles > Feist v. Rural: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service > US Copyright Code: > http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/toc.html > > > -DF > User:Dragons flight > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From misfitgirl at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 12:02:14 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:02:14 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <530912670506250502963aaf5@mail.gmail.com> On 6/25/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > Fine, this wasn't a necessary part of the proposal. The reason I added > it was mainly due to time concerns for the Arbitration Committee - a > decision appears to take a long time, and in that time the "bad" admin > could do more damage. This is still a solution desperately in search of a problem. We have one incident in recent times where this *did* occur, and the admin involved was very quickly desysopped by consensus to protect the content they were deleting, in the similar manner to the way Mr. Treason was hardbanned by general agreement. If, god forbid, such an incident occurred again, it could very easily be dealt with by the same measures. And if it is not that urgent, then it hurts none to go through due process. -- ambi From talrias at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 12:11:18 2005 From: talrias at gmail.com (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 13:11:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: <530912670506250502963aaf5@mail.gmail.com> References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> <530912670506250502963aaf5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, Rebecca wrote: > This is still a solution desperately in search of a problem. We have > one incident in recent times where this *did* occur, and the admin > involved was very quickly desysopped by consensus to protect the > content they were deleting, in the similar manner to the way Mr. > Treason was hardbanned by general agreement. If, god forbid, such an > incident occurred again, it could very easily be dealt with by the > same measures. And if it is not that urgent, then it hurts none to go > through due process. Maybe that part of the proposal is not necessary. Your thoughts on the rest of the proposal are welcome. :) I have rephrased and summarised some of the arguments I have made: --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Adminship_reform Chris -- Chris Jenkinson http://talrias.net/ From timwi at gmx.net Sat Jun 25 12:10:55 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 13:10:55 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: DF wrote: > > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a > copyright in the list of articles itself. I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just ask them if they're okay with it? From fastfission at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 14:50:48 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 10:50:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a0506250750489a604c@mail.gmail.com> Tables of contents are, to my knowledge, generally considered easily and unquestionably covered by fair use clauses -- there is no "creativity" that goes into simply compiling a list of what your encyclopedia has in it, and in the end this is essentially just citation information, which of course is never considered copyrighted (how could you attribute if you could not cite?). If one is to be copyright paranoid (something which I somewhat support in some circumstances), there are plenty of more dodgy uses of fair use in Wikipedia than this. FF On 6/25/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > No, I don't think a list of alphabetically ordered article names is in > any way creative or copyrightable. The other list could - IMO of > course - be reinstated, but asking Jimbo is probably a safe thing to > do. > > -Mgm > > On 6/25/05, DF wrote: > > The Issue > > > > Whether or not using the 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica > > to form a list of articles that Britannica has but > > Wikipedia doesn't constitutes a violation of > > Britannica's copyright? > > > > The list: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2004_Encyclopedia_topics > > > > Background > > > > The WikiProject:Missing encyclopedia articles > > currently uses four very large lists of topics that > > appear in other encyclopedias but do not appear in > > Wikipedia. Of these lists, two are from sources whose > > copyright has expired, one is a composite of multiple > > unnamed sources, and the last is based on the 2004 > > Encyclopedia Britannica (hereafter "EB"). > > > > On the talk page, > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles#Copyright.3F, > > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a > > copyright in the list of articles itself. Under US > > copyright law (e.g. Feist v. Rural), a mere list of > > facts, topics, names, etc. can be protected by > > copyright if the selection and/or arrangement of those > > items is, in and of itself, a creative expression. > > Since the selection of articles for an encyclopedia is > > certainly an act of creativity, this may grant EB a > > copyright over the list of articles in their > > encyclopedia. If true, then creating derivative works > > from their list of articles (i.e. by making a list of > > articles that they have but we don't) is likely to be > > a copyright violation. > > > > As can be seen from the talk page, not everyone agrees > > that this applies to the EB list. This includes > > conflicting opinions from users Jamesday and Postdlf, > > both of whom I respect for their legal acumen. > > > > Precedent > > > > In March 2004, a very similar situation occurred when > > someone created a list of missing topics based on the > > Columbia Encyclopedia. At that time, it was decided > > by community consensus to delete that list as a likely > > copyright violation. > > > > Archive of that discussion (look under March 2): > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Copyright_problems&oldid=2710783 > > > > In my opinion, the only real difference between the > > two cases is that the EB list has existed for four > > months without being challenged, whereas the Columbia > > list was challenged and removed almost immediately > > after its creation. > > > > > > So what now? > > > > Either we need to accept that such a list, though > > potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern > > to keep around. > > > > OR > > > > We need to come to some agreement that such lists will > > be maintained despite the potential liability. In > > which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is > > ultimately the one who is liable. > > > > > > Thoughts? > > > > > > Related links > > > > WikiProject: Missing encyclopedia articles: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles > > Feist v. Rural: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service > > US Copyright Code: > > http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/toc.html > > > > > > -DF > > User:Dragons flight > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 16:08:55 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 18:08:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: > DF wrote: > > > > there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a > > copyright in the list of articles itself. > > I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a > response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just > ask them if they're okay with it? > I was about to ask the same thing in my post, but I somehow forgot. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 16:58:51 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:58:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, DF wrote: > So what now? > > Either we need to accept that such a list, though > potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern > to keep around. OR We could just realize that we are removing the list already... A couple of entries at a time. :) This isn't in the main namespace so it's not directly a part of our encyclopedia and it is not permanent since we are already removing it. I am in favor of strict copyvio rules on the content in our articles, our work needs to be unquestionably free and it's not acceptable to taint our work with 'maybe' material. I'd always favor removing the questionable since we have the resources to recreate almost anything... However, I do not believe it is as important to be as aggressive with meta content. A violation outside of the main namespace, in our work groups, and on our talk pages would need to be fixed if we found one, but since the production of that material is not our primary concern we have little to worry about taint from potentially illegally used material. If we discover that something in one of those namespaces is clearly infringing, of course we should remove it but there usually isn't as much need to be aggressive in removing potentially violating material. So, I think that we can answer this question without a strong determination as to the copyvio status of the page... We should not take action because the problem is solving itself. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sat Jun 25 18:49:15 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 11:49:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Bryan Derksen wrote: > Timwi wrote: > >> I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in >> some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style >> and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their >> own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no >> say anyway. > > > I've recently come across a couple of examples of something like this > this too, on Wikiproject Cricket. > directly > contains all subcategories of Category:Cricket in it, for use by > wikiproject members who want a list of categories to search when > categorizing new aticles. My attempts to either replace this with a > plain old list page or to move the category tags into talk pages (in > accordance with the category guidelines suggesting that "meta" > categories should go on talk pages) were vigorously opposed by > Wikiproject members. I let the issue lie for a few months since it > didn't seem in any way urgent and monitoring the category's usage over > that time has been useful. As a followup "where are things now" sort of thing, here's what happened. After I mentioned category:cricket subcategories here, it was put up for deletion by User:Thebainer. I had been hoping to wait for six months or so before putting it up for deletion again, the last time was only four months earlier. It failed the vote again, with Grutness voting keep because "they seem to be keener on using the category, so I'm swayed towards supporting a keep here." and Ngb voting keep because "This is, as previously discussed in a recent CfD for the same category, an invaluable tool for participants in the Cricket Wikiproject . Conversion to a list is unsuitable as the list would need to be manually updated every time a new category was developed." I still maintain that this category is in violation of Wikipedia guidelines, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia_namespace states "Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace should be added only to the talk page of articles. For example, tags suggesting the article is needs work , or is listed on VfD would be placed on the talk page as they are relevant to editors, not an aid to browsing in the way ordinary categories are." So in accordance with that, I went ahead and started moving the category tags over to the category_tak: pages. I got as far as the "C"s before User:Calsicol came along and reverted all the work I'd done. He said "You seem to be an American, and your page gives no indication that you have any interest in cricket. Thank you." While it is true that I have no particular interest in cricket, this strikes me as being exactly the sort of problem that this thread was talking about; it doesn't _matter_ that I have no particular interest in cricket (and although I'm not actually American, it wouldn't matter if I was either). I have an interest in making sure the category system on Wikipedia is being used in a nice and tidy manner, which gives me just as much reason to be changing this setup as someone who's a rabid cricket fan. Anyway, I guess I'll let the issue drop again for another couple of months and come back to it. I still have the 2005 cricket season subcategory thing to work on, I expect that'll draw a lot of ire when I start actually changing things too. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sat Jun 25 17:48:59 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 10:48:59 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42BD990B.7080601@earthlink.net> Fred Bauder wrote: > If Safeway made a list of products offered by WalMart which Safeway > did not offer? It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway sends employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they can find that Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because there's no copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway somehow obtains WalMart master internal list of merchandise and takes information from it, then they are copying. However, it might still be okay for them, because the information is purely factual and frankly, I don't think that creating a list of the merchandise you offer qualifies as a process of selection in the "creative" sense usually expected by copyright law. Rather, if there's a violation of law here, it's likely to be a matter of trade secrets. I think our situation is different. Because our "products" are entirely documentary, the only way we can create a list of our competitors' products is by copying. And there is definitely a process of selection in determining what subjects to cover in an encyclopedia. So this list is not simply a copy of purely factual information that has had no creative selection or arrangement applied to it. As such, I consider it highly problematic. --Michael Snow From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sat Jun 25 19:03:27 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 12:03:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <42BDAA7F.9010809@shaw.ca> Bryan Derksen wrote: > an invaluable tool for participants in the Cricket Wikiproject > . Ack. I didn't realize that Thunderbird would preserve the links in copy-and-pasted text when told to send email as text only, sorry about the excessive linkage. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sat Jun 25 17:56:11 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 10:56:11 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42BD9ABB.6050709@earthlink.net> Fastfission wrote: >Tables of contents are, to my knowledge, generally considered easily >and unquestionably covered by fair use clauses -- there is no >"creativity" that goes into simply compiling a list of what your >encyclopedia has in it, and in the end this is essentially just >citation information, which of course is never considered copyrighted >(how could you attribute if you could not cite?). If one is to be >copyright paranoid (something which I somewhat support in some >circumstances), there are plenty of more dodgy uses of fair use in >Wikipedia than this. > > If you want to claim fair use for this list, please review and analyze the fair use factors and tell us how this list qualifies for fair use. Fair use is analyzed on a case-by-case basis, so you can't really just say glibly that a particular type of content is always fair use. It's the *use* that matters much more than the nature of the original content. There *is* creativity involved in a list of what an encyclopedia contains, quite specifically due to the selection process involved in determining what subjects go into the encyclopedia in the first place. I agree that we have lots of dubious claims of fair use, but that doesn't make this one okay. --Michael Snow From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sat Jun 25 18:01:08 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 11:01:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: > > >>DF wrote: >> >> >>>there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a >>>copyright in the list of articles itself. >>> >>> >>I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a >>response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just >>ask them if they're okay with it? >> >> >I was about to ask the same thing in my post, but I somehow forgot. > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? Given their regular habit of bad-mouthing us in the press, I'm not keen on handing them an opportunity they can spin into "Look, Wikipedia is blatantly copying all of our articles." With Brockhaus, where we have established contacts and a more amicable relationship, I might view it differently. --Michael Snow From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 18:18:26 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 14:18:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, Michael Snow wrote: > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? > Given their regular habit of bad-mouthing us in the press, I'm not keen > on handing them an opportunity they can spin into "Look, Wikipedia is > blatantly copying all of our articles." With Brockhaus, where we have > established contacts and a more amicable relationship, I might view it > differently. Then we point out that we asked and that they hadn't answered... we point out that they certainly keep such lists of their competitors internally and because of our differing development model that this list is out nearest equivalent. We'd survive, and the press would likely do us good. If someone wanted to make a fuss about copyright for us there are much better examples... There is a lot of copyvio media still on wikipedia, and some of our editors pretty clearly disrespect copyright. Fortunately we're cleaning up the media ... but it takes time. From smoddy at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 20:15:41 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:15:41 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Message-ID: I for one (despite being a cricket cabalist) agree with you on the category thing. I don't quite understand the reasoning for the cricket subcategories category. I actually intend to undertake a major review of cricket categories very soon, so I'll discuss the point then. However, I do in general disagree that policy (or at least guideline) couldn't be bypassed when it is for the best for the encyclopdia as a whole. That should be our target, not slaveishly following guidelines for their own sake. Sam On 6/25/05, Bryan Derksen wrote: > > Bryan Derksen wrote: > > > Timwi wrote: > > > >> I'm quite severely disturbed by the apparent habit of participants in > >> some WikiProjects to completely disregard Wikipedia's Manual of Style > >> and various guidelines, claiming that their pet WikiProject has their > >> own pet style guidelines, as if Wikipedia's global guidelines have no > >> say anyway. > > > > > > I've recently come across a couple of examples of something like this > > this too, on Wikiproject Cricket. > > directly > > contains all subcategories of Category:Cricket in it, for use by > > wikiproject members who want a list of categories to search when > > categorizing new aticles. My attempts to either replace this with a > > plain old list page or to move the category tags into talk pages (in > > accordance with the category guidelines suggesting that "meta" > > categories should go on talk pages) were vigorously opposed by > > Wikiproject members. I let the issue lie for a few months since it > > didn't seem in any way urgent and monitoring the category's usage over > > that time has been useful. > > As a followup "where are things now" sort of thing, here's what > happened. After I mentioned category:cricket subcategories here, it was > put up for deletion by User:Thebainer. I had been hoping to wait for six > months or so before putting it up for deletion again, the last time was > only four months earlier. It failed the vote again, with Grutness voting > keep because "they seem to be keener on using the category, so I'm > swayed towards supporting a keep here." and Ngb voting keep because > "This is, as previously discussed in a recent CfD for the same category, > an invaluable tool for participants in the Cricket Wikiproject > . Conversion > to a list is unsuitable as the list would need to be manually updated > every time a new category was developed." > > I still maintain that this category is in violation of Wikipedia > guidelines, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia_namespace > states "Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace > should be > added only to the talk page > of articles. For > example, tags suggesting the article is needs work > , or is listed on VfD > would be placed on the talk page > as they are relevant to editors, not an aid to browsing in the way > ordinary categories are." So in accordance with that, I went ahead and > started moving the category tags over to the category_tak: pages. > > I got as far as the "C"s before User:Calsicol > came along and reverted all > the work I'd done. He said "You seem to be an American, and your page > gives no indication that you have any interest in cricket. Thank you." > While it is true that I have no particular interest in cricket, this > strikes me as being exactly the sort of problem that this thread was > talking about; it doesn't _matter_ that I have no particular interest in > cricket (and although I'm not actually American, it wouldn't matter if I > was either). I have an interest in making sure the category system on > Wikipedia is being used in a nice and tidy manner, which gives me just > as much reason to be changing this setup as someone who's a rabid > cricket fan. > > Anyway, I guess I'll let the issue drop again for another couple of > months and come back to it. I still have the 2005 cricket season > subcategory thing to work on, I expect that'll draw a lot of ire when I > start actually changing things too. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From timwi at gmx.net Sat Jun 25 20:17:34 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:17:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Message-ID: Bryan Derksen wrote: > > I still maintain that this category is in violation of Wikipedia > guidelines, > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categorization#Wikipedia_namespace > states "Categories relating to the Wikipedia namespace should be > added only to the talk page of articles." So in accordance with that, > I went ahead and started moving the category tags over to the > category_tak: pages. I got as far as the "C"s before User:Calsicol > came along and reverted all the work I'd done. If you need a helping hand, I'll help, because I agree with you. By letting Calsicol revert you and by walking away from it, you are letting them win. :) Just let me know. Timwi From jake at waskett.org Sat Jun 25 20:31:56 2005 From: jake at waskett.org (Jake Waskett) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:31:56 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: References: <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: <200506252131.57333.jake@waskett.org> On Saturday 25 June 2005 00:55, Andrew Gray wrote: > On 24/06/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > > On Friday 24 June 2005 17:53, David Gerard wrote: > > > > As can be readily seen from a reverse DNS query, this IP address is a > > > > transparent proxy server, use of which is forced upon NTL users (a > > > > large UK telco). > > > > manc-cache-5.server.ntli.net > > > > > > Trouble is that admins can't actually see what IP a username is coming > > > from. So there's no indication until someone calls it to their > > > attention. > > > > Hmm. There seems to be a clash between anonymity and usability here, as > > is so often the case with security systems. > > > > Perhaps we could allow admins to see part of the reverse DNS, but not all > > of it. If we strip off the last two parts of the name (in this example, > > leaving just "manc-cache-5.server"), we'd get something that nine times > > out of ten would identify a proxy or not, but would not be personally > > identifiable. > > Hmm. Set recent-changes to show only anons; 250 edits comes to about > 175 unique IPs (busy people, these - one was there four or five > times). Converting them to names, then stripping off the two trailing > sections, we get this list - http://www.generalist.org.uk/wiki.txt > (somewhere along the line it went to 126 addresses. Buggered if I know > why.) > > Of those, only 20 have proxy or cache in the name. > > Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the > reasonably sized sample above? Ok, so of 126 addresses, we have about 20 proxies. So about 16% of anonymous Wikipedias users are recognised as being behind a proxy, using this scheme. I don't know the answer to this question, but does anybody know roughly what proportion of web users go through a proxy server? Is it close to 16%? If so, we've got a pretty good scheme here. Of course, a determined user could create a sub-domain with 'proxy' or 'cache' in the title, which would fool a simple software implementation, but perhaps not a human. In reply to geni's comment, we're talking about a minor change to the software anyway, so all that's needed is to present the admin with this information at the time that he or she chooses to block a user. Ideally, the software could give the admin a "no IP block" option, to exercise at his or her discretion (the software may already do this; I don't know). That would enable pests to be banned without banning others behind the same proxy. If I were to implement that, I'd also set a "banned user" cookie that would catch a change of username. Pros: * Avoid blocking legitimate users * Preserves anonymity, to a reasonable extent * (If "no IP block" option is implemented) Grants more flexibility to admins in their work. Cons: * Will take a couple of days to implement * Not 100% foolproof (or smart-but-malicious-proof) Comments, anyone? Jake From timwi at gmx.net Sat Jun 25 21:10:18 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:10:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Michael Snow wrote: > > On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: > >> I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a >> response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just >> ask them if they're okay with it? > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 21:17:33 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 17:17:33 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? > Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond. Only if we presume the material is copyvio... So far the only people in our community who have any authority at all on the matter who have responded can not agree. I'd suggest that it be moved into another wiki to escape the debate, but there is a huge technical reason to have it in wikipedia... Redlinks. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sat Jun 25 23:33:44 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:33:44 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <42BDE9D8.7080403@shaw.ca> Sam Korn wrote: >However, I do in general disagree that policy (or at least guideline) >couldn't be bypassed when it is for the best for the encyclopdia as a whole. >That should be our target, not slaveishly following guidelines for their own >sake. > Oh, I agree with that, especially for guidelines. However, in this particular case I figured "there must be something wrong with this" back when I first stumbled across the category and only later when it turned into a debate did I go around and find the specific guidelines that I felt applied here. Even if there were no guidelines on this subject I'd still be arguing that this isn't IMO an appropriate category to have in the main category network. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sat Jun 25 23:46:28 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 16:46:28 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiProjects overriding global guidelines? In-Reply-To: References: <42AE6B6F.8010201@shaw.ca> <42BDA72B.9080402@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <42BDECD4.2040404@shaw.ca> Timwi wrote: > If you need a helping hand, I'll help, because I agree with you. By > letting Calsicol revert you and by walking away from it, you are > letting them win. :) That's okay, I'm not walking away in "defeat." I'm a patient editor, I was planning to come back to the issue in a couple of months and try again in the hopes that more of those who were dead-set against my opinion had lost interest or changed their minds. I don't want to turn this into a revert war, especially when there are much more productive and important issues to deal with first. Does anyone know where I can find a list of new features that MediaWiki 1.5 will have? If there's something in there that would allow for whole category trees to be viewed, that might be enough to satisfy those who argue that adding category tags to talk pages or to a manually-updated list page is too much work (as opposed to the hundreds of reverts that had to be done to undo my attempt to change this to a talk-page category, which apparently _weren't_ too much work to do manually :). From dbenbenn at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 23:06:07 2005 From: dbenbenn at gmail.com (David Benbennick) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 19:06:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/25/05, Rebecca wrote: > and more > recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting > rampage. I'm curious, who was the user? (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in the Bureaucrat log.) I'd like to look up how long the de-sysopping took, and what was deleted. [[User:Dbenbenn]] From smoddy at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 23:27:42 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:27:42 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason was the admin in question. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=delete&user=%C6var+Arnfj%F6r%F0+Bjarmason&page= for his deletions Sam On 6/26/05, David Benbennick wrote: > On 6/25/05, Rebecca wrote: > > and more > > recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting > > rampage. > > I'm curious, who was the user? (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in > the Bureaucrat log.) I'd like to look up how long the de-sysopping > took, and what was deleted. > > [[User:Dbenbenn]] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From beesley at gmail.com Sat Jun 25 23:45:50 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 01:45:50 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8b722b8005062516457baa3d44@mail.gmail.com> David Benbennick wrote: > > I'm curious, who was the user? (The de-sysopping doesn't appear in > > the Bureaucrat log.) Sam Korn wrote: > ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason was the admin in question. Desysoppings usually appear in the bureaucrat log on meta, since this is where the steward interface is, and only stewards, not bureaucrats, can desysop users. This is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights However, in ?var's case, he was desysopped by a developer, not a steward, presumably because it was an emergency and no stewards were on IRC at the time. Angela From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sat Jun 25 23:58:18 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 09:58:18 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: <8b722b8005062516457baa3d44@mail.gmail.com> References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> <8b722b8005062516457baa3d44@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050625235818.GS7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Angela (beesley at gmail.com) [050626 09:45]: > Desysoppings usually appear in the bureaucrat log on meta, since this > is where the steward interface is, and only stewards, not bureaucrats, > can desysop users. This is at > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights > However, in ?var's case, he was desysopped by a developer, not a > steward, presumably because it was an emergency and no stewards were > on IRC at the time. Yep. What happened was, Aevar's deletions were noticed, and the pattern was really weird, so someone popped onto #wikimedia-tech, and Tim deopped him pending finding out what was going on. Aevar showed up again a coupla days later, somewhat bemused at everyone's worry. Ops back. No ongoing problem. - d. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 00:56:10 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:56:10 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: References: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> <295A0492-66EB-435B-B65B-E886590FD0E0@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <49bdc74305062517561762d7a3@mail.gmail.com> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute resolution. > > --Mgm > > On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > > For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some > > people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both > > views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real > > source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome. > > > > Fred > > > > On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote: > > > > > Let's say that: > > > > > > There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for > > > some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the > > > subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has > > > actually written much about it- until now. > > > > > > There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and > > > try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side > > > immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a > > > version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it > > > is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand > > > what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative, > > > more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The > > > subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than > > > the other; maybe not. > > > > > > You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. > > > > > > What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But > > > then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever > > > problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these > > > people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is > > > the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad > > > that the article gets locked? > > > > > > /Habj > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 26 01:06:26 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 19:06:26 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305062517561762d7a3@mail.gmail.com> References: <2f33f2d40506221907663abced@mail.gmail.com> <295A0492-66EB-435B-B65B-E886590FD0E0@ctelco.net> <49bdc74305062517561762d7a3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4E69C644-3E5C-46A1-893D-F25F08636A40@ctelco.net> You don't want to be in a revert war with a pack of POV editors, but they still need to cite references and present all sides of a question. If they won't, don't try to fight it out at the article, but simply insist on dispute resolution. Hopefully the Arbitration Committee, with your help, can get to the bottom of what is happening. Fred On Jun 25, 2005, at 6:56 PM, Jack Lynch wrote: > I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and > where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single > user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, > chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > >> If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute >> resolution. >> >> --Mgm >> >> On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder wrote: >> >>> For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some >>> people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both >>> views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real >>> source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome. >>> >>> Fred >>> >>> On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Let's say that: >>>> >>>> There is an article about a relatively controversial subject >>>> that, for >>>> some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. >>>> Maybe the >>>> subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no >>>> one has >>>> actually written much about it- until now. >>>> >>>> There are two people editing this article. You get involved a >>>> bit, and >>>> try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one >>>> side >>>> immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a >>>> version that says "some people say this, some people say that" >>>> but it >>>> is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to >>>> understand >>>> what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and >>>> argumentative, >>>> more concerned with being right than with what is logical and >>>> not. The >>>> subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder >>>> than >>>> the other; maybe not. >>>> >>>> You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. >>>> >>>> What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them >>>> fight? But >>>> then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever >>>> problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these >>>> people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is >>>> the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad >>>> that the article gets locked? >>>> >>>> /Habj >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 01:55:08 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:55:08 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC In-Reply-To: References: <1119551293_1353@drn10msi01> Message-ID: <49bdc7430506251855eda0c37@mail.gmail.com> I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk page, email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob psychology. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/23/05, Dan Grey wrote: > On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already tired and wants to go back to normal editing. > > > > Jfdwolff > > In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to respond to > RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good results, I > might add. > > And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to Raul's > RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content section - > with the results being very well recieved. > > So please, don't write RfCs off. > > > Dan > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 02:05:28 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:05:28 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050626020528.8F2FC6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Ask any questions you like and i will answer them. I trust your judgement after you receive my answers to anything you ask. HK ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Lynch" To: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" , "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:56:10 +0200 > > I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and > where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single > user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, > chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/23/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > If all attempts at discussion fail, you can always try dispute resolution. > > > > --Mgm > > > > On 6/23/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > > > For a start, on the talk page you might try to identify who the some > > > people are and where they say these things. If the sources for both > > > views can be identified, they can then be attributed. If the real > > > source is one of the Wikipedia editors that is more troublesome. > > > > > > Fred > > > > > > On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Habj wrote: > > > > > > > Let's say that: > > > > > > > > There is an article about a relatively controversial subject that, for > > > > some reason, has not yet been through any massive edit wars. Maybe the > > > > subject is fairly new, the word in itself is pretty new so no one has > > > > actually written much about it- until now. > > > > > > > > There are two people editing this article. You get involved a bit, and > > > > try to create what you feel is a neutral version. This makes one side > > > > immediatelly assume you belong to the Enemy. This person creates a > > > > version that says "some people say this, some people say that" but it > > > > is badly written, the reasoning is strange, it is hard to understand > > > > what he really means. Both sides are getting loud and argumentative, > > > > more concerned with being right than with what is logical and not. The > > > > subject is probably emotional to them. Maybe one side is louder than > > > > the other; maybe not. > > > > > > > > You feel that hey - this isn't going to lead anywhere. > > > > > > > > What do you do? Do you just leave the article and let them fight? But > > > > then, what happens if all the "good forces" just leave whenever > > > > problem arises? Should you ask someone to try and talk to these > > > > people? Is there a standard way of handling things like this, or is > > > > the only thing to do to stay away and wait until things are so bad > > > > that the article gets locked? > > > > > > > > /Habj > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 02:10:30 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:10:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC Message-ID: <20050626021030.4742B6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> I replied to the other I believe. Ask anything u like and I will answer. I am a total loner with my prankstering. Excuse the hack of language. HK ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Lynch" To: "Dan Grey" , "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:55:08 +0200 > > I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk page, > email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every > situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob > psychology. > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > On 6/23/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > > > > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to > > RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial > > articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors > > through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often > > leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is > > sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already > > tired and wants to go back to normal editing. > > > > > > Jfdwolff > > > > In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to respond to > > RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good results, I > > might add. > > > > And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to Raul's > > RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content section - > > with the results being very well recieved. > > > > So please, don't write RfCs off. > > > > > > Dan > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 02:20:20 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:20:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC Message-ID: <20050626022020.DD5244BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> I apologize for my ignorance. I really don't want to contribute to articels or writng. I may have inadvertantly pissed off the wrong people, and for this I apologize. I may be barking up the wrong tree. However, if I'm not, just let me know who not to offend. I wouldn't mind adding my single lone addition to other ventures if I possibly could. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henry Kissinger" To: "Jack Lynch" , "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 21:10:30 -0500 > > I replied to the other I believe. Ask anything u like and I will answer. > I am a total loner with my prankstering. Excuse the hack of language. > > HK > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jack Lynch" > To: "Dan Grey" , "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] RFC > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:55:08 +0200 > > > > > I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk > page, > > email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every > > situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob > > psychology. > > > > Jack (Sam Spade) > > > > On 6/23/05, Dan Grey wrote: > > > On 23/06/05, jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: > > > > > > > > RFC, however, is completely inadequate. Community response to > > > RFCs is very modest, even (or especially) when controversial > > > articles are being discussed. Only recruiting like-minded editors > > > through their talkpages seems to help. RFC or otherwise, it often > > > leads to no agreement between the litigants, and mediation is > > > sought etc etc. By that time the experienced user is already > > > tired and wants to go back to normal editing. > > > > > > > > Jfdwolff > > > > > > In the last few weeks, several of us have made an effort to > respond to > > > RfCs and try and 'mediate' on an ad-hoc basis - with good > results, I > > > might add. > > > > > > And as a result of a suggestion by Maurreen in response to Raul's > > > RfAr/RfC, we've recently made an overhaul of the RfC content > section - > > > with the results being very well recieved. > > > > > > So please, don't write RfCs off. > > > > > > > > > Dan > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From fastfission at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 02:59:18 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:59:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42BD9ABB.6050709@earthlink.net> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9ABB.6050709@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a0506251959308869d1@mail.gmail.com> > If you want to claim fair use for this list, please review and analyze > the fair use factors and tell us how this list qualifies for fair use. > Fair use is analyzed on a case-by-case basis, so you can't really just > say glibly that a particular type of content is always fair use. It's > the *use* that matters much more than the nature of the original content. > > There *is* creativity involved in a list of what an encyclopedia > contains, quite specifically due to the selection process involved in > determining what subjects go into the encyclopedia in the first place. > > I agree that we have lots of dubious claims of fair use, but that > doesn't make this one okay. I think an easy thought-experiment here is to imagine what this letter to EB would look like: Dear Sirs, We've created an alphabetical list of articles your encyclopedia contains, and subtracted from it all articles which we do not have in our encyclopedia, for the purposes of indicating to our own editors possible areas of deficiency in our own work. ... Then what? "Do you mind?" "Do you think you'd plausibly claim that this was copyright infringement?" I don't even know what the next line would be, because the idea that this list -- one in which we've put as much "creativity" as was possibly put in assembling it -- would somehow constitute copyright infringement is -- in my non-lawyerly opinion -- totally bonkers. Personally I would contend -- and I think a lawyer could easily argue in court -- that a list of a table of contents, with many entries removed, does not constitute a creative work (it is NOT the same thing as the "creativity" put into arranging their encyclopedia, something which I still don't think is clear-cut copyrightable at all). More importantly, I think that EB's lawyers would be worried enough that such could be plausibly argued that they would NOT bother sueing over it. They'd have a hard time arguing potential damages -- what, that they're in the business of selling article headings? There is likely no simple legal answer to this (i.e., no clear-cut precedent), BUT there it also seems like a vanishingly small possibility this would ever be a problem, and enough plausible arguments that this is NOT a copyright infringement that a conscientious company would not want to bother with the expenses and time to attempt to prosecute something which could go either way. As for non-conscientious companies, there's nothing that can be done about that anyway, and imagine if Wikipedia ever gets seens as an organization with money to be sued for, those will crop up on their own anyway. So okay. What am I -- not a lawyer, not pretending to be, but just someone who has read a few books on copyright and patent law -- saying? 1. I doubt that a list of article titles can be considered a copyrightable work. I doubt that "topics of articles chosen for inclusion" would be considered a copyrightable work. 2. If so, however, our fair use claims are something like: A. Character of use: Research about our own nonprofit encyclopedia, makes explicit the source of the data. B. Nature of the work to be used: Citation information, factual, published; normally considered necessary for attribution in the first place, normally considered uncopyrighted. Nothing unique to this particular source (that is, no more unique than it is in any encyclopedia -- whether EB or not). C. Amount of work to be used: Minimum amount possible -- strictly logical information, minus a lot of it which we have pruned away. D. Effect on market for original: in terms of "arragement," none. EB sells full articles, not arrangements. If we duplicated their arrangement and filled in every article content with the words "peanut butter" it would not give us any market advantage over them -- the arrangement is not what they sell, the content as a whole is. 3. Copyright law is, more than anything else, built upon lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits. It seems unlikely to me that EB would: A. Care much about this B. Think they had much of a case on this C. Want to waste their resources finding out D. Even consider this an issue if we didn't raise it with them first Again, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an expert in this, I'm not even nonchalant about copyright issues (they'll do us in eventually -- but just not this one!). I just don't think this is really worth worrying about. It does raise the question of whether Wikimedia has their own lawyers or not, though. If there was at least one person paid part-time to do these sort of consultations, we wouldn't have to rely on back-of-the-envelope approaches like this. Law is not something which functions well by consensus of non-experts, obviously. I recommend not contacting them and just going with the assumption, made in good faith, that we're just looking at non-copyrightable information -- bibliographic, logical, citation, etc. -- that is no more copyrightable than the titles of articles we use in our references to our articles. Anyway -- that's my take on it. Again, not a lawyer. Just another editor. I don't think there's any easy answer with this sort of thing -- there never is with most copyright law questions. It'll always be something in terms of "probabilities," and I think it is far enough on the "likely not a problem" end of the scale to not worry about or see any need to take down the page. But that's just my thoroughly off-the-cuff interpretation. FF From fastfission at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 03:04:47 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:04:47 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050625200424e2eb7a@mail.gmail.com> Even more alternative solution: move it off of Wikipedia altogether, to the webspace of some brave soul who would be happy to post a list of "articles EB has that Wikipedia does not" (they could even pretend it was an anti-Wikipedia page!). One could easily imagine a script which would cycle through the articles once every few days and check if they are still red-linked, and move the filled in ones to a different section of the page. Hell, I'll *write* that script if nobody else will. Then we can forget the whole question. If someone will host it. (I'd host it myself if I had any webspace of my own which could support it) FF On 6/25/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: > > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? > > Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond. > > Only if we presume the material is copyvio... So far the only people > in our community who have any authority at all on the matter who have > responded can not agree. > > I'd suggest that it be moved into another wiki to escape the debate, > but there is a huge technical reason to have it in wikipedia... > Redlinks. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 03:06:40 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:06:40 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I GOT BLOCKED AGAIN and I did NOTHING!!! I have made NO EDITS and Mikkalai blocked me AGAIIN!!! This is all because I started a poll on the feces page yesterday. But there are polls on LOTS of pages so what did I do wrong? And why will nobody answer? >From: "firstname lastname" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: morven at gmail.com >CC: wikien-l at wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:18:18 +0000 > >Well, this sucks. Instead of telling me what I did wrong, first you people >tell me to wait for an answer, and then you tell me to ignore the guy whose >blocking me. > >>From: Matt Brown >>Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia >> >>To: English Wikipedia >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >>Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 >> >>Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. >> >>On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: >> > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because the old >>poll was >> > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new poll >>considered >> > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use >>contentious >> > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He blocked me >>yesterday >> > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't know >>what >> > that was for. >> > >> > CW >> > >> > _________________________________________________________________ >> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >> > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 04:03:03 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:03:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! Message-ID: <20050626040303.8EE911CE305@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/908f5112/attachment.diff From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 04:04:25 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:04:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! Message-ID: <20050626040425.6CFA91CE305@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/68224dc3/attachment.diff From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 04:17:04 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:17:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <49bdc74305062517561762d7a3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Jack Lynch > >I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and >where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single >user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, >chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > >Jack (Sam Spade) Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large number of other editors reject his POV edits? Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 04:20:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:20:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC In-Reply-To: <49bdc7430506251855eda0c37@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Jack Lynch > >I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk page, >email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every >situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob >psychology. An alternative view it that editors recruit other editors to give their opinions and gain consensus about an on-going conflict, using various means, including RfC, Talk: pages, etc. And if you can't find anyone to support your view, whereas many editors support your opponents' view, then this may well be a sign that you are wrong. Jay. From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 04:29:23 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:29:23 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050626042924.0EA036F05B@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050625/96033ddb/attachment.diff From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 05:09:10 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:09:10 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? In-Reply-To: <20050626040425.6CFA91CE305@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: What does John Jurlina mean? Why are you responding in code? WHY WILL NO ONE ANSWER MY QUESTIONS >From: "Henry Kissinger" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: "English Wikipedia" >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! >Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:04:25 -0500 > >Sorry, bad typing... > >John Jurlina > >Accidentally added an extra n. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "firstname lastname" > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:06:40 +0000 > > > > > I GOT BLOCKED AGAIN and I did NOTHING!!! I have made NO EDITS and > > Mikkalai blocked me AGAIIN!!! This is all because I started a poll > > on the feces page yesterday. But there are polls on LOTS of pages > > so what did I do wrong? And why will nobody answer? > > > > > From: "firstname lastname" > > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > > To: morven at gmail.com > > > CC: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? > > > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:18:18 +0000 > > > > > > Well, this sucks. Instead of telling me what I did wrong, first > > > you people tell me to wait for an answer, and then you tell me to > > > ignore the guy whose blocking me. > > > > > >> From: Matt Brown > > >> Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia > > >> > > >> To: English Wikipedia > > >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? > > >> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 > > >> > > >> Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. > > >> > > >> On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > >> > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces because > > >> the old poll was > > >> > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a new > > >> poll considered > > >> > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't use > contentious > > >> > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He > > >> blocked me yesterday > > >> > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still don't > know what > > >> > that was for. > > >> > > > >> > CW > > >> > > > >> > > _________________________________________________________________ > > >> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > >> > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > >> > > > >> > _______________________________________________ > > >> > WikiEN-l mailing list > > >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >> > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from > > McAfee? Security. > > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >-- >___________________________________________________________ >Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 05:17:42 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:17:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? Message-ID: <20050626051742.B2994164037@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/af14fbb2/attachment.diff From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 05:24:24 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:24:24 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? In-Reply-To: <20050626051742.B2994164037@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: My username is LittleRedRidingHood, can you tell me why I've been blocked from editing. >From: "Henry Kissinger" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: "English Wikipedia" >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? >Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:17:42 -0500 > >Because I assumed the question came in code when the email arrived > >From: "firstname lastname" > >I was answering that. You really need not be that concerned becuase this >method of communication is untraceable and safe. I'm really not that up >on coded questions. Please, feel free to ask anything so that I can >understand the question. I really would like to be a very helpful friend. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "firstname lastname" > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:09:10 +0000 > > > > > What does John Jurlina mean? Why are you responding in code? WHY > > WILL NO ONE ANSWER MY QUESTIONS > > > > > From: "Henry Kissinger" > > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > > To: "English Wikipedia" > > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! > > > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:04:25 -0500 > > > > > > Sorry, bad typing... > > > > > > John Jurlina > > > > > > Accidentally added an extra n. > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "firstname lastname" > > > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > > > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! > > > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:06:40 +0000 > > > > > > > > > > > I GOT BLOCKED AGAIN and I did NOTHING!!! I have made NO EDITS > and > > > > Mikkalai blocked me AGAIIN!!! This is all because I started a > poll > > > > on the feces page yesterday. But there are polls on LOTS of > pages > > > > so what did I do wrong? And why will nobody answer? > > > > > > > > > From: "firstname lastname" > > > > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > > > > To: morven at gmail.com > > > > > CC: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > > > > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? > > > > > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:18:18 +0000 > > > > > > > > > > Well, this sucks. Instead of telling me what I did wrong, > first > > > > > you people tell me to wait for an answer, and then you tell > me to > > > > > ignore the guy whose blocking me. > > > > > > > > > >> From: Matt Brown > > > > >> Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia > > > > >> > > > > >> To: English Wikipedia > > > > >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? > > > > >> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 > > > > >> > > > > >> Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. > > > > >> > > > > >> On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: > > > > >> > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces > because > > > > >> the old poll was > > > > >> > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a > new > > > > >> poll considered > > > > >> > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't > use > > > contentious > > > > >> > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He > > > > >> blocked me yesterday > > > > >> > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still > don't > > > know what > > > > >> > that was for. > > > > >> > > > > > >> > CW > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > >> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > > > >> > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > > > >> > > > > > >> > _______________________________________________ > > > > >> > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > >> > > > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > > Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! > > > > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from > > > > McAfee? Security. > > > > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > -- > > > ___________________________________________________________ > > > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > > > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - > > it's FREE! > > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >-- >___________________________________________________________ >Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From cainwilshire at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 06:48:32 2005 From: cainwilshire at hotmail.com (firstname lastname) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 06:48:32 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo >From: "firstname lastname" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? >Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:24:24 +0000 > >My username is LittleRedRidingHood, can you tell me why I've been blocked >from editing. > >>From: "Henry Kissinger" >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia >>To: "English Wikipedia" >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? >>Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:17:42 -0500 >> >>Because I assumed the question came in code when the email arrived >> >>From: "firstname lastname" >> >>I was answering that. You really need not be that concerned becuase this >>method of communication is untraceable and safe. I'm really not that up >>on coded questions. Please, feel free to ask anything so that I can >>understand the question. I really would like to be a very helpful friend. >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "firstname lastname" >> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? >> Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 05:09:10 +0000 >> >> > >> > What does John Jurlina mean? Why are you responding in code? WHY >> > WILL NO ONE ANSWER MY QUESTIONS >> > >> > > From: "Henry Kissinger" >> > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> > > To: "English Wikipedia" >> > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! >> > > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 23:04:25 -0500 >> > > >> > > Sorry, bad typing... >> > > >> > > John Jurlina >> > > >> > > Accidentally added an extra n. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > ----- Original Message ----- >> > > From: "firstname lastname" >> > > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Mikkalai has a vendetta against me! >> > > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:06:40 +0000 >> > > >> > > > >> > > > I GOT BLOCKED AGAIN and I did NOTHING!!! I have made NO EDITS >> and >> > > > Mikkalai blocked me AGAIIN!!! This is all because I started a >> poll >> > > > on the feces page yesterday. But there are polls on LOTS of >> pages >> > > > so what did I do wrong? And why will nobody answer? >> > > > >> > > > > From: "firstname lastname" >> > > > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> > > > > To: morven at gmail.com >> > > > > CC: wikien-l at wikipedia.org >> > > > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >> > > > > Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 09:18:18 +0000 >> > > > > >> > > > > Well, this sucks. Instead of telling me what I did wrong, >> first >> > > > > you people tell me to wait for an answer, and then you tell >> me to >> > > > > ignore the guy whose blocking me. >> > > > > >> > > > >> From: Matt Brown >> > > > >> Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia >> > > > >> >> > > > >> To: English Wikipedia >> > > > >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Am I allowed to start a poll? >> > > > >> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 23:29:29 -0700 >> > > > >> >> > > > >> Don't feed the troll. Ignore it. >> > > > >> >> > > > >> On 6/24/05, firstname lastname wrote: >> > > > >> > Hi, I started a new poll on the talk page for feces >> because >> > > > >> the old poll was >> > > > >> > invalid, and Mikkalai blocked me for trolling. Why is a >> new >> > > > >> poll considered >> > > > >> > trolling? I was trying to help settle the issue. I didn't >> use >> > > contentious >> > > > >> > language or anything, it was pretty straightforward. He >> > > > >> blocked me yesterday >> > > > >> > too for trolling but I thought it was a mistake, I still >> don't >> > > know what >> > > > >> > that was for. >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > CW >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > >> > > _________________________________________________________________ >> > > > >> > Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >> > > > >> > >> http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > > > >> > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > > > >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > > >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > > >> > >> > > > >> _______________________________________________ >> > > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> > > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > > > >> > > > > >> _________________________________________________________________ >> > > > > Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >> > > > > http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ >> > > > > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ >> > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > > >> > > > >> _________________________________________________________________ >> > > > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from >> > > > McAfee? Security. >> > > > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 >> > > > >> > > > _______________________________________________ >> > > > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > >> > > -- >> > > ___________________________________________________________ >> > > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >> > > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm >> > > >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > >> > _________________________________________________________________ >> > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - >> > it's FREE! >> > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >>-- >>___________________________________________________________ >>Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >>http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 06:52:50 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 01:52:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What does John Jurlina mean? Message-ID: <20050626065251.0E7E16F02B@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/eafa5ddf/attachment.diff From Martin at velocitymanager.com Sat Jun 25 19:20:34 2005 From: Martin at velocitymanager.com (Martin Richards) Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 20:20:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <000601c579ba$f7a830c0$0100a8c0@bob> Michael Snow wrote; It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway sends employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they can find that Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because there's no copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway somehow obtains WalMart master internal list of merchandise and takes information from it, then they are copying. I am 90% sure these lists were not copied, but generated. So it would be more akin to writing down every item as opposed to copying an internal master list. This would would of course have to be confirmed with user:Bogdangiusca who first uploaded the lists. thanks Martin (User:Bluemoose) From alphasigmax at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 07:42:35 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 17:12:35 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <000601c579ba$f7a830c0$0100a8c0@bob> References: <000601c579ba$f7a830c0$0100a8c0@bob> Message-ID: <42BE5C6B.7090402@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Martin Richards wrote: > Michael Snow wrote; >> >> It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway sends >> employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they can find >> that Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because >> there's no copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway >> somehow obtains WalMart master internal list of merchandise and >> takes information from it, then they are copying. > > I am 90% sure these lists were not copied, but generated. So it would > be more akin to writing down every item as opposed to copying an > internal master list. This would would of course have to be confirmed > with user:Bogdangiusca who first uploaded the lists. > > thanks Martin (User:Bluemoose) > I don't there there would be an electronic "list of Britannica articles" anywhere, unless someone generated it; if a Wikipedian generated it and placed it on Wikipedia, that is clearly a creative work covered by the GFDL. And even more creative work would have gone into subtracting the articles which already exist. Hence I don't think Britannica has anything on us; but if they copied our list and said "here is a list of articles we have that Wikipedia doesn't", and didn't will out the correct paperwork, we could do them for GFDL violation :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCvlxq/RxM5Ph0xhMRAuOHAJ9/G0ibSdCWDOoZq00ZeGflGXkErACfVDiS 3Fz3ORZzrH5+POMm85LdY30= =reBR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 07:50:10 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:50:10 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050626075010.514366EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Thank You. BTW, It is time for Dear old Henry to rest in the U.N. up in the great beyond. I sense he only has a few more hours. ----- Original Message ----- From: Alphax To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 17:12:35 +0930 > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Martin Richards wrote: > > Michael Snow wrote; > >> > >> It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway > >> sends employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they > >> can find > >> that Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because > >> there's no copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway > >> somehow obtains WalMart master internal list of merchandise and > >> takes information from it, then they are copying. > > > > I am 90% sure these lists were not copied, but generated. So it would > > be more akin to writing down every item as opposed to copying an > > internal master list. This would would of course have to be confirmed > > with user:Bogdangiusca who first uploaded the lists. > > > > thanks Martin (User:Bluemoose) > > > > I don't there there would be an electronic "list of Britannica articles" > anywhere, unless someone generated it; if a Wikipedian generated it and > placed it on Wikipedia, that is clearly a creative work covered by the > GFDL. And even more creative work would have gone into subtracting the > articles which already exist. Hence I don't think Britannica has > anything on us; but if they copied our list and said "here is a list of > articles we have that Wikipedia doesn't", and didn't will out the > correct paperwork, we could do them for GFDL violation :) > > - -- > Alphax > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. > Lewis > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCvlxq/RxM5Ph0xhMRAuOHAJ9/G0ibSdCWDOoZq00ZeGflGXkErACfVDiS > 3Fz3ORZzrH5+POMm85LdY30= > =reBR > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 08:16:03 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 03:16:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050626081603.4A7606EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> BTW, Henry does have one request for his mentally disabled grandnephew "Booty Shrub", if you could kindly let me know how to comunicate any absolute necessary words of wisdom to Booty, he would appreciate it. But Henry really can't hang on much longer. Young Booty doesn't understand qmail as well as some. It is safe only one way now. Thank You. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Henry Kissinger" To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 02:50:10 -0500 > > Thank You. BTW, It is time for Dear old Henry to rest in the U.N. up in > the great beyond. I sense he only has a few more hours. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Alphax > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 17:12:35 +0930 > > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Martin Richards wrote: > > > Michael Snow wrote; > > >> > > >> It would depend on how Safeway created the list. If Safeway > > >> sends employees to WalMart stores to write down every item they > > >> can find > > >> that Safeway doesn't offer, that's entirely legitimate because > > >> there's no copying (in the copyright sense) involved. If Safeway > > >> somehow obtains WalMart master internal list of merchandise and > > >> takes information from it, then they are copying. > > > > > > I am 90% sure these lists were not copied, but generated. So it > would > > > be more akin to writing down every item as opposed to copying an > > > internal master list. This would would of course have to be > confirmed > > > with user:Bogdangiusca who first uploaded the lists. > > > > > > thanks Martin (User:Bluemoose) > > > > > > > I don't there there would be an electronic "list of Britannica > articles" > > anywhere, unless someone generated it; if a Wikipedian generated it > and > > placed it on Wikipedia, that is clearly a creative work covered by > the > > GFDL. And even more creative work would have gone into subtracting > the > > articles which already exist. Hence I don't think Britannica has > > anything on us; but if they copied our list and said "here is a > list of > > articles we have that Wikipedia doesn't", and didn't will out the > > correct paperwork, we could do them for GFDL violation :) > > > > - -- > > Alphax > > OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax > > There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be > done,' > > and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - > C. S. > > Lewis > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > > > iD8DBQFCvlxq/RxM5Ph0xhMRAuOHAJ9/G0ibSdCWDOoZq00ZeGflGXkErACfVDiS > > 3Fz3ORZzrH5+POMm85LdY30= > > =reBR > > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From dpbsmith at verizon.net Sun Jun 26 11:57:04 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (Daniel P. B. Smith) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:57:04 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050626030645.2C92E1AC59AA@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050626030645.2C92E1AC59AA@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <0C28A3E7-9F07-4783-83B9-C1DB18DE9036@verizon.net> The problem with asking is that, in the words of Admiral Grace Hopper, "it is easier to apologize than to get permission." The problem with asking for permission in a situation like this is that the person you are asking has absolutely no reason whatosever to say "yes." What's in it for them? It's a foggy situation, there's no obvious benefit to them to say "yes." Since you're _asking,_ that means _you_ think that the thing being asked for is a) not already yours, and b) of _some_ valuable. Now, it's _not_ a routine request. It's not Stephen King's publisher asking to quote song lyrics or whatever is the sort of thing that permissions departments handle. Since it's an unusual situation, they're not going to be absolutely sure what would be the consequences of saying "yes." And anyone is going to realize that Wikipedia and the EB are _rivals_. Maybe not bitter rivals, but probably not even friendly rivals. And it's not clear how much is being given away. If I were a midlevel manager in the permissions department at EB and fearful or hostile of the GFDL, I'd probably say to myself "Do I know, 100% for sure, that giving permission for this might not create a legal avalanche of unintended consequences in which WIkipedia could claim that the permission extended to the entire content of EB? Because if I'm only 99.999% sure of that, I'm not going to say 'yes.'" There are no potential bad consequences of saying "no." It's like a baseball runner asking the pitcher, "My I have your permission to try to steal a base?" What's the pitcher going to say? And I think the situation is in every possible way worse if you ask for permission in writing, get told "no" in writing, and do it anyway. It is really unwise to ask for permission unless you're ready to be bound by the answer. In this case, that means getting consensus that Wikipedia is ready to be bound by the answer. -- Jean is going to be bicycling 83 miles in the Pan Mass Challenge in August, raising money for cancer research. Her profile is at http:// www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=JS0417 From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 26 13:00:54 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:00:54 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7A927B87-4987-4CF0-AFCE-9D20B7ED399A@ctelco.net> That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one editor may be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. Perhaps other instances exist. Fred On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: >> From: Jack Lynch >> >> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and >> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a >> single >> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, >> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? >> >> Jack (Sam Spade) >> > > Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large > number of other editors reject his POV edits? > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Jun 26 13:01:28 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:01:28 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RFC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7B8C0404-CEC4-4560-A1D9-081051C0B8BE@ctelco.net> Or simply outnumbered. Fred On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:20 PM, JAY JG wrote: >> From: Jack Lynch >> >> I have found that these "like minded editors" solicited by talk page, >> email, IRC or whatever are the worst thing possible in every >> situation. There is no surer way to enforce POV or enact mob >> psychology. >> > > An alternative view it that editors recruit other editors to give > their opinions and gain consensus about an on-going conflict, using > various means, including RfC, Talk: pages, etc. And if you can't > find anyone to support your view, whereas many editors support your > opponents' view, then this may well be a sign that you are wrong. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Jun 26 14:27:22 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:27:22 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050625200424e2eb7a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> <98dd099a050625200424e2eb7a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050626142722.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Fastfission (fastfission at gmail.com) [050626 13:04]: > Even more alternative solution: move it off of Wikipedia altogether, > to the webspace of some brave soul who would be happy to post a list > of "articles EB has that Wikipedia does not" (they could even pretend > it was an anti-Wikipedia page!). > One could easily imagine a script which would cycle through the > articles once every few days and check if they are still red-linked, > and move the filled in ones to a different section of the page. Hell, > I'll *write* that script if nobody else will. Then we can forget the > whole question. If someone will host it. > (I'd host it myself if I had any webspace of my own which could support it) I really don't see why this can't be hosted on Wikipedia, for the reasons you state. The fact that it's in Wikipedia: space as well makes it clear this is a working document, not product. If it's decided it can't be hosted on Wikipedia, I have plenty of places to put it, thatn can run cron jobs to run scripts to update it and so forth. (Though I'd have a hard time pretending to be anti-Wikipedia ;-) But I do think it belongs on Wikipedia if at all possible. - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Jun 26 16:38:48 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:38:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <7A927B87-4987-4CF0-AFCE-9D20B7ED399A@ctelco.net> Message-ID: In articles which concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don't most edits consist of POV editors from both sides repeatedly reverting each other? ;-) Jay. >From: Fred Bauder > >That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern the >Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one editor may be >repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. Perhaps other instances >exist. > >Fred > > >On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: > >>>From: Jack Lynch >>> >>>I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and >>>where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single >>>user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, >>>chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? >>> >>>Jack (Sam Spade) >>> >> >>Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large number of >>other editors reject his POV edits? >> >>Jay. >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 17:15:45 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:15:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050626171545.242F11CE303@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/7523083b/attachment.diff From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 17:56:20 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:56:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050626175620.CDE5F164037@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/d7aa4832/attachment.diff From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 18:27:53 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:27:53 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050626182753.1639C4BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050626/12cb9e06/attachment.diff From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 19:11:56 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:11:56 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 Message-ID: Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this update? --Mgm From fastfission at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 19:56:53 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 15:56:53 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV Message-ID: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as "pseudoscience". And the text of the category page and the [[Pseudoscience]] article spell this out pretty clearly, in my mind. The article itself goes to much length to talk about how the notion itself is seen as somewhat dubious even in circles of people not labeled as such -- philosophers and historians of science, for example, have at times gone to lengths to argue that the boundaries between what is a "science" and what is not are exceedingly difficult to lay down. Feyerabend, for example, made a large point out of showing that many things today considered canonical distinctions between "science" and other modes of thought did not apply to many of the "fathers" of science (i.e. Galileo, Newton, etc.) and others have made similar observations both in historical and current science. After a century of thought on it, the demarcation problem has still not been convincingly solved. Okay. So we have a nice NPOV article on the subject itself. But what about the category? Does that nuance and care get lost when articles just say "Pseudoscience" at the bottom of the page? Can we trust the user to click it and read our little explanation/disclaimer? Let's assume that we can, for a moment. What if we had an article on [[Satanic lies]], which explains that followers of certain religion sects view a number of modern practices and beliefs as lies of the Devil. It also notes that quite a few other religion sects don't believe in this, and that mainstream philosophers and scientists find this a pretty poor model of thought. After ten centuries of thought, the problem of knowing what is a Satanic lie or not has still not been convincingly solved. A nice, NPOV article. Would we accept a placement of [[Category:Satanic lie]] onto pages about Evolution? Sure, the category page itself would not, "Now, this is only believed by a certain group." Would we allow it? If not, why not? Do we accept it if we lean towards the mainstream opinion in categorization efforts, or do we see this as a NPOV problem? I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic lie]] put onto the Evolution page. Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. FF From fastfission at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 19:58:21 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 15:58:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <20050626182753.1639C4BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050626182753.1639C4BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a0506261258b1a8a09@mail.gmail.com> Um, don't we have an "incoherent" filter which should be kicking in about a dozen e-mails from this guy ago? FF On 6/26/05, Henry Kissinger wrote: > Why most certainly we always expect balanced journalism. The world needs > and expects lady killer lounge lizards, and even gay JJs ;). > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "JAY JG" > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:38:48 -0400 > > > > > In articles which concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don't > > most edits consist of POV editors from both sides repeatedly > > reverting each other? ;-) > > > > Jay. > > > > > From: Fred Bauder > > > > > > That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern > > > the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one > > > editor may be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. > > > Perhaps other instances exist. > > > > > > Fred > > > > > > > > > On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: > > > > > >>> From: Jack Lynch > > >>> > > >>> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, > and > > >>> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a > single > > >>> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious > topic, > > >>> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > >>> > > >>> Jack (Sam Spade) > > >>> > > >> > > >> Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large > > >> number of other editors reject his POV edits? > > >> > > >> Jay. > > >> > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From shimgray at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 20:12:18 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:12:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 26/06/05, Fastfission wrote: > I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for > some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today > that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would > seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could > include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] > or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual > articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does > the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to > think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be > converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic > lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included > [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic > lie]] put onto the Evolution page. > > Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. I'm not sure how much use this is, but it strikes me as an interesting example. A large number of people consider the Apollo landings to be a hoax - I'm sure you've encountered them. We have many, many pages on the Apollo program, the individual flights and associated topics. None of these contain any significant discussion of the hoax theories - at least, I haven't seen any. We also have [[Apollo moon landing hoax accusations]], which discusses the various hoax theories, counterarguments, all that sort of thing. *It* is categorised under "Conspiracy theories" & "Hoaxes" (so, yeah, we have both)... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From laura at thescudder.com Sun Jun 26 20:25:53 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura K Fisher) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:25:53 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: There's been a lot of talk about this at [[Category:Conspiracy theories]], and although I hate the fact that that label closes people's minds to thinking about these theories, it is the most concise and recognizable descriptor for them. I'm a scientist, so I am totally biased on the pseudoscience issue, but I think that a well written article that is NPOV should explain both sides: it should describe the theory, it's history, and the objections of the scientific community. In other words, a NPOV article in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] should already describe exactly what it means for it to be in that category - that mainstream science doesn't accept this theory for various reasons. One wouldn't need to read [[Pseudoscience]] in order to understand why it's been placed in the category. The [[Category:Pseudoscience]] tag at the bottom is definitely used by some as a warning label, which I can't really fault because many theories cloak themselves in scientific language that can easily lure a non-scientist into thinking its a mainstream scientific theory backed by the scientific community. I suppose that the [[Category:Conspiracy theories]] serves a similar purpose. So I guess my conclusion is that it might be okay to have something like [[Category:Satanic lies]] for example if the article text dealt with who thought it was a satanic lie and why, but inappropriate otherwise, as the reader wouldn't understand the characterization. Of course, I wouldn't use the name satanic lies. I mean I thought conspiracy theory was a loaded phrase for a category name, and it's a commonly used. Laura On Jun 26, 2005, at 1:56 PM, Fastfission wrote: > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly > regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty > straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always > either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in > bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is > generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming > these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather > that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as > "pseudoscience". > > And the text of the category page and the [[Pseudoscience]] article > spell this out pretty clearly, in my mind. The article itself goes to > much length to talk about how the notion itself is seen as somewhat > dubious even in circles of people not labeled as such -- philosophers > and historians of science, for example, have at times gone to lengths > to argue that the boundaries between what is a "science" and what is > not are exceedingly difficult to lay down. Feyerabend, for example, > made a large point out of showing that many things today considered > canonical distinctions between "science" and other modes of thought > did not apply to many of the "fathers" of science (i.e. Galileo, > Newton, etc.) and others have made similar observations both in > historical and current science. After a century of thought on it, the > demarcation problem has still not been convincingly solved. > > Okay. So we have a nice NPOV article on the subject itself. But what > about the category? Does that nuance and care get lost when articles > just say "Pseudoscience" at the bottom of the page? Can we trust the > user to click it and read our little explanation/disclaimer? > > Let's assume that we can, for a moment. > > What if we had an article on [[Satanic lies]], which explains that > followers of certain religion sects view a number of modern practices > and beliefs as lies of the Devil. It also notes that quite a few other > religion sects don't believe in this, and that mainstream philosophers > and scientists find this a pretty poor model of thought. After ten > centuries of thought, the problem of knowing what is a Satanic lie or > not has still not been convincingly solved. A nice, NPOV article. > > Would we accept a placement of [[Category:Satanic lie]] onto pages > about Evolution? Sure, the category page itself would not, "Now, this > is only believed by a certain group." > > Would we allow it? If not, why not? Do we accept it if we lean towards > the mainstream opinion in categorization efforts, or do we see this as > a NPOV problem? > > I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for > some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today > that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would > seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could > include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] > or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual > articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does > the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to > think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be > converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic > lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included > [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic > lie]] put onto the Evolution page. > > Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. > > FF > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From hkissinger at diplomats.com Sun Jun 26 20:34:47 2005 From: hkissinger at diplomats.com (Henry Kissinger) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 15:34:47 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV Message-ID: <20050626203448.5A7C0101D8@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Some looney tunes old kook hears strange voices that he understands and will respond to immediately when he gets time. The old buzzard hears the call of distant relatives that live in his imagination. But he thinks he has and understands his priorities. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Gray" To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 21:12:18 +0100 > > On 26/06/05, Fastfission wrote: > > > I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for > > some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today > > that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would > > seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could > > include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] > > or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual > > articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does > > the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to > > think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be > > converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic > > lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included > > [[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic > > lie]] put onto the Evolution page. > > > > Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. > > I'm not sure how much use this is, but it strikes me as an > interesting example. > > A large number of people consider the Apollo landings to be a hoax - > I'm sure you've encountered them. We have many, many pages on the > Apollo program, the individual flights and associated topics. None of > these contain any significant discussion of the hoax theories - at > least, I haven't seen any. > > We also have [[Apollo moon landing hoax accusations]], which discusses > the various hoax theories, counterarguments, all that sort of thing. > *It* is categorised under "Conspiracy theories" & "Hoaxes" (so, yeah, > we have both)... > > -- > - Andrew Gray > andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From dangrey at gmail.com Sun Jun 26 21:09:24 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:09:24 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261258b1a8a09@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050626182753.1639C4BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> <98dd099a0506261258b1a8a09@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In Gmail (and most mail systems, of course) you can create filters to cut out mail from people you're not interested in hearing from. I have several operating now :-) Dan On 26/06/05, Fastfission wrote: > Um, don't we have an "incoherent" filter which should be kicking in > about a dozen e-mails from this guy ago? > > FF > > On 6/26/05, Henry Kissinger wrote: > > Why most certainly we always expect balanced journalism. The world needs > > and expects lady killer lounge lizards, and even gay JJs ;). > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "JAY JG" > > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? > > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:38:48 -0400 > > > > > > > > In articles which concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don't > > > most edits consist of POV editors from both sides repeatedly > > > reverting each other? ;-) > > > > > > Jay. > > > > > > > From: Fred Bauder > > > > > > > > That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern > > > > the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one > > > > editor may be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. > > > > Perhaps other instances exist. > > > > > > > > Fred > > > > > > > > > > > > On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: > > > > > > > >>> From: Jack Lynch > > > >>> > > > >>> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, > > and > > > >>> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a > > single > > > >>> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious > > topic, > > > >>> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > > >>> > > > >>> Jack (Sam Spade) > > > >>> > > > >> > > > >> Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large > > > >> number of other editors reject his POV edits? > > > >> > > > >> Jay. > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > >> > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > -- > > ___________________________________________________________ > > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com > > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From phil.boswell at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 06:46:23 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 07:46:23 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 References: Message-ID: "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote: > Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this > update? Is this causing the strange doubling effect wherein the last edit is appearing twice at the top of each history page, and single-diffs are failing? ...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little larger? I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From brion at pobox.com Mon Jun 27 06:57:54 2005 From: brion at pobox.com (Brion Vibber) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 23:57:54 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote: > >>Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this >>update? Some hours, don't know how long exactly. Probably less than a full day, but no guarantee. :) All our other wikis remain open for editing in the meantime, so feel free to slake your wiki-thirst in Commons, Wiktionary, Wikinews, etc or Wikipedia in another language while en.wikipedia.org is locked. Phil Boswell wrote: > Is this causing the strange doubling effect wherein the last edit is > appearing twice at the top of each history page, and single-diffs are > failing? Yes. The old database schema stored the current revision and older revisions in separate databases. The new schema rearranges things so revision data is stored in one place more consistently. The conversion works by first copying the current data in to where we had the old revisions, then breaking that off into the new text-storage, revision-metadata, and page tables. So in the meantime if you look at history, you will see two copies of the current revision -- one in each table. > ...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little > larger? > > I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat > startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. I'll poke at it a bit... -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) From phil.boswell at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 07:20:11 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 08:20:11 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 References: Message-ID: "Brion Vibber" wrote in message news:d9o7kg$voh$1 at sea.gmane.org... > Phil Boswell wrote: [query and excellent explanation snipped] >> ...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little >> larger? >> I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat >> startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. > I'll poke at it a bit... Aaahh, that's better :-) BTW you're obviously posting from somewhere unusual, because OE was able to read your message directly without having to open it as an attachment !?!?! -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From brion at pobox.com Mon Jun 27 07:38:27 2005 From: brion at pobox.com (Brion Vibber) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:38:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Phil Boswell wrote: >>>...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little >>>larger? >>>I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat >>>startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. >> >>I'll poke at it a bit... > > Aaahh, that's better :-) > > BTW you're obviously posting from somewhere unusual, because OE was able to > read your message directly without having to open it as an attachment !?!?! I'm reading this list through a newsreader on the gmane link, and postings didn't default to PGP-signed. See what happens to this one though. ;) -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 253 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050627/82229065/attachment.pgp From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 27 08:05:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:05:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> DF wrote: >Either we need to accept that such a list, though >potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern >to keep around. > >OR > >We need to come to some agreement that such lists will >be maintained despite the potential liability. In >which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is >ultimately the one who is liable. > It is interesting to follow some of the links in our Feist v. Rural article. I was just reading through the decision in Assessment Technologies v. Wiredata (ooops I almost typed Wikidata. :-) ) http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/JX03YB6O.pdf where it was ruled that the copyright owner could not use copyright law to prevent access to non-copyright information. Cited in that case also was the case of Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1520-28 (9th Cir. 1992). There the court ruled that it was fair use for Accolade to make a copy of and reverse engineer Sega's console software in order to make its own games playable on Sega's system. The court said, "For technical reasons, Accolade had to make a copy of the source code in order to be able to obtain this information. It didn?t want to sell the source code, produce a game-console operating system, or make any other use of the copyrighted code except to be able to sell a noninfringing product, namely a computer game. The court held that this ?intermediate copying? of the operating system was a fair use, since the only effect of enjoining it would be to give Sega control over noninfringing products, namely Accolade?s games." It is also of interest that in a later ruling on costs Wiredata was awarded $91,765.28 in legal fees. To a large extent this was because there was an attempt to extent rights beyond what was avaiable in copyrights, and a recognition that the defendant in such cases is often at a disadvantage. "When the prevailing party is the defendant, who by definition receives not a small award but no award, the presumption in favor of awarding fees is very strong. See Diamond Star Building Corp. v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506 (4th Cir. 1994). For without the prospect of such an award, the party might be forced into a nuisance settlement or deterred altogether from enforcing his rights. AFAIK The discussion so far on this point has been an internal one, with no intervention by anyone representing EB. I don't believe that we are infringing their copyrights, but even if we were there are steps which they must take if they wish to enforce that right. The first such step would be to issue a take-down order. That would give us an opportunity to comply without further problems. In a clear case of copyright violation we would indeed be required to take things down when we become aware of the problem even without such a notice. Where there is serious doubt about the copyrightability of the material we do better by giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 27 08:35:19 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:35:19 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <42BFBA47.2080900@telus.net> Michael Snow wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > >> On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: >> >>> DF wrote: >>> >>>> there is an ongoing discussion of whether EB holds a >>>> copyright in the list of articles itself. >>> >>> I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a >>> response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just >>> ask them if they're okay with it? >> >> I was about to ask the same thing in my post, but I somehow forgot. > > And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? > Given their regular habit of bad-mouthing us in the press, I'm not > keen on handing them an opportunity they can spin into "Look, > Wikipedia is blatantly copying all of our articles." With Brockhaus, > where we have established contacts and a more amicable relationship, I > might view it differently. There is always the principle that it is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission. Let's say we ask them, and they say "no." What then? How do we tell the difference between a "No because it's illegal." and "No because we don't like your competition"? There is no requirement for us to be naive. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 27 08:45:27 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 01:45:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9BE4.10400@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <42BFBCA7.7020205@telus.net> Timwi wrote: > Michael Snow wrote: > >> On 6/25/05, Timwi wrote: >> >>> I've asked this back when I did the Columbia list, and I didn't get a >>> response, but I'll ask the same question again now: Why don't we just >>> ask them if they're okay with it? >> >> And if they don't answer, but simply complain to the media instead? > > Of course, ideally, we shouldn't publish the list until they respond. In that case their best tactic would be to stonewall, whether they are right or not. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Mon Jun 27 09:32:39 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 02:32:39 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506251959308869d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050625165859.41C1D1190B04@mail.wikimedia.org> <42BD9ABB.6050709@earthlink.net> <98dd099a0506251959308869d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BFC7B7.4090205@telus.net> Fastfission wrote: >2. If so, however, our fair use claims are something like: > > C. Amount of work to be used: Minimum amount possible -- strictly >logical information, minus a lot of it which we have pruned away. > Given the wide but uneven range of Wikipedian interests, the remaining lists would be so incoherent as to be useless to anybody but us. >3. Copyright law is, more than anything else, built upon lawsuits and >the threat of lawsuits. It seems unlikely to me that EB would: > A. Care much about this > B. Think they had much of a case on this > C. Want to waste their resources finding out > D. Even consider this an issue if we didn't raise it with them first > In other words, don't scratch your tonsils with your toenails. >It does raise the question of whether Wikimedia has their own lawyers >or not, though. If there was at least one person paid part-time to do >these sort of consultations, we wouldn't have to rely on >back-of-the-envelope approaches like this. Law is not something which >functions well by consensus of non-experts, obviously. > The consensus of experts is not much better. 50% of lawyers' cases are lost. We have an endless stream of difficult copyright questions, and not just in US law. Many of the issues that come up have not been properly tested in the courts, so most legal opinions will be nothing more than a best guess. >I don't think there's any easy answer with this sort of thing >-- there never is with most copyright law questions. It'll always be >something in terms of "probabilities," and I think it is far enough on >the "likely not a problem" end of the scale to not worry about or see >any need to take down the page. > > Yes. A lot of it is a matter of business sense, and of knowing when to push an issue and how much. Knowing when to take risks. Much of what happens in law is not a simple matter of the black and white that is written in the statutes. Having black and white rules gives an illusion of simplicity. Our 3RR rule seems simple and straightforward, but the arguments about it are endless. Ec From shimgray at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 10:14:05 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:14:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506252131.57333.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506242138.33742.jake@waskett.org> <200506252131.57333.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: On 25/06/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > > Of those, only 20 have proxy or cache in the name. > > > > Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the > > reasonably sized sample above? > > Ok, so of 126 addresses, we have about 20 proxies. So about 16% of anonymous > Wikipedias users are recognised as being behind a proxy, using this scheme. I > don't know the answer to this question, but does anybody know roughly what > proportion of web users go through a proxy server? Is it close to 16%? If so, > we've got a pretty good scheme here. I've spoken to a friend working at one of the larger ISPs; the answer is that it varies quite a bit. Only a minority of ISPs use them, but those tend to be large ISPs (the canonical example is all the AOL proxies you see around). The upside is that most people are pragmatic, and call their proxy servers things like "proxy-43765". So it looks like this is a fairly effective way of identifying *most* proxies. [He notes that there's also a "forwarded" header through most ISP caches, which contains the "original" originating IP; I don't know if this is accessible in this context or not, but it's useful to know it exists] [I also did another test on a larger sample - this brought it down to ~10% having "proxy" or "cache" in them. I may do further as resources and tuits permit.] > Of course, a determined user could create a sub-domain with 'proxy' or 'cache' > in the title, which would fool a simple software implementation, but perhaps > not a human. > > In reply to geni's comment, we're talking about a minor change to the software > anyway, so all that's needed is to present the admin with this information at > the time that he or she chooses to block a user. > > Ideally, the software could give the admin a "no IP block" option, to exercise > at his or her discretion (the software may already do this; I don't know). I'm not an admin, so can't really comment how the process actually works. Can I just check I have the mechanism right here? User:XYZ goes and vandalises an article; an admin bans them; the system then automatically slaps a short ban on the associated IP address, to prevent them logging out and trying again? It looks like in 80%+ of cases, telling people what the IP resolves to won't make any difference; it'll just be extra noise (with some occasional amusement, as when you notice a .gov domain). How does this sound - a) Admin goes to block a user. System does a check on IP address, resolves it to 473a.residence.some.edu, doesn't flag it as a proxy, keeps quiet, IP blocked. b) Admin goes to block a user. System does a check on IP address, resolves it to usercache.admin.some.edu, and flags it because it contains *cache*. Puts up a signal to the user - "The associated IP address identifies as USERCACHE.admin.some.edu, and blocking it may affect multiple people. Do you wish to block it anyway?". Admin makes the call. This would leave us with the functionality we have now, but give an option for a simple override when it's likely the IP address isn't "personal". The fact that the display only comes up when it contains one of the keywords means that the privacy implications are low - and if you want it trimmed further, you can have it say that "...identifies as USERCACHE.admin.*.*" or the like. It also limits the amount of time wasted by admins, since it seems to be the case that without one of the keywords, in most cases, a cache/proxy server won't be apparent from the address alone. Thoughts? -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From jake at waskett.org Mon Jun 27 10:41:14 2005 From: jake at waskett.org (Jake Waskett) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:41:14 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: References: <200506252131.57333.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: <200506271141.15204.jake@waskett.org> On Monday 27 June 2005 11:14, Andrew Gray wrote: > On 25/06/05, Jake Waskett wrote: > > > Of those, only 20 have proxy or cache in the name. > > > > > > Thoughts on how useful this sort of data would be, given the > > > reasonably sized sample above? > > > > Ok, so of 126 addresses, we have about 20 proxies. So about 16% of > > anonymous Wikipedias users are recognised as being behind a proxy, using > > this scheme. I don't know the answer to this question, but does anybody > > know roughly what proportion of web users go through a proxy server? Is > > it close to 16%? If so, we've got a pretty good scheme here. > > I've spoken to a friend working at one of the larger ISPs; the answer > is that it varies quite a bit. Only a minority of ISPs use them, but > those tend to be large ISPs (the canonical example is all the AOL > proxies you see around). > > The upside is that most people are pragmatic, and call their proxy > servers things like "proxy-43765". So it looks like this is a fairly > effective way of identifying *most* proxies. > > [He notes that there's also a "forwarded" header through most ISP > caches, which contains the "original" originating IP; I don't know if > this is accessible in this context or not, but it's useful to know it > exists] > > [I also did another test on a larger sample - this brought it down to > ~10% having "proxy" or "cache" in them. I may do further as resources > and tuits permit.] Seems a shame that Wikipedia (rightly) doesn't allow original research. This is very interesting reading. :-) I seem to remember that Wikipedia had it's millionth edit (or something like that) not long ago. 10-20% might not seem much, but it helps put it in perspective. > > > Of course, a determined user could create a sub-domain with 'proxy' or > > 'cache' in the title, which would fool a simple software implementation, > > but perhaps not a human. > > > > In reply to geni's comment, we're talking about a minor change to the > > software anyway, so all that's needed is to present the admin with this > > information at the time that he or she chooses to block a user. > > > > Ideally, the software could give the admin a "no IP block" option, to > > exercise at his or her discretion (the software may already do this; I > > don't know). > > I'm not an admin, so can't really comment how the process actually > works. Can I just check I have the mechanism right here? User:XYZ goes > and vandalises an article; an admin bans them; the system then > automatically slaps a short ban on the associated IP address, to > prevent them logging out and trying again? I'm not an admin either, so at the risk of this becoming the "uninformed users speculate about admins thread", let me offer my 2c. My *understanding* is that the IP blocks (aka autoblocks) are added by the system at a later time, for exactly the reason you suggest. However, their implementation is very odd indeed. Instead of expiring when the original block did, they add the duration of the block to the time that the IP concerned last accessed Wikipedia (as opposed to the last attempt to edit). As I once discovered when legitimately blocked for a 3RR violation, this has the consequence that merely refreshing the list of currently blocked users to check whether the block has expired will keep you blocked indefinitely. This shouldn't be a a problem, however. The system must be storing the last IP used by a user, since this autoblock-on-access mechanism cannot operate without that data, so it can easily be checked at the time of an admin setting a block. > > It looks like in 80%+ of cases, telling people what the IP resolves to > won't make any difference; it'll just be extra noise (with some > occasional amusement, as when you notice a .gov domain). How does this > sound - Logical. > > a) Admin goes to block a user. System does a check on IP address, > resolves it to 473a.residence.some.edu, doesn't flag it as a proxy, > keeps quiet, IP blocked. > > b) Admin goes to block a user. System does a check on IP address, > resolves it to usercache.admin.some.edu, and flags it because it > contains *cache*. Puts up a signal to the user - "The associated IP > address identifies as USERCACHE.admin.some.edu, and blocking it may > affect multiple people. Do you wish to block it anyway?". Admin makes > the call. Again, logical. We'd need to have a list of words to scan for, but this is easy enough and the load on the server minimal. In this case, I think it would be useful for an admin to have the facility to set a user block but prevent autoblocks from being applied. This just means setting a flag in the block table. As I explained before, there are other ways of achieving proxy-friendly autoblock-equivalents, but that might be too complicated. > > This would leave us with the functionality we have now, but give an > option for a simple override when it's likely the IP address isn't > "personal". The fact that the display only comes up when it contains > one of the keywords means that the privacy implications are low - and > if you want it trimmed further, you can have it say that > "...identifies as USERCACHE.admin.*.*" or the like. It also limits the > amount of time wasted by admins, since it seems to be the case that > without one of the keywords, in most cases, a cache/proxy server won't > be apparent from the address alone. > > Thoughts? Seems entirely logical to me. It would be nice to hear from somebody who *is* an admin, and can comment on that basis. How would such a facility affect you people? From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 11:01:57 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:01:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2f33f2d405062704012cd5c56a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/26/05, Fastfission wrote: > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly > regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty > straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always > either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in > bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is > generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming > these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather > that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as > "pseudoscience". Well, I didn't finish my PhD but I am not creationist, neither a fan of eugenics, is not very interested in ghosts and not involved in alternative medicine. Still, I don't think science is the ruler with which everything should be measured. Let's remember that the category Pseudoscience is sorted under the category Science; we have a category for non-sciency in the section for science. To me this is illogical. Let's study what is not put in this category. The category Religion, for some reasons, is not put as a subcategory to Pseudoscience. I'd say the reason for this is that the major religions are to powerful to be called pseudosciences, and then the other religions can follow. However the difference, from a scientific point of view, is pretty small - no, let's be frank. The difference between believing in ghosts, or in Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ who died for us but lived again is, from a scientific perspective, non-existent. The fact that there are scientists who are Moslims and Christians doesn't make the major religions of the world more scientific. Btw I am sure there are scientists who do believe in ghosts; they just don't say so in the interviews as it doesn't look good. Here I expect someone to say "but religion doesn't claim to be science". Actually, a large part of what is in the Pseudoscience category doesn't either. A fraction of the people who are interested in ghosts imitate a scientific language, but that is mainly a way of adopting to the prevailing paradigm. Most people who are deeply into alternative medicine actually frown at science, and think the concepts of science are not valid or at least greatly over-estimated. Sometimes they try and get a treatment scientifically proven - but that is mainly a way of trying to adopt to society and to the paradigm, to gain acceptance. In their hearts, they don't believe in science. We can study religions from outside, that is a kind of science - but if so we can study antroposofy also, write papers about the roots and consequences of their beliefs and publish in scientific journals. Today, science has almost taken the place of religion. No, I am _not_ saying that science is a religion, but thinking about what decides what we find important and valuable in life - what and who we let guide us - science has taken a huge chunk of the space that some hundred years ago was filled by religion alone. A Wikipedia created in, say, 1650 would probably have a huge category for Heresy. Under it would be subcategories for the slowly sprouting Western science and the small pieces of quite advanced Arabian science that reached Europe, another for pre-christian religions plus Islam and other foreign religions, and a third for "wrong" christian beliefs such as gnosticism, catharism, and psilanthropism. IMO we should not have this organisation in the reverse order. Today we should be able to look more neutrally at our own prevaling paradigm. A small subset of the articles in the Category Pseudoscience actually is about science; old scientific beliefs now abandoned. For those, I suggest the category Obsolete scientific theories. Possibly one could complement it with a meighbouring category for questionable or not accepted scientific theories; the line isn't easy to draw, but that only illustrates that the concept isn't as easy as we sometimes like to think. There is no need to lump this together with all kinds of stuff that never was scientific in the first place. Actually, almost all articles in the Pseudoscience category are already placed in at least one other category - in most of the cases several. This also speaks for the redundance of the category. The only hole it would leave after itself, is that of the garbage can for those who through everything they find non-scientific there and don't want to spend more time finding out if this is Folklore, Quackery, Paranormal phenomena, Creationism or something else. /Habj From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Mon Jun 27 11:11:19 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 12:11:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Further Wladk madness Message-ID: <000301c57b08$f2ee5e70$207c0450@Galasien> I have posted about this before, namely the unkind reception often given to User:Wladk, usually posting as an IP number 200.46.++. He has identified himself as Wellington Perez Ishikawajima, Peruvian of Japanese extraction. He has now initiated 100 pages or so; these exhibit almost all possible problems, beginning with poor English. Only User:Wikibofh seems to have recognised, as I do, that this prolific contributor is posting material that includes real gems, and is expanding the East Asia coverage in a way for which Wiki-en should be grateful. Plenty of really quite nasty comments have been seen at VfD. To give an example of the value: a recent high profile biography of Mao Zedong argues that the Chinese Communists only came to power after they were handed factories in ex-Manchukuo (which Japan overran in 1931), by the Soviets who invaded right at the end of WWII. Reading that, I realised that I knew chapter and verse about that, from the WP articles I had been cleaning up about Japanese heavy industry there. So - please can I have some help in my campaign to have these articles cleaned up first, before rushing them to VfD? I think some Wikipedians' comments (such as 'contribute to the WP in your native language') are completely out of order. I see no reason to believe that the wiki process does not work, with these articles as for all else. There is a listing I maintain at [[User:Charles Matthews/Imperial Japan]]. I should be grateful to be notified of more such - I found around ten major ones this morning alone, while the database was locked. Charles From geniice at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 12:07:46 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:07:46 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Transparent proxy blocked - again In-Reply-To: <200506271141.15204.jake@waskett.org> References: <200506252131.57333.jake@waskett.org> <200506271141.15204.jake@waskett.org> Message-ID: > Seems a shame that Wikipedia (rightly) doesn't allow original research. This > is very interesting reading. :-) > > I seem to remember that Wikipedia had it's millionth edit (or something like > that) not long ago. 10-20% might not seem much, but it helps put it in > perspective. 600,000 articles would be the latest milestone for the english wikipedia. > This shouldn't be a a problem, however. The system must be storing the last IP > used by a user, since this autoblock-on-access mechanism cannot operate > without that data, so it can easily be checked at the time of an admin > setting a block. It's storeing more than the last. It is not uncommon to see strings of auto blocks appearing -- geni From wikipedia at jamesgibbon.com Mon Jun 27 13:18:17 2005 From: wikipedia at jamesgibbon.com (James Gibbon) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:18:17 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Hello, This is my first mail to the list; I've been a contributor to Wikipedia for only five days. However, I've taken part in a wide range of discussion fora on the Internet over the last 9 years or so. But I was amazed to read a long-winded and detailed reply to a comment I'd made in a vote for deletion page (for the "Division_Street" article). In it, its author, who doesn't appear to be a member but uses the IP address 65.182.172.95, alleges that I am engaged in "wilful incomprehension" and "dirty net politics, a petty act of revenge that has come in response to the fact that I made a few of your friends look foolish elsewhere on this site, and did so without being apologetic about it". He goes on to say: "This is a power play on your faction's part, a brave little shoveback to reclaim a little online turf and make yourselves look like big men". He ends by commenting "rest assured, buddy, I will never let this one go", and signs himself "the noneditor". The comment which to which this was a response was a fairly innocuous and genuinely sincere remark on my part, to the effect that I was unable to establish the notability of the subject of his article. It's perfectly true that the author represents in the piece that it is notable, but I'm afraid I have already seen more than one article which makes this claim falsely; I just don't have the cultural background to judge this. My comment was not even a vote for deletion, only a note to say that the article should be rewritten if it was indeed notable, otherwise it should be deleted. In fact, contrary to the author's claim, I have no idea who he is and have no knowlege whatever of anything he might have been involved in at Wikipedia or anywhere else. I cannot claim to have established any friends in the brief time I've taken part, and I certainly do not belong to a "faction". I have no knowledge of any event which might prompt an "act of revenge". I find the idea of turf wars between rival gangs at an online encyclopaedia pretty unedifying, and would not wish to take part in one. Anyway the VfD page is obviously still there for anyone who's interested to see it. When the software upgrade is complete and the page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as possible. A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? Does he have a history of this sort of thing? It does smell more than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour common in general at Wikipedia? It's been a bit of an eye-opener! Thanks and regards from the middle of England, James -- Dig It : a forum for European Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/ From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 27 13:18:15 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:18:15 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42BFFC97.2000005@wikia.com> I can offer no particularly helpful opinion on this, other than to say that with this kind of thoughtful analysis, we will certainly do our best in the end. This kind of thinking is *really* important to me, it is the *essence* of what it means (to me) to be a good wikipedian. Thanks. --Jimbo Fastfission wrote: > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly > regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty > straightforward -- [...] From alphasigmax at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 13:38:58 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 23:08:58 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: <42C00172.8050907@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 James Gibbon wrote: > A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? > Does he have a history of this sort of thing? It does smell more > than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour > common in general at Wikipedia? > We can't tell you who it is, because they have no username. This is why we encourage people to register - so that they are not confused with whatever other random idiots have been allocated the same IP. Beware of smelly creatures lurking under bridges. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwAFy/RxM5Ph0xhMRAtRqAJ0ZaqZtHWTNAPeF0v27WTZ+03iXOwCfbPOg izVbBtlNujDo873FP8Ttxao= =Y8Dx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 27 13:50:04 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:50:04 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: <42C0040C.5030803@wikia.com> James Gibbon wrote: > When the software upgrade is complete and the > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > possible. It sounds like you'll make a great Wikipedians. Especially from anonymous ip numbers, well, you never know what they are going to say. The Internet is a big place and there are rather a large number of wingnuts out there. --Jimbo From jwales at wikia.com Mon Jun 27 13:50:26 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy Wales) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:50:26 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: <42C00422.6060306@wikia.com> James Gibbon wrote: > When the software upgrade is complete and the > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > possible. It sounds like you'll make a great Wikipedian. Especially from anonymous ip numbers, well, you never know what they are going to say. The Internet is a big place and there are rather a large number of wingnuts out there. --Jimbo From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Jun 27 13:52:24 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 07:52:24 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: <8D855B56-2617-4C69-90F6-93444DD652DD@ctelco.net> Such behavior is not rare nor is it common. People on the Arbitration Committee see more than their share of it and it often results in the user being banned. Without being familiar with the article and its supporters ( I don't think you shared the name of the article ) I can't say if it is any regular editor with an account. I hope you are not permanently put off by this incident, but learn to effectively resist the energy it represents. Fred On Jun 27, 2005, at 7:18 AM, James Gibbon wrote: > A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? > Does he have a history of this sort of thing? It does smell more > than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour > common in general at Wikipedia? From shimgray at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:02:43 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:02:43 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: On 27/06/05, James Gibbon wrote: > But I was amazed to read a long-winded and detailed reply to a > comment I'd made in a vote for deletion page (for the > "Division_Street" article). In it, its author, who doesn't appear to > be a member but uses the IP address 65.182.172.95, alleges that I am > engaged in "wilful incomprehension" and "dirty net politics, a petty I was reading 1980s Usenet posts yesterday. I'd just like to say how wonderfully retro the phrase "net politics" seems... ;-) > The comment which to which this was a response was a fairly > innocuous and genuinely sincere remark on my part, to the effect > that I was unable to establish the notability of the subject of his > article. It's perfectly true that the author represents in the piece > that it is notable, but I'm afraid I have already seen more than one > article which makes this claim falsely; I just don't have the > cultural background to judge this. My comment was not even a vote > for deletion, only a note to say that the article should be > rewritten if it was indeed notable, otherwise it should be deleted. Fairly standard VfD comment, by the looks of it. I think you took his ire through being the last commentor on the page. > Anyway the VfD page is obviously still there for anyone who's > interested to see it. When the software upgrade is complete and the > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > possible. Just remember; he's the one being a prat. You've no dog in this fight; if you want to ignore it, the only person disappointed in you will be him... > A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? > Does he have a history of this sort of thing? The IP address tells you nothing beyond "well, he's probably in Chicago". The writing style says "irritable American male", but this only narrows it down to one and a half million suspects if I know Chicago ;-) For history; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=65.182.172.95 - edits to a few Chicago-related articles, confrontational style, no history beyond the last day. He also seems to have been User:65.182.172.86, and before that 65.182.172.89... hmm. There's some evident disputes in that history, but damned if I know why he was on your case. Doesn't seem to like the idea of policy, much, and has an odd idea of cleanup tags, which are clearly the product of a "bruised ego" (!) Goodness, poking around conflicts is like getting your very own soap opera sometimes. Impossible to stop. I honestly think your best bet is to shrug and ignore it. These things happen. VfD and the more contentious talk pages can be quite daunting when you're new to the system (and indeed even when you're not; I stopped regularly reading VfD months ago, it was just irritating me) > It does smell more > than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour > common in general at Wikipedia? People will often get very... enthusiastic in defending pages on VfD; they created it, so *of course* it's notable! I have no idea why he fixed on you, though; perhaps he has history with a user of a similar name? A lot of Jameses about. Note that he tries to make VfD into a cause celebr?; by deleting his article we'll show the world what foul childish censors we are, and he'll... he'll... send a copy to people who don't like the project, so they can not like us *more*! That'll show 'em! ...of course it will. Any questions in future, feel free to drop me a message on my talk page, and I'll see if I can be of assistance. > It's been a bit of an eye-opener! > > Thanks and regards from the middle of England, Enjoy your seasonal rains... -- - Andrew Gray [[User:Shimgray]] andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:03:07 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:03:07 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Fastfission > >I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for >some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today >that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would >seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could >include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] >or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual >articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does >the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to >think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be >converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic >lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included >[[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic >lie]] put onto the Evolution page. > >Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. I've already seen categories used specifically for the purpose of promoting a POV. For example, a few months ago someone added [[Muhammad al-Durrah]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]], and in response a [[User:Alberuni]] added [[Anne Frank]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]] I have no doubt neo-Nazis would be repeatedly adding [[The Holocaust]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]] as well, if they were smart enough to figure out how to do it. Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fertile ground for this kind of issue. As an unsurprising example, [[Zionism]] has been added to (and removed from [[Category:Racism]] more than once. Recently [[User:Yuber]] went on a campaign of removing all sorts of areas controlled by Israel from [[Category:Geography of Israel]], typically adding them to [[Category:Geography of Syria]], apparently on the grounds that the these kinds of Categories were not intended as an aid to the reader in finding articles, nor should they reflect physical reality, but rather the should be seen and used as a political statements about legitimate ownership of territories. Both sides quoted the same policy to each other (""Unless it is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it should not be put into a category"), indicating that the specific policy was actually of little help in making these kinds of decisions. Jay. From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:09:31 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 14:09:31 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050627140931.7845.qmail@webmail50.rediffmail.com> TO: FASTFISSION (FASTFISSION at GMAIL.COM) SIRS, THANKS. INFORMATIVE ON YOUR PART. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK. PRESUMPTIVELY EXPLANATORY INDEED. NOT FRUITFUL TO MY STATE OF KNOWLEDGE. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/2005 MONDAY ? On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 David Gerard wrote : >Fastfission (fastfission at gmail.com) [050626 13:04]: > > > Even more alternative solution: move it off of Wikipedia altogether, > > to the webspace of some brave soul who would be happy to post a list > > of "articles EB has that Wikipedia does not" (they could even pretend > > it was an anti-Wikipedia page!). > > One could easily imagine a script which would cycle through the > > articles once every few days and check if they are still red-linked, > > and move the filled in ones to a different section of the page. Hell, > > I'll *write* that script if nobody else will. Then we can forget the > > whole question. If someone will host it. > > (I'd host it myself if I had any webspace of my own which could support it) > > >I really don't see why this can't be hosted on Wikipedia, for the reasons >you state. The fact that it's in Wikipedia: space as well makes it clear >this is a working document, not product. If it's decided it can't be >hosted on Wikipedia, I have plenty of places to put it, thatn can run cron >jobs to run scripts to update it and so forth. (Though I'd have a hard time >pretending to be anti-Wikipedia ;-) But I do think it belongs on Wikipedia >if at all possible. > > >- d. > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:19:25 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 14:19:25 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050627141925.12660.qmail@webmail30.rediffmail.com> ? READ. THANKS. DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MON On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 JAY JG wrote : >In articles which concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don't most edits consist of POV editors from both sides repeatedly reverting each other? ;-) > >Jay. > >> From: Fred Bauder >> >>That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one editor may be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. Perhaps other instances exist. >> >>Fred >> >> >>On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: >> >>>> From: Jack Lynch >>>> >>>>I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, and >>>>where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a single >>>>user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious topic, >>>>chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? >>>> >>>>Jack (Sam Spade) >>>> >>> >>>Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large number of other editors reject his POV edits? >>> >>>Jay. >>> >>> >>>_______________________________________________ >>>WikiEN-l mailing list >>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From zoney.ie at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:19:24 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:19:24 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4418c60e0506270719f55fb05@mail.gmail.com> On 6/27/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Fastfission > > > >I've been defending the presence of [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for > >some time now as a sociological category, but it occurred to me today > >that one could imagine all sorts of circumstances in which it would > >seem hopelessly POV to have category labels of this sort (one could > >include things like [[Category:Hoaxes]] or [[Category:Conspiracies]] > >or whatever in this, if those categories exist), even if their actual > >articles (and even category pages) were written in perfect NPOV. Does > >the brevity of category labels make this impossible? I'm beginning to > >think they might, and that these sorts of categories should be > >converted wholly into lists. I wouldn't mind a [[List of Satanic > >lies]] which clearly noted who thought they were and included > >[[Evolution]] on the list. But I would mind having [[Category:Satanic > >lie]] put onto the Evolution page. > > > >Any input on this would be appreciated as I mull this over. > > I've already seen categories used specifically for the purpose of promoting > a POV. For example, a few months ago someone added [[Muhammad al-Durrah]] > to the [[Category:Hoaxes]], and in response a [[User:Alberuni]] added [[Anne > Frank]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]] I have no doubt neo-Nazis would be > repeatedly adding [[The Holocaust]] to the [[Category:Hoaxes]] as well, if > they were smart enough to figure out how to do it. > > Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fertile ground for this kind of > issue. As an unsurprising example, [[Zionism]] has been added to (and > removed from [[Category:Racism]] more than once. Recently [[User:Yuber]] > went on a campaign of removing all sorts of areas controlled by Israel from > [[Category:Geography of Israel]], typically adding them to > [[Category:Geography of Syria]], apparently on the grounds that the these > kinds of Categories were not intended as an aid to the reader in finding > articles, nor should they reflect physical reality, but rather the should be > seen and used as a political statements about legitimate ownership of > territories. Both sides quoted the same policy to each other (""Unless it > is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a category, it > should not be put into a category"), indicating that the specific policy was > actually of little help in making these kinds of decisions. > > Jay. > > Indeed policy, unless intricately written to cover all situations, will occasionally fail to be of much use in individual circumstances. In problem instances, it is best to look at the individual case, and have the majority of editors insist on common sense and a resolution that comes closest to NPOV while being accepted by most. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:36:13 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:36:13 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <4418c60e0506270719f55fb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Zoney > >On 6/27/05, JAY JG wrote: > > > > Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fertile ground for this >kind of > > issue. As an unsurprising example, [[Zionism]] has been added to (and > > removed from [[Category:Racism]] more than once. Recently >[[User:Yuber]] > > went on a campaign of removing all sorts of areas controlled by Israel >from > > [[Category:Geography of Israel]], typically adding them to > > [[Category:Geography of Syria]], apparently on the grounds that these > > kinds of Categories were not intended as an aid to the reader in finding > > articles, nor should they reflect physical reality, but rather they >should be > > seen and used as a political statements about legitimate ownership of > > territories. Both sides quoted the same policy to each other ("Unless >it > > is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a >category, it > > should not be put into a category"), indicating that the specific policy >was > > actually of little help in making these kinds of decisions. > > > > Jay. > > > >Indeed policy, unless intricately written to cover all situations, >will occasionally fail to be of much use in individual circumstances. >In problem instances, it is best to look at the individual case, and >have the majority of editors insist on common sense and a resolution >that comes closest to NPOV while being accepted by most. Well, that's one way of looking at it; however, as I understand Jack Lynch's and Fred Bauder's view, this would more likely be seen as organized attempts by POV pushers to control article content. :-) Jay. From zoney.ie at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 14:42:04 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:42:04 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: References: <4418c60e0506270719f55fb05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4418c60e05062707423ab76ac2@mail.gmail.com> On 6/27/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Zoney > > > >On 6/27/05, JAY JG wrote: > > > > > > Unsurprisingly, the Arab-Israeli conflict is fertile ground for this > >kind of > > > issue. As an unsurprising example, [[Zionism]] has been added to (and > > > removed from [[Category:Racism]] more than once. Recently > >[[User:Yuber]] > > > went on a campaign of removing all sorts of areas controlled by Israel > >from > > > [[Category:Geography of Israel]], typically adding them to > > > [[Category:Geography of Syria]], apparently on the grounds that these > > > kinds of Categories were not intended as an aid to the reader in finding > > > articles, nor should they reflect physical reality, but rather they > >should be > > > seen and used as a political statements about legitimate ownership of > > > territories. Both sides quoted the same policy to each other ("Unless > >it > > > is self-evident and uncontroversial that something belongs in a > >category, it > > > should not be put into a category"), indicating that the specific policy > >was > > > actually of little help in making these kinds of decisions. > > > > > > Jay. > > > > > > >Indeed policy, unless intricately written to cover all situations, > >will occasionally fail to be of much use in individual circumstances. > >In problem instances, it is best to look at the individual case, and > >have the majority of editors insist on common sense and a resolution > >that comes closest to NPOV while being accepted by most. > > Well, that's one way of looking at it; however, as I understand Jack Lynch's > and Fred Bauder's view, this would more likely be seen as organized attempts > by POV pushers to control article content. :-) > > Jay. > > Organised attempts by POV pushers are usually reasonably transparent. The only problem of course, is where the majority of Wikipedians support a POV and put that ahead of NPOV editing (easy to do when you're in the majority and can get your way). But this is a problem when doing up policy in any case (particularly if attempting to nail down individual cases in general policy/guidelines - e.g. MoS). An interesting question is what would have happened if a majority vote/voted for using BCE/CE near-universally (except for Chrisitan topics). Does that mean it would have been NPOV? Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 27 15:02:22 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:02:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <4418c60e05062707423ab76ac2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Zoney > >An interesting question is what would have happened if a majority >vote/voted for using BCE/CE near-universally (except for Chrisitan >topics). Does that mean it would have been NPOV? NPOV, morally right, and might well have cured humanity's insatiable appetite for burning greenhouse-gas producing fossil fuels. ;-) Jay. From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 15:47:23 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 15:47:23 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050627154723.8869.qmail@webmail53.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. CATCHING. YET TO COME UP TO YOUR MARK. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/2005 MON On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 Henry Kissinger wrote : >Your capacity for thought experimetation is impressive. I like my >friendships to be based on admiration, respect, and trust. All BS aside, >you can walk away from me with no fear. You could actually call upon me >for anything you think you may need. I am not as smart as the average >bear, and would never forget that I am at the bottom of the pack (dogs). >Anger, frustration, or jealousy could never rock me from that >understanding. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Fred Bauder" > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:00:54 -0600 > > > > > That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern the > > Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one editor may > > be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. Perhaps other > > instances exist. > > > > Fred > > > > > > On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: > > > > >> From: Jack Lynch > > >> > > >> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, > and > > >> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a > single > > >> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious > topic, > > >> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > >> > > >> Jack (Sam Spade) > > >> > > > > > > Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large > > > number of other editors reject his POV edits? > > > > > > Jay. > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >-- >___________________________________________________________ >Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From perrin at apotheon.com Mon Jun 27 15:47:14 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:47:14 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <8D855B56-2617-4C69-90F6-93444DD652DD@ctelco.net> References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> <8D855B56-2617-4C69-90F6-93444DD652DD@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050627154714.GA26395@apotheon.com> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 07:52:24AM -0600, Fred Bauder wrote: > Such behavior is not rare nor is it common. People on the Arbitration > Committee see more than their share of it and it often results in > the user being banned. Without being familiar with the article and > its supporters ( I don't think you shared the name of the article ) I > can't say if it is any regular editor with an account. I believe it was noted that the battleground in question was on the "Division_Street" VfD. -- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 15:51:19 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 15:51:19 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? Message-ID: <20050627155119.5288.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. OBVIOUS. BALANCE IS THE ESSENCE. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/2005 MONDAY On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 Henry Kissinger wrote : >Why most certainly we always expect balanced journalism. The world needs >and expects lady killer lounge lizards, and even gay JJs ;). > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "JAY JG" > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Conflict arising - what to do? > Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:38:48 -0400 > > > > > In articles which concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, don't > > most edits consist of POV editors from both sides repeatedly > > reverting each other? ;-) > > > > Jay. > > > > > From: Fred Bauder > > > > > > That's true, but in at least one area, articles which concern > > > the Israeli-Palestine conflict, it is not unlikely that one > > > editor may be repeatedly reverted by a group of POV editors. > > > Perhaps other instances exist. > > > > > > Fred > > > > > > > > > On Jun 25, 2005, at 10:17 PM, JAY JG wrote: > > > > > >>> From: Jack Lynch > > >>> > > >>> I think we need better answers. I am familar w cases like this, > and > > >>> where they end up. How about its a large POV lobby instead of a > single > > >>> user, and they are trying to POV an ancient and contentious > topic, > > >>> chasing off any and all NPOV users who come along? > > >>> > > >>> Jack (Sam Spade) > > >>> > > >> > > >> Um, isn't that what every single POV editor claims when a large > > >> number of other editors reject his POV edits? > > >> > > >> Jay. > > >> > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> WikiEN-l mailing list > > >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >-- >___________________________________________________________ >Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com >http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From perrin at apotheon.com Mon Jun 27 15:52:37 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:52:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: References: <20050627141817.11581553.wikipedia@jamesgibbon.com> Message-ID: <20050627155237.GB26395@apotheon.com> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 03:02:43PM +0100, Andrew Gray wrote: > On 27/06/05, James Gibbon wrote: > > > But I was amazed to read a long-winded and detailed reply to a > > comment I'd made in a vote for deletion page (for the > > "Division_Street" article). In it, its author, who doesn't appear to > > be a member but uses the IP address 65.182.172.95, alleges that I am > > engaged in "wilful incomprehension" and "dirty net politics, a petty > > I was reading 1980s Usenet posts yesterday. I'd just like to say how > wonderfully retro the phrase "net politics" seems... ;-) That's "retro"? Way to make a guy feel old. I didn't even blink at it. > Just remember; he's the one being a prat. You've no dog in this fight; > if you want to ignore it, the only person disappointed in you will be > him... That is excellent advice, and well-phrased. I second the sentiment. > > Goodness, poking around conflicts is like getting your very own soap > opera sometimes. Impossible to stop. More like a train-wreck in slow motion, for me. Horrifying, but difficult to look away. -- Chad Perrin [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 15:57:11 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 15:57:11 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 Message-ID: <20050627155711.30040.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. NOT MUCH CONCERNED. YOURS, DANIEL RAY 27/06/2005 MONDAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Phil Boswell wrote : >"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote: > > Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this > > update? > > >Is this causing the strange doubling effect wherein the last edit is >appearing twice at the top of each history page, and single-diffs are >failing? > >...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little >larger? > >I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat >startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. >-- >Phil >[[en:User:Phil Boswell]] > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:00:32 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:00:32 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 Message-ID: <20050627160032.28992.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. MAY NOW BE NOT MUCH CONCERNED. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Brion Vibber wrote : >>"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote: >> >>>Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this update? > >Some hours, don't know how long exactly. Probably less than a full day, but no guarantee. :) > >All our other wikis remain open for editing in the meantime, so feel free to slake your wiki-thirst in Commons, Wiktionary, Wikinews, etc or Wikipedia in another language while en.wikipedia.org is locked. > >Phil Boswell wrote: >>Is this causing the strange doubling effect wherein the last edit is appearing twice at the top of each history page, and single-diffs are failing? > >Yes. The old database schema stored the current revision and older revisions in separate databases. The new schema rearranges things so revision data is stored in one place more consistently. > >The conversion works by first copying the current data in to where we had the old revisions, then breaking that off into the new text-storage, revision-metadata, and page tables. > >So in the meantime if you look at history, you will see two copies of the current revision -- one in each table. > >>...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little larger? >> >>I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. > >I'll poke at it a bit... > >-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From spyders at btinternet.com Mon Jun 27 16:03:35 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:03:35 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 References: <20050627155711.30040.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: <002b01c57b31$c60075a0$35419d51@hedlatora> Why do you find it hard to not disable the caps lock button? Also, judging by the details of the e-mail message, why do you feel it necessary to use a ghost mail client to mail the list? ----- Original Message ----- From: "DANIEL RAY" To: "English Wikipedia" Cc: Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 4:57 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 THANKS. NOT MUCH CONCERNED. YOURS, DANIEL RAY 27/06/2005 MONDAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Phil Boswell wrote : >"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" wrote: > > Has anyone got a clue for how long the database will be locked for this > > update? > > >Is this causing the strange doubling effect wherein the last edit is >appearing twice at the top of each history page, and single-diffs are >failing? > >...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little >larger? > >I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat >startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. >-- >Phil >[[en:User:Phil Boswell]] > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:03:37 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:03:37 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 Message-ID: <20050627160337.3033.qmail@webmail6.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. NOW NOT SO MUCH TO BE CONCERNED. YOURS DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Phil Boswell wrote : >"Brion Vibber" wrote in >message news:d9o7kg$voh$1 at sea.gmane.org... > > Phil Boswell wrote: >[query and excellent explanation snipped] > > >> ...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little > >> larger? > >> I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat > >> startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. > > I'll poke at it a bit... > >Aaahh, that's better :-) > >BTW you're obviously posting from somewhere unusual, because OE was able to >read your message directly without having to open it as an attachment !?!?! >-- >Phil >[[en:User:Phil Boswell]] > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:06:47 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:06:47 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 Message-ID: <20050627160647.23486.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. ALREADY REPLIED. PLEASE AVOID REPETITION. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Brion Vibber wrote : >Phil Boswell wrote: >>>>...and is it possible to make the notice announcing the upgrade a little >>>>larger? >>>>I sailed into a correct without noticing the Site-Notice and was somewhat >>>>startled to face the "locked-out" version of the edit page. >>> >>>I'll poke at it a bit... >> >>Aaahh, that's better :-) >> >>BTW you're obviously posting from somewhere unusual, because OE was able to >>read your message directly without having to open it as an attachment !?!?! > >I'm reading this list through a newsreader on the gmane link, and >postings didn't default to PGP-signed. > >See what happens to this one though. ;) > >-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com) >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:11:48 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:11:48 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List Message-ID: <20050627161148.24999.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. TRUE. LAW TOO HAS ETHICS TO FOLLOW. LAW FOR MAN BY MAN. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Ray Saintonge wrote : >DF wrote: > >>Either we need to accept that such a list, though >>potentially useful, is too much of a copyright concern >>to keep around. >>OR >> >>We need to come to some agreement that such lists will >>be maintained despite the potential liability. In >>which case, Jimbo probably needs sign off since he is >>ultimately the one who is liable. >> >It is interesting to follow some of the links in our Feist v. Rural article. I was just reading through the decision in Assessment Technologies v. Wiredata (ooops I almost typed Wikidata. :-) ) http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/JX03YB6O.pdf where it was ruled that the copyright owner could not use copyright law to prevent access to non-copyright information. Cited in that case also was the case of Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510, 1520-28 (9th Cir. 1992). There the court ruled that it was fair use for Accolade to make a copy of and reverse engineer Sega's console software in order to make its own games playable on Sega's system. The court said, "For technical reasons, Accolade had to make a copy of the source code in order to be able to obtain this information. It didn?t want to sell the source code, produce a game-console operating system, or make any other use of the copyrighted code except to be able to sell a noninfringing product, namely a computer game. The court held that this ?intermediate copying? of the operating system was a fair use, since the only effect of enjoining it would be to give Sega control over noninfringing products, namely Accolade?s games." > >It is also of interest that in a later ruling on costs Wiredata was awarded $91,765.28 in legal fees. To a large extent this was because there was an attempt to extent rights beyond what was avaiable in copyrights, and a recognition that the defendant in such cases is often at a disadvantage. "When the prevailing party is the defendant, who by definition receives not a small award but no award, the presumption in favor of awarding fees is very strong. See Diamond Star Building Corp. v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506 (4th Cir. 1994). For without the prospect of such an award, the party might be forced into a nuisance settlement or deterred altogether from enforcing his rights. > >AFAIK The discussion so far on this point has been an internal one, with no intervention by anyone representing EB. I don't believe that we are infringing their copyrights, but even if we were there are steps which they must take if they wish to enforce that right. The first such step would be to issue a take-down order. That would give us an opportunity to comply without further problems. In a clear case of copyright violation we would indeed be required to take things down when we become aware of the problem even without such a notice. Where there is serious doubt about the copyrightability of the material we do better by giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt. > >Ec > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:19:40 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:19:40 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627161940.16859.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. INFORMATIVE. EDUCATIVE. ALL CAN'T BE SAME. EVERYTHING CAN'T HAPPEN AS WE THINK OR PLAN. SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN. AS IT HAPPENS, SO IS THE RESULT. AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP. IT'S LIVING. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY + On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 James Gibbon wrote : >Hello, > >This is my first mail to the list; I've been a contributor to >Wikipedia for only five days. However, I've taken part in a wide >range of discussion fora on the Internet over the last 9 years or >so. > >But I was amazed to read a long-winded and detailed reply to a >comment I'd made in a vote for deletion page (for the >"Division_Street" article). In it, its author, who doesn't appear to >be a member but uses the IP address 65.182.172.95, alleges that I am >engaged in "wilful incomprehension" and "dirty net politics, a petty >act of revenge that has come in response to the fact that I made a >few of your friends look foolish elsewhere on this site, and did so >without being apologetic about it". He goes on to say: "This is a >power play on your faction's part, a brave little shoveback to >reclaim a little online turf and make yourselves look like big men". >He ends by commenting "rest assured, buddy, I will never let this >one go", and signs himself "the noneditor". > >The comment which to which this was a response was a fairly >innocuous and genuinely sincere remark on my part, to the effect >that I was unable to establish the notability of the subject of his >article. It's perfectly true that the author represents in the piece >that it is notable, but I'm afraid I have already seen more than one >article which makes this claim falsely; I just don't have the >cultural background to judge this. My comment was not even a vote >for deletion, only a note to say that the article should be >rewritten if it was indeed notable, otherwise it should be deleted. > >In fact, contrary to the author's claim, I have no idea who he is >and have no knowlege whatever of anything he might have been >involved in at Wikipedia or anywhere else. I cannot claim to have >established any friends in the brief time I've taken part, and I >certainly do not belong to a "faction". I have no knowledge of any >event which might prompt an "act of revenge". I find the idea of >turf wars between rival gangs at an online encyclopaedia pretty >unedifying, and would not wish to take part in one. > >Anyway the VfD page is obviously still there for anyone who's >interested to see it. When the software upgrade is complete and the >page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as >possible. > >A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? >Does he have a history of this sort of thing? It does smell more >than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour >common in general at Wikipedia? > >It's been a bit of an eye-opener! > >Thanks and regards from the middle of England, >James > >-- >Dig It : a forum for European Beatles fans - http://beatles.dyndns.org/ >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:25:58 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 12:25:58 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: <20050627161940.16859.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: >From: "DANIEL RAY" >THANKS. INFORMATIVE. EDUCATIVE. ALL CAN'T BE SAME. EVERYTHING CAN'T HAPPEN >AS WE THINK OR PLAN. SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN. AS IT HAPPENS, SO IS THE >RESULT. AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP. IT'S LIVING. > >YOURS, >DANIEL RAY >DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM Could the e-mailer/e-mailers performing [[breaching experiment]]s be unsubscribed please? Thanks, Jay. From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:41:25 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:41:25 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV Message-ID: <20050627164125.2768.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. NOT YET LIKELY TO BE CONCERNED. MAY BE LATER. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Jimmy Wales wrote : >I can offer no particularly helpful opinion on this, other than to say >that with this kind of thoughtful analysis, we will certainly do our >best in the end. > >This kind of thinking is *really* important to me, it is the *essence* >of what it means (to me) to be a good wikipedian. > >Thanks. > >--Jimbo > > >Fastfission wrote: > > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly > > regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty > > straightforward -- > >[...] > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:44:47 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:44:47 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627164447.7621.qmail@webmail8.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. I TOO. RIGHT. OBVIOUS. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Jimmy Wales wrote : >James Gibbon wrote: > > When the software upgrade is complete and the > > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > > possible. > >It sounds like you'll make a great Wikipedians. > >Especially from anonymous ip numbers, well, you never know what they are >going to say. The Internet is a big place and there are rather a large >number of wingnuts out there. > >--Jimbo >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:47:49 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:47:49 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627164749.23963.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. ALREADY REPLIED. PLEASE AVOID REPETITIONS ANYWAY TO HELP SAVE TIME, MONEY AND RESOURCES AT BOTH ENDS. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Jimmy Wales wrote : >James Gibbon wrote: > > When the software upgrade is complete and the > > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > > possible. > >It sounds like you'll make a great Wikipedian. > >Especially from anonymous ip numbers, well, you never know what they are >going to say. The Internet is a big place and there are rather a large >number of wingnuts out there. > >--Jimbo >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 16:56:49 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 16:56:49 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627165649.10219.qmail@webmail10.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. REPLIED TWICE. KINDLY DO AVOID SENDING SAME EMAILS REPETITIVELY HELP SAVE RESOURCES AT BOTH ENDS FOR YOU APPRECIATE YOU CANNOT COMPEL ONE TO BE IDENTIFIED FOOL AND IF YOU BETTER KNOW, THE RESULT WOULD GO NEGATIVE. PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHILE SENDING EMAILS ALREADY SENT AND REPLIED. I DO HOPE YOU WOULD BE CAUTIOUS AND OBVIOUSLY NEVER MISUNDERSTAND ME FOR WRITING THIS LONG EMAIL. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Jimmy Wales wrote : >James Gibbon wrote: > > When the software upgrade is complete and the > > page is unlocked, I will respond as calmly and unemotionally as > > possible. > >It sounds like you'll make a great Wikipedian. > >Especially from anonymous ip numbers, well, you never know what they are >going to say. The Internet is a big place and there are rather a large >number of wingnuts out there. > >--Jimbo >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From danielray at rediffmail.com Mon Jun 27 17:00:10 2005 From: danielray at rediffmail.com (DANIEL RAY) Date: 27 Jun 2005 17:00:10 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning Message-ID: <20050627170010.1496.qmail@webmail7.rediffmail.com> ? THANKS. NOW NOT CONCERNED. YOURS, DANIEL RAY DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM 27/06/05 MONDAY On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Fred Bauder wrote : >Such behavior is not rare nor is it common. People on the Arbitration Committee see more than their share of it and it often results in the user being banned. Without being familiar with the article and its supporters ( I don't think you shared the name of the article ) I can't say if it is any regular editor with an account. > >I hope you are not permanently put off by this incident, but learn to effectively resist the energy it represents. > >Fred > >On Jun 27, 2005, at 7:18 AM, James Gibbon wrote: > >>A couple of questions, then: can anyone tell me who this person is? >>Does he have a history of this sort of thing? It does smell more >>than faintly of paranoia, I have to say. Is this sort of behaviour >>common in general at Wikipedia? > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From nyenyec at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 18:22:45 2005 From: nyenyec at gmail.com (Nyenyec N) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:22:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems Message-ID: Hi, I tried to clarify this on several pages, e.g. on [[Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy]], but I got no answer so far. I'll try to be short: - For a 3RR violation an admin can *block* a user but cannot ban him - The rules for blocking don't mention that the block can be extended or known socks of the same user can be blocked if the block is violated Therefore, a user blocked under 3RR can argue that: - No admin can extend the block after 24 hours if he doesn't continue the revert war (Since this is an option only for bans but not blocks) - No admin can block him when he returns through a known sock I think this wasn't the intention of those, who formulated the rules and the penalties for evading the block after a 3RR violation should be extended based on WP:BAN. I've learned that several admins do interpret the policies this way, i.e. that they have the right to block the known sock and have the right to extend the block. I think this should be fixed. Thanks, [[User:Nyenyec]] From delirium at hackish.org Mon Jun 27 20:31:26 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:31:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42C0621E.8010509@hackish.org> Fastfission wrote: >[[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly >regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty >straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always >either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in >bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is >generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming >these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather >that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as >"pseudoscience". > > Well, I happen to be a scientist by training and profession, and not a Creationist or Eugenicist, but I really dislike [[Category:Pseudoscience]]. This *is* indeed making a claim from Wikipedia that said articles describe pseudoscience, which is not particularly neutral. If, as you describe, we want to describe something as "labelled pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community", it should be given a category that reflects that more neutrally, such as [[Category:Non-mainstream scientific theories]]. Sort of how we have [[Category:Alternative medicine]] rather than [[Category:Quack medicine]]. -Mark From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 20:43:19 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:43:19 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <42C0621E.8010509@hackish.org> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> <42C0621E.8010509@hackish.org> Message-ID: On 6/27/05, Delirium wrote: > Well, I happen to be a scientist by training and profession, and not a > Creationist or Eugenicist, but I really dislike > [[Category:Pseudoscience]]. This *is* indeed making a claim from > Wikipedia that said articles describe pseudoscience, which is not > particularly neutral. If, as you describe, we want to describe > something as "labelled pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific > community", it should be given a category that reflects that more > neutrally, such as [[Category:Non-mainstream scientific theories]]. > Sort of how we have [[Category:Alternative medicine]] rather than > [[Category:Quack medicine]]. But a major aspect of Category:Pseudoscience is that they generally aren't scientific theories at all, but rather that they use scientific language without the accompanying rigor. They might be right, but they generally are not science. I agree that a more neutral sounding name would be nice, but I'm not sure what would work... I believe the category is useful, so we shouldn't just do away with it. From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 21:56:01 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:56:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sounds like legalism to me. Common sense that socks of an editor blocked for 3RR can be blocked at the very least for any further reverts (not 3 more, even one more is enough). Common sense also says that a 3RR block should not be extended. Let's not get hung up on pedantic legalistic arguments over whether 3RR is a "block" or a "ban" or whether or not admins have a "right" to block or not block. This is an encyclopedia, not an experiment in bureacracy. Kelly On 6/27/05, Nyenyec N wrote: > Hi, > > I tried to clarify this on several pages, e.g. on > [[Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy]], but I got no answer so far. > > I'll try to be short: > > - For a 3RR violation an admin can *block* a user but cannot ban him > - The rules for blocking don't mention that the block can be extended > or known socks of the same user can be blocked if the block is > violated > > Therefore, a user blocked under 3RR can argue that: > - No admin can extend the block after 24 hours if he doesn't continue > the revert war > (Since this is an option only for bans but not blocks) > - No admin can block him when he returns through a known sock > > I think this wasn't the intention of those, who formulated the rules > and the penalties for evading the block after a 3RR violation should > be extended based on WP:BAN. > > I've learned that several admins do interpret the policies this way, > i.e. that they have the right to block the known sock and have the > right to extend the block. > > I think this should be fixed. > > Thanks, > [[User:Nyenyec]] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From gmaxwell at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 22:00:05 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:00:05 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/27/05, Kelly Martin wrote: > Sounds like legalism to me. Common sense that socks of an editor > blocked for 3RR can be blocked at the very least for any further > reverts (not 3 more, even one more is enough). Common sense also says > that a 3RR block should not be extended. > > Let's not get hung up on pedantic legalistic arguments over whether > 3RR is a "block" or a "ban" or whether or not admins have a "right" > to block or not block. This is an encyclopedia, not an experiment in > bureacracy. Right! Our policy pages are around to help make our behavior more uniform and to reduce the surprise when we do what we normally do... They do not exist to shackle us. The wikipedia community reserves the right to decided everything on a case by case basis. Consistency is important but it is less important than having a correct solution. From violetriga at gmail.com Mon Jun 27 23:39:39 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 00:39:39 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rather surprising outburst on VfD this morning In-Reply-To: References: <20050627161940.16859.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/27/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: "DANIEL RAY" > >THANKS. INFORMATIVE. EDUCATIVE. ALL CAN'T BE SAME. EVERYTHING CAN'T HAPPEN > >AS WE THINK OR PLAN. SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN. AS IT HAPPENS, SO IS THE > >RESULT. AS YOU SOW, SO YOU REAP. IT'S LIVING. > > > >YOURS, > >DANIEL RAY > >DANIELRAY at REDIFFMAIL.COM > > Could the e-mailer/e-mailers performing [[breaching experiment]]s be > unsubscribed please? > > Thanks, > > Jay. Yes, please. ~~~~ Violet/Riga From nyenyec at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 00:07:04 2005 From: nyenyec at gmail.com (Nyenyec N) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 19:07:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You are absolutely right. But let me give you some background to my question. I'm one of the 2 sysops on HuWiki. We have a growing, but still fragile community with about 20 very active (100+ edits / month) editors. Currently we experienced the first onslaught of quite persistent trolls and disruptive users ever. Unfortunately several of the key policies have never been translated including WP:SOCK or have been translated before but never had to be put into use like 3RR. A couple of days ago we had to issue the first blocks for 3RR and the two sysops were vehemently attacked by the blocked users and their friends, demanding our resignation. I know it's business as usual in EnWiki, but to me, this was my first trial by fire as a sysop (i.e. being called a "nazi"). We're in the process of translating and clarifying all key policies and that's how I found out this inconsistency in the word of the policy and common practice in EnWiki. The reason I wanted to clarify this is because I know I'm going to be *personally* attacked because of this if its not crystal clear in our version. :( BTW, do you know how the initial policies of smaller Wikipedia's get formulated? Are they translations of EnWiki policies? Or do they have their own local benevolent dicator like Jimbo, who has the final say in these matters (at least initially)? Or do people in smaller Wikipedias vote on each and every policy from day 1? Thanks, nyenyec On 6/27/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/27/05, Kelly Martin wrote: > > Sounds like legalism to me. Common sense that socks of an editor > > blocked for 3RR can be blocked at the very least for any further > > reverts (not 3 more, even one more is enough). Common sense also says > > that a 3RR block should not be extended. > > > > Let's not get hung up on pedantic legalistic arguments over whether > > 3RR is a "block" or a "ban" or whether or not admins have a "right" > > to block or not block. This is an encyclopedia, not an experiment in > > bureacracy. > > Right! > > Our policy pages are around to help make our behavior more uniform and > to reduce the surprise when we do what we normally do... They do not > exist to shackle us. The wikipedia community reserves the right to > decided everything on a case by case basis. Consistency is important > but it is less important than having a correct solution. > From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 00:37:02 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 19:37:02 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/27/05, Nyenyec N wrote: > Currently we experienced the first onslaught of quite persistent > trolls and disruptive users ever. > Unfortunately several of the key policies have never been translated > including WP:SOCK or have been translated before but never had to be > put into use like 3RR. > > A couple of days ago we had to issue the first blocks for 3RR and the > two sysops were vehemently attacked by the blocked users and their > friends, demanding our resignation. > > I know it's business as usual in EnWiki, but to me, this was my first > trial by fire as a sysop (i.e. being called a "nazi"). > We're in the process of translating and clarifying all key policies > and that's how I found out this inconsistency in the word of the > policy and common practice in EnWiki. > > The reason I wanted to clarify this is because I know I'm going to be > *personally* attacked because of this if its not crystal clear in our > version. :( > > BTW, do you know how the initial policies of smaller Wikipedia's get formulated? > Are they translations of EnWiki policies? Or do they have their own > local benevolent dicator like Jimbo, who has the final say in these > matters (at least initially)? > > Or do people in smaller Wikipedias vote on each and every policy from day 1? There is nothing magical about policy on en. Other wikis are free to make their own policy to meet their own specific needs. The only thing that isn't negotiable is NPOV. People will attack admins for protecting the wiki no matter how precisely formulated policy is. Don't think that writing highly detailed, well-defined policy will have any effect on that. en has LOTS of places where the "formal policy" deviates from actual practice. Eventually someone will fix the formal policy to match the actual practice, at which point actual practice will again diverge from formal policy. Kelly From alphasigmax at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 01:33:15 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:03:15 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Switch to MediaWiki 1.5 In-Reply-To: <002b01c57b31$c60075a0$35419d51@hedlatora> References: <20050627155711.30040.qmail@webmail9.rediffmail.com> <002b01c57b31$c60075a0$35419d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <42C0A8DB.3010203@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > Why do you find it hard to not disable the caps lock button? Also, judging > by the details of the e-mail message, why do you feel it necessary to use a > ghost mail client to mail the list? > Beware of smelly under-bridge dwellers! - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwKjb/RxM5Ph0xhMRAt3aAKCp0qdG+/29NG+41iumrBkBgBVQKwCfbNpu 9ABQL9D3rPRHc+gsEZ/guag= =uit7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 02:38:31 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 22:38:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> <42C0621E.8010509@hackish.org> Message-ID: <98dd099a050627193861369b1b@mail.gmail.com> Yes, non-mainstream scientific theories are something different than pseudoscience; i.e. that whole "Variable Speed of Light" theory whatnot that a few legitimate physicists have advocated and is considered within the bounds of physical research but is not currently accepted by most physicists as likely being true. (At least, that's my understanding of it -- I'm no physicist) A better label might do it, but at some point you risk things being unmanageable and bordering on self-parody. [[Category:Is labeled as a "pseudoscience" by the mainstream scientific communitiy]] is more accurate and NPOV, but for obvious reasons it seems impractical. If there was some way to make it so that when somebody entered in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] it would say that at the bottom of the page, it would be more practical, but as far as I understand it the best one can do along these lines is a redirect which doesn't fix the problem. And I don't think this is necessarily a sensible modification to request for MediaWiki -- it would be somewhat complicated and the developers have better things to do. Hmm. If someone could come up with a better title that might fix it, but I fear there are no simple titles. And anyway, it still doesn't solve the question of symmetry: [[Category:Considered a Satanic lie by certain religious sects]] would still feel too much like pandering to a certain POV for me to feel comfortable with it on the [[Evolution]] page. I'm leaning towards just creating a [[List of pseudosciences]] which would redirect to [[List of "pseudosciences"]] or some other title which would indicate explicitly the problematic nature of the term. I don't think there is an article like this at the moment, with the exception of [[List of alternative, speculative, or disputed theories]] which is not quite the same thing, is not a great title, and is currently in debate on VfD, I believe. Then I would nominate [[Category:Pseudoscience]] for CfD. However I'm not sure it would pass -- there are a lot of people who are (rightfully, in my mind) suspicious of such nominations as either misunderstanding the category, or being someone who is just unhappy with falling under it. Clearly neither is the case in this instance but I'm not sure everybody else would see it this way. On the other hand, I'm inclined to think that there SHOULD be somewhat POV "warnings" on some pages of *some* sort. It would be counter to the idea of producing a true encyclopedia of *reliable* knowledge if it was impossible to distinguish things which have good support for their belief from things that do not. Of course, I fully recognize that my sense that science is a more reliable form of knowledge than most others is reflective of a certain POV I carry (and honestly, I'm a lot more moderate on these lines than a good number of people -- there are some branches of science I definitely take more seriously than others, and I've probably spent more time than most in looking at the problems with the scientific "system", at least from a historical point of view). In an ideal world, a well-written NPOV article though ought to indicate that sort of thing pretty clearly and pretty early on. And in the end, maybe what it comes down to is: Categories should not serve as "warning" flags. They are meant to just be taxonomic devices. Obviously taxonomy carries strong implications towards meaning (viz. George Lakoff's work), but this fact just reinforces the point that taxonomy needs to be considered strictly under the NPOV policy as well. Hmm. Well anyway, I will think about it some more still, there is no rush on this. I appreciate the comments given so far in response to this. (And I'm clearly not trying to imply that this is just MY decision to make, of course! But I'm aware other people have other things they are working on, so if I imply that this is something weighing of me specifically, it's just because I know that this is not likely at the top of anyone else's agenda) FF On 6/27/05, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On 6/27/05, Delirium wrote: > > Well, I happen to be a scientist by training and profession, and not a > > Creationist or Eugenicist, but I really dislike > > [[Category:Pseudoscience]]. This *is* indeed making a claim from > > Wikipedia that said articles describe pseudoscience, which is not > > particularly neutral. If, as you describe, we want to describe > > something as "labelled pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific > > community", it should be given a category that reflects that more > > neutrally, such as [[Category:Non-mainstream scientific theories]]. > > Sort of how we have [[Category:Alternative medicine]] rather than > > [[Category:Quack medicine]]. > > But a major aspect of Category:Pseudoscience is that they generally > aren't scientific theories at all, but rather that they use scientific > language without the accompanying rigor. They might be right, but they > generally are not science. > > I agree that a more neutral sounding name would be nice, but I'm not > sure what would work... I believe the category is useful, so we > shouldn't just do away with it. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 02:45:26 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 22:45:26 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> > It is also of interest that in a later ruling on costs Wiredata was > awarded $91,765.28 in legal fees. To a large extent this was because > there was an attempt to extent rights beyond what was avaiable in > copyrights, and a recognition that the defendant in such cases is often > at a disadvantage. "When the prevailing party is the defendant, who by > definition receives not a small award but no award, the presumption in > favor of awarding fees is very strong. See Diamond Star Building Corp. > v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506 (4th Cir. 1994). For without the prospect of > such an award, the party might be forced into a nuisance settlement or > deterred altogether from enforcing his rights. I want to just note -- I'm not a lawyer of any kind, but I believe in a number of circumstances there are times in which such sorts of counter-suits, getting legal fees back, etc., are NOT guaranteed, and I'm pretty sure that defenses of "fair use" generally don't get you that ("fair use" is what you use in your defense -- it is not asserted as an offensive "right" you can claim is infringed in current US copyright law). At least, that's what I took away from Lessig's book, _Free Culture_, which makes the argument in part that nuisance settlements are a very common way for unreasonable copyright claims to be threatened and enforced against clear fair use activities (you can read it online if you are interested in what I am talking about -- see the section on the kid who got sued by the RIAA just for writing a better Windows networking client). Which is just to say -- at the moment, you can't rely on the threat of counter-suit and so forth to necessarily deter lawsuits, as I understand it. (Personally I think this is one of the MAJOR problems with current copyright law -- it makes defending principles punitively expensive, and has gone too far to emphasize the "monopoly" aspect of copyright law without remembering the "limited" part, but I'm hardly the first to make such an observation). FF From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 04:43:50 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 06:43:50 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree with the others here. It's just common sense to block people who are trying to avoid their punishment by sockpuppeting. Just make sure they really are the same as best you can. --Mgm On 6/27/05, Nyenyec N wrote: > Hi, > > I tried to clarify this on several pages, e.g. on > [[Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy]], but I got no answer so far. > > I'll try to be short: > > - For a 3RR violation an admin can *block* a user but cannot ban him > - The rules for blocking don't mention that the block can be extended > or known socks of the same user can be blocked if the block is > violated > > Therefore, a user blocked under 3RR can argue that: > - No admin can extend the block after 24 hours if he doesn't continue > the revert war > (Since this is an option only for bans but not blocks) > - No admin can block him when he returns through a known sock > > I think this wasn't the intention of those, who formulated the rules > and the penalties for evading the block after a 3RR violation should > be extended based on WP:BAN. > > I've learned that several admins do interpret the policies this way, > i.e. that they have the right to block the known sock and have the > right to extend the block. > > I think this should be fixed. > > Thanks, > [[User:Nyenyec]] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From joyce at cmlink.com Tue Jun 28 03:42:55 2005 From: joyce at cmlink.com (Joyce Lee) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:42:55 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press inquiry Message-ID: <825362F7-0296-4847-AA4F-AF9106DE2ACD@cmlink.com> Hi, I am emailing from Hong Kong and I am the Photo Editor of Hong Kong Tatler magazine. Our magazines cover the business, cultural, social and sporting life and our readers are generally affluent, well- educated individuals who are active in social circles in Hong Kong. Please have a look at our website for more information About us (www.cmlink.com) We are working on the local article in August and we are planning to use the image of "Moorehead as Endora on bewitched?" to illustrate the sidebar of the story. We like to give the credit of this image. If you can provide the hi-rez image to us we would be appreciated. Please let us know. Many thanks Joyce Lee Communication Management Ltd. 1808 Hong Kong Plaza 188 Connaught Road West Hong Kong Tel:(852) 2859-4419 Fax:(852) 2858-2671 E-mail: joyce at cmlink.com From christopherlarberg at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 07:55:04 2005 From: christopherlarberg at gmail.com (Christopher Larberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 00:55:04 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Press inquiry In-Reply-To: <825362F7-0296-4847-AA4F-AF9106DE2ACD@cmlink.com> References: <825362F7-0296-4847-AA4F-AF9106DE2ACD@cmlink.com> Message-ID: <7f0966f050628005535841a27@mail.gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 6/27/05, Joyce Lee wrote: > Hi, > > I am emailing from Hong Kong and I am the Photo Editor of Hong Kong > Tatler magazine. Our magazines cover the business, cultural, social > and sporting life and our readers are generally affluent, well- > educated individuals who are active in social circles in Hong Kong. > Please have a look at our website for more information About us > (www.cmlink.com) > > We are working on the local article in August and we are planning to > use the image of "Moorehead as Endora on bewitched?" to illustrate > the sidebar of the story. We like to give the credit of this image. > If you can provide the hi-rez image to us we would be appreciated. > > Please let us know. > > Many thanks > Joyce Lee The image in question (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moorehead_as_Endora.jpg) is a copyrighted image; neither the Wikimedia foundation nor any Wikipedia contributors own the copyright to it. As the image page indicates, the use of the image on Wikipedia is held to be fair use under United States copyright law. This may not be true for your magazine, especially since it is based in China, which almost certainly has copyright laws different from those of the U.S. To learn more about copyrights on Wikipedia, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights. Your best recourse would be to contact the owner or owners of the copyright to "Bewitched." As a side note, I speak in no official capacity for Wikipedia or the Mediawiki Foundation; I am simply a volunteer. Any official correspondence should be directed to the Foundation Board of Trustees (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees). --Christopher Larberg (a.k.a. Slowking Man) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCwQGuCYNOh7qrRhoRAu1/AJ4p3nLO/rHItVFliGy8lmDOVhT+FgCeOYIJ Ibj2kuajVH6rx971XyPezIU= =u32B -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From phil.boswell at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 09:29:03 2005 From: phil.boswell at gmail.com (Phil Boswell) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:29:03 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Requests for adminship reform References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Rebecca" wrote in message news:530912670506242235423de22f at mail.gmail.com... [snip] > ... We've had three admins face disciplinary action > over admin abuses before, all leading to de-sysopping, and more > recently, one that was emergency de-sysopped after going on a deleting > rampage. Is there a specific place where this kind of thing is recorded so that the interested (and the curious and the plain nosy :-) can familiarise themselves with the history of the situation? I hear a lot of references to occurrences like this, but if you happen to be away at the time (or like me have no access outside of work hours) it can be difficult to catch up with what has (or has not) happened, which can make it in turn difficult to make a rational decision should one be called for. -- Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 28 09:38:15 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 02:38:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> Fastfission wrote: >>It is also of interest that in a later ruling on costs Wiredata was >>awarded $91,765.28 in legal fees. To a large extent this was because >>there was an attempt to extent rights beyond what was avaiable in >>copyrights, and a recognition that the defendant in such cases is often >>at a disadvantage. "When the prevailing party is the defendant, who by >>definition receives not a small award but no award, the presumption in >>favor of awarding fees is very strong. See Diamond Star Building Corp. >>v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506 (4th Cir. 1994). For without the prospect of >>such an award, the party might be forced into a nuisance settlement or >>deterred altogether from enforcing his rights. >> >> > >I want to just note -- I'm not a lawyer of any kind, but I believe in >a number of circumstances there are times in which such sorts of >counter-suits, getting legal fees back, etc., are NOT guaranteed, and >I'm pretty sure that defenses of "fair use" generally don't get you >that ("fair use" is what you use in your defense -- it is not asserted >as an offensive "right" you can claim is infringed in current US >copyright law). At least, that's what I took away from Lessig's book, >_Free Culture_, which makes the argument in part that nuisance >settlements are a very common way for unreasonable copyright claims to >be threatened and enforced against clear fair use activities (you can >read it online if you are interested in what I am talking about -- see >the section on the kid who got sued by the RIAA just for writing a >better Windows networking client). > >Which is just to say -- at the moment, you can't rely on the threat of >counter-suit and so forth to necessarily deter lawsuits, as I >understand it. (Personally I think this is one of the MAJOR problems >with current copyright law -- it makes defending principles punitively >expensive, and has gone too far to emphasize the "monopoly" aspect of >copyright law without remembering the "limited" part, but I'm hardly >the first to make such an observation). > > This was not a matter of a countersuit. The copyright issue was already won by the defendants when they sought to recover costs. In Online Policy Group v. Diebold http://www.eff.org/legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20040930_Diebold_SJ_Order.pdf Diebold was ordered to pay costs because it had misused copyright. I don't think that a firm with big bucks at stake is going to be deterred by legal fees, or the threat of being required to pay the opponent's legal fees. Defendants' difficulties are not limited to copyright law. Any defendant faced with a contingency chasing lawyer is going to be at a disadvantage. A plaintiff and his contingency paid lawyer should be held jointly liable for a winning defendant's fees in the same amount as the lawyer would have received if he had won. :-) Ec From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Jun 28 10:45:17 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:45:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions Message-ID: <062820051045.11036.42C12A3C000EACAD00002B1C22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others edit to talk pages. Since it has happened in different page communities, and I have even deleted the comments of others unwittingly without being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug in the new software. Is anyone else seeing this? -- thanx, Silverback From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 11:41:58 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:41:58 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > And in the end, maybe what it comes down to is: Categories should not > serve as "warning" flags. They are meant to just be taxonomic devices. Agreed. If someone reads an article on, say, homeopathy and only realizes when she sees the categories at the bottom that the thing doesn't work then there's something wrong with the article (incidentally I think [[homeopathy]] makes the "doesn't work" part fairly clear as it is). I think rejecting this particular useful category on grounds of the NPOV-policy is a bit too much. Almost every category could be questioned by someone. For a random example I see that the article on the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints is in the "Christian denominations" category. There are Christians that think Mormons aren't Christians. As for the "alternative medicine" category then I suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work" or some such would be more accurate. I for one would actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative" has some undeserved positive connotations and implies that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual medicine. So, don't forget to take the Grumpy Scientist Point of View into account :) Regards, Haukur ?orgeirsson (User:Haukurth) From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 28 11:46:08 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 05:46:08 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> Message-ID: While we should aggressively defend our rights, avoiding litigation is a wise policy. For one thing, particular judges don't necessarily follow the law that you think they will. Additionally although you may eventually get costs, you first must pay costs. I'm still not sure about the list of Britannica articles, but I am sure that our own method of generating endless article titles is probably more comprehensive than any list like that. I know that when I want to start a new article I don't look the topic up in Britannica first. So I think the list is probably worthless for our purposes anyway. Fred On Jun 28, 2005, at 3:38 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > This was not a matter of a countersuit. The copyright issue was > already won by the defendants when they sought to recover costs. > In Online Policy Group v. Diebold http://www.eff.org/legal/ > ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20040930_Diebold_SJ_Order.pdf Diebold > was ordered to pay costs because it had misused copyright. > I don't think that a firm with big bucks at stake is going to be > deterred by legal fees, or the threat of being required to pay the > opponent's legal fees. Defendants' difficulties are not limited to > copyright law. Any defendant faced with a contingency chasing > lawyer is going to be at a disadvantage. A plaintiff and his > contingency paid lawyer should be held jointly liable for a winning > defendant's fees in the same amount as the lawyer would have > received if he had won. :-) > > Ec From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Jun 28 12:37:51 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:37:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Could we have the old Special:Blockip interface back, please? Message-ID: <21943.194.72.110.12.1119962271.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> There isn't enough fine control on that dropdown list. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Jun 28 12:42:59 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:42:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems Message-ID: <33572.194.72.110.12.1119962579.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Nothing good can come from enouraging editors to use socks and proxies to evade blocks. Where this has happened in the past I've found that escalating blocks on all offending sources tires the miscreant out. From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 12:51:28 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:51:28 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Could we have the old Special:Blockip interface back, please? In-Reply-To: <21943.194.72.110.12.1119962271.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <21943.194.72.110.12.1119962271.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On 6/28/05, Tony Sidaway wrote: > There isn't enough fine control on that dropdown list. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > probably best reported on buigzilla but I agree it sucks big time -- geni From shimgray at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 12:56:39 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:56:39 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 28/06/05, Nyenyec N wrote: > The reason I wanted to clarify this is because I know I'm going to be > *personally* attacked because of this if its not crystal clear in our > version. :( Perhaps just ensure that it is clear in the final hu.policy that, when you say "user", you mean "the user John Smith" not "the username johnsmith"? It may be that this allows ambiguities - people trying to argue that socks shouldn't be blocked because they interpret "user" as being "username" not "person"... And best of luck keeping the peace! -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From ultrablue at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 13:01:05 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:01:05 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] In the interests of transparency Message-ID: In the interests of transparency in mailing list admin actions, I have placed two recent contributors to the list (DANIEL RAY and Henry Kissinger) on moderation (i.e. their messages require list admin approval) because their messages to the mailing list appear to be gibberish. If anyone feels this is unwarranted, please contact me or one of the other mailing list administrators. ~Mark Ryan From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 13:22:36 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:22:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > > I think rejecting this particular useful category > on grounds of the NPOV-policy is a bit too much. In what way is it useful? That has not yet been explained to me. > As for the "alternative medicine" category then I > suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work" > or some such would be more accurate. I for one would > actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative" > has some undeserved positive connotations and implies > that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual > medicine. I encourage everyone who take part in this debate, to study the category tree in and around the category "Pseudoscience". Actually, there is one Category "Quackery" and another one called "Alternative medicine". Quackery is a sub-category to Alternative medicine, but while Quackery is also a sub-category to Pseudoscience Alternative medicine is a sub-category to Medicine. Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain, healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity quack. As I said before, I see the Pseudoscience category as a "scrap bin" for those who don't want to take the time to distinguish one thing from the other. /Habj From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 13:39:23 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:39:23 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Requests for adminship reform In-Reply-To: References: <530912670506242235423de22f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <53091267050628063944d90ed6@mail.gmail.com> On 6/28/05, Phil Boswell wrote: > Is there a specific place where this kind of thing is recorded so that the > interested (and the curious and the plain nosy :-) can familiarise > themselves with the history of the situation? > > I hear a lot of references to occurrences like this, but if you happen to be > away at the time (or like me have no access outside of work hours) it can be > difficult to catch up with what has (or has not) happened, which can make it > in turn difficult to make a rational decision should one be called for. > -- > Phil > [[en:User:Phil Boswell]] There is an archive of completed arbitration cases at [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests]]. The cases involving the two users who lost their adminship through arbitration are in there. There were two others before the arbitration committee was created that would come under our jurisdiction now, but as they were done through other means, all that remains are a few mailing list posts. -- ambi From misfitgirl at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 13:43:28 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:43:28 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> Message-ID: <5309126705062806435862cf00@mail.gmail.com> On 6/28/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > I know that when I want to > start a new article I don't look the topic up in Britannica first. So > I think the list is probably worthless for our purposes anyway. Fred, you've missed the entire purpose of having the list on Wikipedia. I suggest you go read [[Wikipedia:WikiProject missing encyclopedia articles]], which is well-advertised and clearly sets out the purpose of the list and the project to clear it out. -- ambi From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 13:51:14 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:51:14 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628130110.78E181AC5B9B@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628130110.78E181AC5B9B@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Habj wrote: "Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain, healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity quack." By my definition quack medicine is a remedy falsely presented as having curative powers. In this sense the overwhelming majority of "alternative medicine" is quackery. Homeopaths, for example, sell people water and tell them that it will cure their illness. If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the quackery category? Regards, Haukur ?orgeirsson From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Jun 28 13:58:36 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:58:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rights at Wikipedia (was: Silly mailing lists) Message-ID: Responding to: -> Way to go, Wikipedia! Good job -> treating volunteer editors who are simply -> standing up for their rights like criminals. It's a common mistake to assert that anyone has rights at Wikipedia. Aside from the technical matter of "sysop rights", Wikipedia grants no rights whatsoever. Wikipedia is a volunteer organization, and I think I speak for the English part of that organization when I say that volunteers here have no rights or privileges. Wikipedians have only duties, voluntarily assumed. Our duty as volunteers is to create a free encyclopedia filled with accurate, neutral articles for the benefit of the general public. Anyone is welcome to join us, as long as they come to help us create this kind of encyclopedia. Others will be shown to the door. Ed Poor From shimgray at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:06:48 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:06:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions In-Reply-To: <062820051045.11036.42C12A3C000EACAD00002B1C22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <062820051045.11036.42C12A3C000EACAD00002B1C22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 28/06/05, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others > edit to talk pages. Since it has happened in different page communities, > and I have even deleted the comments of others unwittingly without > being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug in the new software. > Is anyone else seeing this? I've been noticing a very high occurence of "hit save, have Preview page returned" problems today; in one case I "saved" almost ten times before it actually saved the change - this happened before, on an occasional basis, and IIRC is a known bug. On a busy talk page, this may well explain the problem. (Indeed, I've just had it happen to me on WP:HD; I re-added my previous comment afterwards) -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:18:36 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:18:36 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions In-Reply-To: <062820051045.11036.42C12A3C000EACAD00002B1C22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From: actionforum at comcast.net > >There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others edit to >talk pages. Since it has >happened in different page communities, and I have even deleted the >comments of others >unwittingly without being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug in >the new software. Is anyone >else seeing this? > -- thanx, Silverback This was moderately common even before the upgrade. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:22:17 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:22:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: <33572.194.72.110.12.1119962579.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >Nothing good can come from enouraging editors to use socks and proxies to >evade blocks. Where this has happened in the past I've found that >escalating blocks on all offending sources tires the miscreant out. I agree that nothing good comes of it (encouraging editors to use socks and proxies to evade blocks), and that escalating blocks often tire the miscreants out. Also, socks created for the purpose of evading 3RR can be immediately blocked indefinitely. However, the more persistent ones seem to have almost limitless energy; blocks combined with page protection is often the only way of cooling them off. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:26:45 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:26:45 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] In the interests of transparency In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Mark Ryan > >In the interests of transparency in mailing list admin actions, I have >placed two recent contributors to the list (DANIEL RAY and Henry >Kissinger) on moderation (i.e. their messages require list admin >approval) because their messages to the mailing list appear to be >gibberish. If anyone feels this is unwarranted, please contact me or >one of the other mailing list administrators. As I said in an earlier e-mail, these were most likely [[breaching experiment]s. The list gets enough nonsense from regular contributors (like myself :-) ) as it is, please do not hesitate to moderate those whose actions are so obviously detrimental. Jay. From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:35:48 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:35:48 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628130110.78E181AC5B9B@mail.wikimedia.org> <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <2f33f2d405062807354f5689fe@mail.gmail.com> Your definition, I'd say, is unusual. As far as I can see, quackery really have two meanings. One is stated in the beginning of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery It is a disputed article needing improvement, but it starts "Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine" and thus, if someone believes in what they are doing they are not quacks. The second definition is a legal one. I do not know to what extent the laws differ here in different countries but in Sweden it is forbidden to treat children, cancer patients and a few other types of patients with alternative methods. If you do that, you are doing quackery. I think - but i am not sure - that treating people and pretending to have a medical exam that you do not have, also is quackery according to Swedish law. If you can show good reasons to believe that homeopathy is a deliberate fraud, that it is illegal in at least a few countries, _or_ a definition of the word "quackery" from a good source where the main meaning of the word supports you then please go ahead. English is not my native language, and sometimes the meanings of words is not exactly the same in different languages. Be prepared for debate though, as you probably are trying to change what the category is used for. Currently, this is all the articles in the category Quackery: Quackery, Chalybeate, Chelation therapy, Electrical quackery, HGH quackery, Jomanda, Magnet therapy, Oberon (device), Pinhole glasses, Quackwatch, Radioactive quackery, Snake oil, Violet wand. /Habj On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > Habj wrote: > > "Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain, > healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is > alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like > best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer > is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal > health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity > quack." > > By my definition quack medicine is a remedy falsely presented as > having curative powers. In this sense the overwhelming majority > of "alternative medicine" is quackery. Homeopaths, for example, > sell people water and tell them that it will cure their illness. > > If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine > and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the > quackery category? > > Regards, > Haukur ?orgeirsson > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 14:38:46 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:38:46 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again. Is anyone else experiencing this? Jay. From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 14:59:25 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 14:59:25 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > Your definition, I'd say, is unusual. As far as I can see, quackery > really have two meanings. One is stated in the beginning of > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery > It is a disputed article needing improvement, but it starts > > "Quackery is the practice of producing fraudulent medicine" > > and thus, if someone believes in what they are doing they are not > quacks. > > ... > > If you can show good reasons to believe that homeopathy is a > deliberate fraud, that it is illegal in at least a few countries, _or_ > a definition of the word "quackery" from a good source where the main > meaning of the word supports you then please go ahead. I got my definition of quack medicine from Webster's. By your definition medicine that doesn't work is only quackery if the practitioner is intentionally deceiving the subject. I'm sure most homeopaths act more or less in good faith. But I don't see any particular reason to doubt that this is also the case for practitioners of the stuff currently in the quackery category. Our medical disclaimer notwithstanding I believe Wikipedia should do its darndest to provide people with accurate information on medical subjects. This includes making a clear distinction between quackery/alternative medicine and useful medical care. I think the alternative medicine and quackery categories should be merged because I don't believe that the difference between them can be defined in a workable way. If there is strong resistance to merging the alt. med. category into the quackery category then I suggest merging the quackery category into the alt. med. category. Regards, Haukur From shimgray at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 15:02:09 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:02:09 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 28/06/05, JAY JG wrote: > I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in > successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again. Is > anyone else experiencing this? This has happened intermittently for quite a while, but there seems to have been an upsurge recently - though I note it seems to have begun happening again before the new version changed over, so I don't know if it was related. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 15:23:38 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:23:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> On 6/28/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > I got my definition of quack medicine from Webster's. OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the only meaning of the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can agree. During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds. They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is hope... > Our medical disclaimer notwithstanding I believe Wikipedia > should do its darndest to provide people with accurate > information on medical subjects. This includes making a > clear distinction between quackery/alternative medicine > and useful medical care. Then is the question if categorisation should be used for this purpose, or not - as Fastfission pointed out from the very start of the discussion. You said yourself > Agreed. If someone reads an article on, say, > homeopathy and only realizes when she sees the > categories at the bottom that the thing doesn't > work then there's something wrong with the article and I still can not see that you have explained wherein the usefulness of this particular category lies.It looks to me that you actuallly want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it? Or should the method be that we decide whether or not the article is NPOV, and if not label it with the {{NPOV}}-tag? /Habj From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 28 15:43:36 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:43:36 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the last assets of the victim and their family. Fred On Jun 28, 2005, at 9:23 AM, Habj wrote: > During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their > patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds. > They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people > gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better > prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of > time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is > hope... From kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 15:46:23 2005 From: kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com (Kelly Martin) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:46:23 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/28/05, JAY JG wrote: > I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in > successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again. Is > anyone else experiencing this? I had this happen (before the upgrade) at a hotel. I suspect it was due to a misconfigured proxy server. Kelly From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 15:50:15 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:50:15 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050628 21:42]: > As for the "alternative medicine" category then I > suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work" > or some such would be more accurate. I for one would > actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative" > has some undeserved positive connotations and implies > that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual > medicine. > So, don't forget to take the Grumpy Scientist Point > of View into account :) There was a bit of a revert-war over this last year - [[Alternative medicine]] had [[Category:Pseudoscience]] on it (for things like homeopathy, which defies physics and chemistry), and this was getting removed because some of it is closer to protoscience (e.g. acupuncture, in which the stated theory may appear to be nonsensical but the stuff may work, for some values of 'work'). So I solved it by also creating [[Category:Protoscience]] and adding suitable things to that and putting both on the article ;-) There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no reason to indulge this. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 15:52:23 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:52:23 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050628155223.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Habj (sweetadelaide at gmail.com) [050628 23:23]: > I encourage everyone who take part in this debate, to study the > category tree in and around the category "Pseudoscience". Actually, > there is one Category "Quackery" and another one called "Alternative > medicine". Quackery is a sub-category to Alternative medicine, but > while Quackery is also a sub-category to Pseudoscience Alternative > medicine is a sub-category to Medicine. Note that the alternative medicine area in particular was badly fouled up by [[User:John Gohde]], aka [[User:Mr-Natural-Health]], whose idiosyncratic and confrontative behaviour currently has him banned for a year. So the area is generally in really bad need of a cleanup and one should take care before using it as an example in the present discussion ;-) - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 15:54:15 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:54:15 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR penalty is a block and not a ban -> problems In-Reply-To: References: <33572.194.72.110.12.1119962579.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <20050628155415.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050629 00:22]: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >Nothing good can come from enouraging editors to use socks and proxies to > >evade blocks. Where this has happened in the past I've found that > >escalating blocks on all offending sources tires the miscreant out. > I agree that nothing good comes of it (encouraging editors to use socks and > proxies to evade blocks), and that escalating blocks often tire the > miscreants out. Also, socks created for the purpose of evading 3RR can be > immediately blocked indefinitely. However, the more persistent ones seem > to have almost limitless energy; blocks combined with page protection is > often the only way of cooling them off. Note that trying to outlast the persistent reverter can escalate quite alarmingly, e.g. (real example) blocking half of Latvia for fifteen minutes at a time. - d. From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Jun 28 15:57:12 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:57:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions Message-ID: <062820051557.19039.42C17358000BC8CE00004A5F22058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > >From: actionforum at comcast.net > > > >There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others edit to > >talk pages. Since it has > >happened in different page communities, and I have even deleted the > >comments of others > >unwittingly without being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug in > >the new software. Is anyone > >else seeing this? > > -- thanx, Silverback > > This was moderately common even before the upgrade. I never had it happen before the upgrade, and never deleted other edits myself. I had edit conflicts occur more often before the upgrade, this seems to be happening when edit conflicts should be occurring. I can recall only one edit conflict occuring since the upgrade, and given what was going on, on these talk pages, more should have been happening. Perhaps, I just had a coincidental multiple occurrance of rare behavior that was present before the upgrade. -- Silverback From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 15:57:34 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:57:34 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050628155734.GA7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050629 01:43]: > Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and > placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the > last assets of the victim and their family. This was what was more or less thrashed out on [[Talk:Alternative medicine]] - that "alternative medicine" may or may not be rubbish, but is sincere; but quackery includes knowing deception. FWIW. - d. From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 16:05:53 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:05:53 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Should [[Category:Alternative medicine]] and [[Category:Quackery]] be merged? In-Reply-To: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1799.212.30.203.31.1119974753.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > OK, I could very well be wrong. May I ask, is it the only meaning of > the word mentioned, or the main one? Someone else who has a good book > to check? Words often have several meanings... the word is often used > as an insult, carrying negative connotations. On that I hope we can > agree. Certainly. And the word "quackery" is negative because the phenomenon it describes is negative like, say, "vandalism". > It looks to me that you actuallly > want to use it for this very purpose - to warn the readers i.e. you > decide what people should be warned of. Maybe I want to warn people > for religion - can I create [[Category:Unscientific supernatural > beliefs]] and put [[Christianity]] in it? Fine by me. And wouldn't most Christians agree that their religion is a collection of unscientific supernatural beliefs? > During the course in oncology, our teachers told us that many of their > patients also sought for some alternative method of various kinds. > They were not at all against it - they said the alternative people > gave the patients something they badly needed, both for better > prognosis and for quality of life - often not a very long period of > time. That thing the alt.med. stuff can give in that situation, is > hope... Sure, how about [[Category:Comforting lies]]? >and I still can not see that you have explained >wherein the usefulness of this particular category lies. What's the usefulness of any category? It's mostly an aid to browsing, I suppose. You're reading about one thing and maybe you'd like to read about other similar things. You're right that the category shouldn't be a primary warning label. The article itself should make clear the efficacy of its subject (or lack thereof). On the other hand I'm arguing that upholding a distinction between quackery and alternative medicine in the category system is misleading. Regards, Haukur P.S. I hope I'm not getting too worked up about this. I haven't actually edited much in the quackery field in the past, I mostly work on Norse mythology. In that field I frequently see categories used to claim something not actually supported by the article. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 16:06:59 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:06:59 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Andrew Gray > >On 28/06/05, JAY JG wrote: > > I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in > > successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again. >Is > > anyone else experiencing this? > >This has happened intermittently for quite a while, but there seems to >have been an upsurge recently - though I note it seems to have begun >happening again before the new version changed over, so I don't know >if it was related. Yes, it used to be occasional before, now it's consistent. Also, it only happens with Firefox, not IE. Jay. From laura at thescudder.com Tue Jun 28 16:09:59 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura K Fisher) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:09:59 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jun 28, 2005, at 7:22 AM, Habj wrote: > I encourage everyone who take part in this debate, to study the > category tree in and around the category "Pseudoscience". Actually, > there is one Category "Quackery" and another one called "Alternative > medicine". Quackery is a sub-category to Alternative medicine, but > while Quackery is also a sub-category to Pseudoscience Alternative > medicine is a sub-category to Medicine. I guess I'm not sure how I would define "Quackery." Both pseudoscience and alternative medicine are clear, but some of the members of [[Category:Quackery]], like [[Chelation therapy]] I'd put in [[Category:Alternative medicine]] as it's currently a therapy under study rather than one proven to not work. I think that Quackery shouldn't be a subcategory of Alternative medicine. The articles that do use Alternative medicine to promote their Quackery should belong to both categories, but in my opinion not all members of the Quackery cat are also Alternative medicine. > > Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain, > healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is > alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like > best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer > is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal > health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity > quack. > > As I said before, I see the Pseudoscience category as a "scrap bin" > for those who don't want to take the time to distinguish one thing > from the other. I don't think that pseudoscience is a scrap-bin any more than alternative medicine is a scrap-bin for valid alternative treatments. It's simply a way of grouping ideas outside of the mainstream. I also agree with the previous poster who said that they shouldn't be used as warning labels at the bottom of the article. They often are, but a well written article in either pseudoscience or alternative medicine or quackery will make it clear why it has been placed in that category because it will present both points of view on the theory. Laurascudder From laura at thescudder.com Tue Jun 28 16:16:53 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura K Fisher) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:16:53 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <6afb662e4274de853d5b323ee7910511@thescudder.com> On Jun 28, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: > Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and > placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the > last assets of the victim and their family. > > Fred That's the best way to put the distinction I've heard. I strongly disagree with a merge and think that Quackery should be a subcat of Medicine instead of Alternative medicine. One can dupe patients with unnecessary traditional-type therapies as much as one can with alternative ones. Laurascudder From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 16:22:50 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:22:50 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628155758.69D511AC5B7F@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628155758.69D511AC5B7F@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1829.212.30.203.31.1119975770.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > This was what was more or less thrashed out on [[Talk:Alternative > medicine]] - that "alternative medicine" may or may not be rubbish, but is > sincere; but quackery includes knowing deception. FWIW. I don't see how this is a workable distinction. It's not the treatments that are sincere or not - it's their practitioners. I'm sure there are lots of sincere homeopaths - but who's to say that there aren't a few who know that the remedies don't work (better than any placebo) but sell them anyway? Likewise, how do you know that [[Jomanda]] wasn't sincere and acting in good faith? And how can you know that practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]] aren't sincere? Both are currently in the quackery category. Regards, Haukur From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 16:24:43 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:24:43 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pywikipedia bot : iso --> utf-8 Message-ID: Since the upgrade yesterday, my python bot code is no longer working and halts with the following error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 164, in -toplevel- main(sys.argv[1:]) File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 150, in main if not allowedbot(username, ensite): File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\login.py", line 59, in allowedbot text = pl.get() File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 357, in get self._contents, self._isWatched = getEditPage(self.site(), self.urlname(), read_only = read_only, get_redirect = get_redirect, throttle = throttle) File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 1536, in getEditPage text = getUrl(site, path) File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 1496, in getUrl site.checkCharset(charset) File "D:\Programmas Stijn\Python234\Pywikipedia\pywikipedia\wikipedia.py", line 2303, in checkCharset raise ValueError("code2encodings has wrong charset for %s. It should be %s, but is %s"%(repr(self),charset, self.encoding())) ValueError: code2encodings has wrong charset for wikipedia:en. It should be utf-8, but is iso-8859-1 I know this is probably too technical for most of the people on this list, but could some experienced bot owner help me back on track? --Mgm From laura at thescudder.com Tue Jun 28 16:28:05 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura K Fisher) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:28:05 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1829.212.30.203.31.1119975770.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628155758.69D511AC5B7F@mail.wikimedia.org> <1829.212.30.203.31.1119975770.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <1f07396d8c4af446e008932dff589788@thescudder.com> On Jun 28, 2005, at 10:22 AM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > I don't see how this is a workable distinction. > It's not the treatments that are sincere or not > - it's their practitioners. I'm sure there are > lots of sincere homeopaths - but who's to say > that there aren't a few who know that the remedies > don't work (better than any placebo) but sell > them anyway? > > Likewise, how do you know that [[Jomanda]] wasn't > sincere and acting in good faith? And how can you > know that practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]] > aren't sincere? Both are currently in the quackery > category. I believe my point was that the practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]] are quite sincere and include a good number of serious research scientists and physicians. I'm not really sure why it's in Quackery except that perhaps some uses might qualify as an alternative treatment, in which case it illustrative of the apparently total confusion between the two categories. Laurascudder From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 16:30:28 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:30:28 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1829.212.30.203.31.1119975770.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628155758.69D511AC5B7F@mail.wikimedia.org> <1829.212.30.203.31.1119975770.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050628163028.GB7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 02:22]: > Likewise, how do you know that [[Jomanda]] wasn't > sincere and acting in good faith? And how can you > know that practitioners of [[Chelation therapy]] > aren't sincere? Both are currently in the quackery > category. That second example is a Gohde-ism, so it would be impossible to say ;-) - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 16:38:09 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:38:09 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Kelly Martin > >On 6/28/05, JAY JG wrote: > > I'm finding that I can't stay logged in on the new version; I log in > > successfully, but as soon as I go to an article, I'm logged out again. >Is > > anyone else experiencing this? > >I had this happen (before the upgrade) at a hotel. I suspect it was >due to a misconfigured proxy server. Hmm. I'm not using a proxy server. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Jun 28 16:45:20 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:45:20 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug in the new software upgrade? edit collisions In-Reply-To: <062820051557.19039.42C17358000BC8CE00004A5F22058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From: actionforum at comcast.net > > > >From: actionforum at comcast.net > > > > > >There seems to be a huge increase in people "deleting" each others edit >to > > >talk pages. Since it has > > >happened in different page communities, and I have even deleted the > > >comments of others > > >unwittingly without being notified of edit conflicts. I suspect a bug >in > > >the new software. Is anyone > > >else seeing this? > > > -- thanx, Silverback > > > > This was moderately common even before the upgrade. >I never had it happen before the upgrade, and never deleted other edits >myself. I had edit >conflicts occur more often before the upgrade, this seems to be happening >when edit conflicts >should be occurring. I can recall only one edit conflict occuring since >the upgrade, and given >what was going on, on these talk pages, more should have been happening. >Perhaps, I just had a coincidental multiple occurrance of rare behavior >that was present before >the upgrade. I saw it about once a week for several months before the upgrade, usually happening to other people (not me). Jay. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Jun 28 17:09:28 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:09:28 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <6afb662e4274de853d5b323ee7910511@thescudder.com> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> <6afb662e4274de853d5b323ee7910511@thescudder.com> Message-ID: <304BDAC4-4932-4D78-ACDF-9DCEC6507A21@ctelco.net> Yes, the merge is a bad idea. Quack medicine should be merged with fraud rather. Fred On Jun 28, 2005, at 10:16 AM, Laura K Fisher wrote: > > On Jun 28, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: > > >> Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion >> and placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning >> out the last assets of the victim and their family. >> >> Fred >> > > That's the best way to put the distinction I've heard. > > I strongly disagree with a merge and think that Quackery should be > a subcat of Medicine instead of Alternative medicine. One can dupe > patients with unnecessary traditional-type therapies as much as one > can with alternative ones. > > > Laurascudder > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 17:23:07 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:23:07 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in the new software upgrade? Won't stay logged in In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050628172306.GC7309@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG (jayjg at hotmail.com) [050629 02:38]: > Hmm. I'm not using a proxy server. Are you *sure*? Lots of ISPs use transparent proxying and don't bother telling their customers. - d. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 28 17:45:38 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:45:38 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C18CC2.1010404@telus.net> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >>And in the end, maybe what it comes down to is: Categories should not >>serve as "warning" flags. They are meant to just be taxonomic devices. >> >> >Agreed. If someone reads an article on, say, >homeopathy and only realizes when she sees the >categories at the bottom that the thing doesn't >work then there's something wrong with the article >(incidentally I think [[homeopathy]] makes the >"doesn't work" part fairly clear as it is). > The degree of doubt that there might be about homeopathy does indeed belong in the article on the topic. We are, of course, in no position to make a final determination that it either works or doesn't work. Either position would be pseudoscientific. We can establish that a dominant segment of mainstream science believes that it doesn't work. Once that point has been established there is no need to revisit the issue ad nauseam. If the major premise is questionable than so too are any ideas derived from it. >As for the "alternative medicine" category then I >suppose "medicine that has not been proven to work" >or some such would be more accurate. I for one would >actually prefer "quack medicine" since "alternative" >has some undeserved positive connotations and implies >that quackery is somehow a viable alternative to actual >medicine. > "Alternative medicine" is excellent as an NPOV category without introducing a needlessly pejorative term like "quack". "Not proven to work" within the rules of mainstream science is already implicit in the term "alternative". The concepts "not proven to work" and "proven not to work" are very different, and quackery would have more kinship with the latter. I can just as easily see that "quack medicine" has undeserved negative connotations, while "alternative" adequately warns the user to proceed at his own risk. The credibility of the various practices that come under this heading is wildly variable, and some may indeed qualify as quackery, but certainly not all. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 28 18:13:39 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:13:39 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> Message-ID: <42C19353.7070507@telus.net> Judges are indeed unpredictable. Success can often depend on the whims of court scheduling. What I find in the popular view of law is a clear violation and a clear penalty with no intermediate steps or grey areas in between. In reality there are several steps between an allegedly infringing act and an appelate court decision. At each step along the way our position must be reevaluated. I think that the reasonable doubt about the copyrightability of the Britannica list should take us through the first step. If a take down order is issued, that's when we would need to review the matter. Whether the Britannica list is worthless for our purposes is debatable. When I started I would look at our software generated most wanted list to see if anything there interested me, and I started a number of articles that way. I can see the EB list being used that way, especially by newbies. The list just shows what we don't have; it does not suggest that the potential contributor seek out the Britannica article. If instead it inspires someone to research an otherwise obscure historical personage, then we all benefit. Ec Fred Bauder wrote: > While we should aggressively defend our rights, avoiding litigation > is a wise policy. For one thing, particular judges don't necessarily > follow the law that you think they will. Additionally although you > may eventually get costs, you first must pay costs. I'm still not > sure about the list of Britannica articles, but I am sure that our > own method of generating endless article titles is probably more > comprehensive than any list like that. I know that when I want to > start a new article I don't look the topic up in Britannica first. So > I think the list is probably worthless for our purposes anyway. > > Fred > > On Jun 28, 2005, at 3:38 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> This was not a matter of a countersuit. The copyright issue was >> already won by the defendants when they sought to recover costs. In >> Online Policy Group v. Diebold http://www.eff.org/legal/ >> ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20040930_Diebold_SJ_Order.pdf Diebold >> was ordered to pay costs because it had misused copyright. >> I don't think that a firm with big bucks at stake is going to be >> deterred by legal fees, or the threat of being required to pay the >> opponent's legal fees. Defendants' difficulties are not limited to >> copyright law. Any defendant faced with a contingency chasing >> lawyer is going to be at a disadvantage. A plaintiff and his >> contingency paid lawyer should be held jointly liable for a winning >> defendant's fees in the same amount as the lawyer would have >> received if he had won. :-) >> >> Ec > From shimgray at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 18:43:26 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:43:26 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: <42C19353.7070507@telus.net> References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> <42C19353.7070507@telus.net> Message-ID: On 28/06/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Whether the Britannica list is worthless for our purposes is debatable. > When I started I would look at our software generated most wanted list > to see if anything there interested me, and I started a number of > articles that way. I've done this a couple of times, as well. Or digging up odd lists and filling redlinks; I wrote an article on Lorenzo de Medici Sweat simply becuase he had such a lovely name. > I can see the EB list being used that way, > especially by newbies. The list just shows what we don't have; it does > not suggest that the potential contributor seek out the Britannica > article. If instead it inspires someone to research an otherwise > obscure historical personage, then we all benefit. The "obscure historical personage" is one of the key things for us; I think we're past the stage that we run the risk of failing to include a field of academic interest through not knowing about it (Having a bad article through no expert knowledge is another matter). But a lot of those personages will be in the 1911 Encyclopedia, or the various other old encyclopedias we have lists for - I just went to look at the project page, and was happily surprised to see that Britannica is just one of a set of similar projects being undertaken as comparisons. Hmm. The original Oxford /Dictionary of National Biography/ was originally printed in 1909. It'd be an excellent source for things like this; I wonder if an index is available? I note that the Australian and Canadian equivalents have had lists set up. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 28 18:52:44 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:52:44 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628130110.78E181AC5B9B@mail.wikimedia.org> <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C19C7C.10107@telus.net> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >Habj wrote: > >"Quackery and alternative medicine is not the same. In Great Britain, >healers etc. are often welcomed to work in the hospitals. That is >alternative medicine/complementary medicin, choose what term you like >best. The German ex-med-doctor (forgot his name) who claim that cancer >is pure psychological and cancer patients should leave the normal >health care and go to him for some kind of therapy, is a definity >quack." > >By my definition quack medicine is a remedy falsely presented as >having curative powers. In this sense the overwhelming majority >of "alternative medicine" is quackery. Homeopaths, for example, >sell people water and tell them that it will cure their illness. > "Falsely presented" is a point that would need to be proven. Do you have evidence that homeopathic medicines are not curative, or that they are just water? That may very well be the case, but I would not be prepared to jump to that conclusion. Making definitive statements about these practices requires more than parroting the opinions of their opponents. >If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine >and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the >quackery category? > > I would. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Tue Jun 28 19:08:31 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:08:31 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <42C1A02F.70500@telus.net> Fred Bauder wrote: > Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and > placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the > last assets of the victim and their family. We could as easily be talking about the pricing policies of major pharmaceutical companies. :-) Ec From kkrueger at whoi.edu Tue Jun 28 19:51:21 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:51:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050628195121.GC17841@whoi.edu> On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 01:50:15AM +1000, David Gerard wrote: > There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the > label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science > but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course > when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being > applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no > reason to indulge this. Some folks seem to treat the labels "pseudoscience" and "quackery" as if they always implied deliberate deceit on the part of the practitioners -- that is, by labeling homeopathy (for instance) as pseudoscientific, we would be alleging that homeopaths are each guilty of fraud. I don't think that's necessarily going on, though. It seems to me that "pseudoscience" really has to do with inquiry and skepticism -- or rather, a lack of them: that is, with credulity; with readiness to believe, and to insist that others should believe -- in the absence of sufficient evidence ... and eventually, despite the evidence. If fraud is malicious deception, then pseudoscience is -- perhaps; I know I'm going out on a limb here -- negligent deception: telling people something wrong *not* because you're setting out to mislead them for your personal benefit, but because you don't want to check very carefully. Something interesting about followers of pseudoscience is that they tend to jump on any single study which suggests confirmation of their belief. Any experiment which looks favorable for _one_ element of the claimed belief-system is taken as confirmation of the _whole_ belief-system. (Kind of like the Duhem-Quine thesis run in reverse.) Experiment is used to reassure the believer, rather than to elucidate or explore the mechanisms or reasons behind the claimed phenomena: "This study said that sick people who are prayed over, heal faster. This proves that Jesus Christ -- as conceived of in my own sect -- exists, loves us, and answers prayers!" Another line commonly associated with this kind of argument is, "Why do you care _how_ it works? If it works, that's good enough!" This is, for instance, presented against claims that a remedy's apparent effectiveness is due to the placebo effect, or due to some physical cause rather than a supposed occult cause. Again there is the lack of inquiry -- an apparent desirable result is taken at face value; those who seek to answer the "how" and "why" questions are dismissed as nitpickers or as looking for an excuse not to believe. (There's a standard response here, "But scientists don't know how aspirin works either, and nobody thinks that's pseudoscience." Perhaps that was once the case, but it was demonstrated in 1971 that aspirin works by neutralizing an enzyme that participates in the production of chemicals that signal pain. Science bothers to ask the "how" and "why" questions, and eventually answers them -- it doesn't say "it works; that's good enough.") Another curious aspect of the behavior of followers of pseudoscience is the one-sided nature of their rivalry with the relevant science. They often see themselves as engaged in a dialogue or debate with scientists, whereas scientists do not usually see themselves as engaged in a debate with pseudoscience. Creationism probably furnishes the best examples here -- I've often read creationist responses to discoveries in genetics or paleontology, along the following lines: "Look, it's those atheistical scientists trying to prove evolution again. Aren't they hopeless? Why do they fight so hard against God?" Geneticists and paleontologists do not see themselves as engaged in "proving evolution" or "fighting against God". Creationists seem to believe that that they and evolutionary scientists must be parallel or similar in their behavior -- that since creationists spend so much time and energy "disproving evolution" and "fighting against Satanic atheism" that their opponents *must*, logically, spend equal time and energy "proving evolution" and "fighting against God". (Likewise, it sure seems that Scientologists spend a lot more effort hatin' on psychiatry than psychiatrists spend hatin' on Scientology -- but it's Scientology doctrine that psychiatrists are "Suppressive People" engaged in a conspiracy to suppress Scientology.) -- Karl A. Krueger From chris at starglade.org Tue Jun 28 20:28:05 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:28:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback Message-ID: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi all, I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced, otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring for admins, quite so quickly as I did! As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the "privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5. In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather than all admin powers This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at: --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the following: * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be confident with them. * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no means a bad thing. * It devolves power to the community. I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used. I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this. Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwbLVEq6+ijeBrJ8RAg8oAJ0SARCFkmcR14G9ZJ4kyvfgJP8zPQCeK1hm S0KvMu3kfhdTh6bTO/cB3B4= =rVph -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From delirium at hackish.org Tue Jun 28 20:30:17 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:30:17 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C1B359.5090703@hackish.org> David Gerard wrote: >There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the >label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science >but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course >when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being >applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no >reason to indulge this. > > I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one side in a dispute. Should we, for example, have a [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his wacked-out ideas on nutrition? (Of course, he could also get [[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.) This sort of derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling that's widely accepted. The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast, doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately simply labels a category of stuff without judging it. -Mark From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 20:59:38 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 06:59:38 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628195121.GC17841@whoi.edu> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <20050628195121.GC17841@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <20050628205938.GD7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger at whoi.edu) [050629 05:50]: > (Likewise, it sure seems that Scientologists spend a lot more effort > hatin' on psychiatry than psychiatrists spend hatin' on Scientology -- > but it's Scientology doctrine that psychiatrists are "Suppressive > People" engaged in a conspiracy to suppress Scientology.) Speaking of which, our Featured Article on [[Xenu]] is getting a LOT of links in the blogosphere, and many news articles on the fine upstanding movie actor [[Tom Cruise]] have clearly used the Xenu article in their research. So now we need to get [[Scientology]] up to Featured quality. Help on this is most welcomed; please work on it with a view to [[Category:Scientology]] and its many subcats, as most sections should be summaries of a more extensive article elsewhere. (What's a nice NPOV title for the discussion of whether or not it is in fact a religion?) - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 21:01:55 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 07:01:55 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <42C1B359.5090703@hackish.org> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <42C1B359.5090703@hackish.org> Message-ID: <20050628210155.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050629 06:34]: > David Gerard wrote: > >There is such a thing as pseudoscience and things that are deserve the > >label. It belongs under 'science' because it claims the clothes of science > >but isn't, hence the 'pseudo' - religion doesn't do that (except of course > >when it does). The objectors are basically stating "I don't like it being > >applied to my favourite thing so it must be a violation of NPOV." I see no > >reason to indulge this. > I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one > side in a dispute. Should we, for example, have a > [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his > wacked-out ideas on nutrition? (Of course, he could also get > [[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.) Has this or anything as stupid aS this actually happened? i.e., not hypothetically. > This sort of > derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling > that's widely accepted. The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast, > doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read > as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately > simply labels a category of stuff without judging it. There's lots of pseudoscience that isn't alternative medicine. That a group claims a given label is demeaning doesn't mean it doesn't and shouldn't apply. - d. From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Jun 28 21:04:54 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:04:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade. Message-ID: <062820052104.26864.42C1BB76000A7438000068F022007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> There is a message on the edit screens which acknowledges the bug. Here is the quote: Expect edit conflicts. Due to a bug on the new software, edit conflicts will overwrite other people's changes, even if you do not save on the edit conflicts screen, and even if you were editing a different section. As a courtesy, take a look at the edit history after saving and fix any accidental text deletion or duplication. This is pretty serious. They should roll back to the previous version. -- Silverback From spyders at btinternet.com Tue Jun 28 21:08:31 2005 From: spyders at btinternet.com (David 'DJ' Hedley) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:08:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> Message-ID: <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do' responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics. Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Jenkinson" To: "English Wikipedia" Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 9:28 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi all, > > I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced, > otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring > for admins, quite so quickly as I did! > > As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a > new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the > "privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5. > > In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather > than all admin powers > > This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at: > --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback > > My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the > following: > > * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either > because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be > confident with them. > * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no > means a bad thing. > * It devolves power to the community. > > I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to > Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people > who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become > full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used. > > I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this. > > Chris > > - -- > Chris Jenkinson > chris at starglade.org > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCwbLVEq6+ijeBrJ8RAg8oAJ0SARCFkmcR14G9ZJ4kyvfgJP8zPQCeK1hm > S0KvMu3kfhdTh6bTO/cB3B4= > =rVph > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 21:06:40 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 07:06:40 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <42C19C7C.10107@telus.net> References: <20050628130110.78E181AC5B9B@mail.wikimedia.org> <1411.212.30.203.31.1119966674.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C19C7C.10107@telus.net> Message-ID: <20050628210640.GF7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Ray Saintonge (saintonge at telus.net) [050629 05:01]: > "Falsely presented" is a point that would need to be proven. Do you > have evidence that homeopathic medicines are not curative, or that they > are just water? Er, yes. To both. The stuff consistently fails as medicine in double-blind tests, and it tests as just water. I do think the sincerity of the practitioners (or difficulty with joined-up thinking) makes them different to knowing quacks. (But it still REALLY pisses me off when I see a shelf full of ?4 jars of water in Boots whose labels imply they have any healing effects whatsoever. Even if the stuff isn't actually harmful other than to the wallet.) > That may very well be the case, but I would not be > prepared to jump to that conclusion. Making definitive statements about > these practices requires more than parroting the opinions of their > opponents. The 10,000-foot view of NPOV shouldn't preclude calling this stuff pseudoscience. > >If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine > >and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the > >quackery category? > I would. Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend category except for proven frauds. - d. From delirium at hackish.org Tue Jun 28 21:07:44 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:07:44 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628210155.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <42C1B359.5090703@hackish.org> <20050628210155.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C1BC20.6070308@hackish.org> David Gerard wrote: >There's lots of pseudoscience that isn't alternative medicine. That a group >claims a given label is demeaning doesn't mean it doesn't and shouldn't >apply. > > But it *clearly* is demeaning---it's not a neutral, descriptive label such as "alternative medicine" that is simply a category of stuff with no value judgment about it. "Pseudoscience" is not a label anyone would use for any reason except to attack a particular theory. It's actually quite common in scientific circles to hear it lobbed as a pejorative, usually qualified with something like "so-and-so's work is verging on pseudoscience". It's certainly not appropriate as a neutral description in any context along the lines of "this theory is [[pseudoscience]]", which is what the category label is, in effect (although a claim like "this theory is considered [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] by the mainstream scientific community" is of course fine, if true). -Mark From delirium at hackish.org Tue Jun 28 21:10:06 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:10:06 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628210155.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628155014.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <42C1B359.5090703@hackish.org> <20050628210155.GE7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C1BCAE.2060505@hackish.org> David Gerard wrote: >>I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one >>side in a dispute. Should we, for example, have a >>[[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his >>wacked-out ideas on nutrition? (Of course, he could also get >>[[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.) >> >> > > >Has this or anything as stupid aS this actually happened? i.e., not >hypothetically. > > I'm not sure, but I fail to see any meaningful distinction between a possibly hypothetical [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] and the [[Category:Pseudoscience]]. If it's acceptable to label theories considered pseudoscience by the mainstream scientific community with [[Category:Pseudoscience]], why isn't it acceptable to label the people who came up with those theories [[Category:Pseudoscientists]]? -Mark From shimgray at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 21:21:45 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:21:45 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade. In-Reply-To: <062820052104.26864.42C1BB76000A7438000068F022007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <062820052104.26864.42C1BB76000A7438000068F022007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 28/06/05, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > There is a message on the edit screens which acknowledges the bug. Here is the quote: > > Expect edit conflicts. > Due to a bug on the new software, edit conflicts will overwrite other > people's changes, even if you do not save on the edit conflicts screen, > and even if you were editing a different section. As a courtesy, take a > look at the edit history after saving and fix any accidental text deletion > or duplication. > > This is pretty serious. They should roll back to the previous version. -- Silverback Roll back to the previous version! That's some pretty powerful medicine there - it took twenty-odd hours to roll forward... There's a lot of bugs currently listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MW_1.5_bugs (which I've just discovered); there seems to be a good bit of patching going on. I suspect it'll be fixed relatively soon, and a buggy live wiki is better than a frozen one. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Jun 28 21:38:49 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:38:49 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade. Message-ID: <062820052138.4885.42C1C3690004FD2E0000131522069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Roll back to the previous version! That's some pretty powerful > medicine there - it took twenty-odd hours to roll forward... > > There's a lot of bugs currently listed at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MW_1.5_bugs (which I've just > discovered); there seems to be a good bit of patching going on. I > suspect it'll be fixed relatively soon, and a buggy live wiki is > better than a frozen one. That would be good news. Given the expense of a rollback, we can probably live with this if there a prospects of a fix within a week. However, is there a way to make the message on the edit page FLASH, even though it was highlighted, it took me many edits to finally notice it. You get out of the habit of looking at the boilerplate. I bet others are not noticing it either. -- thanx, silverback From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 22:51:07 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 22:51:07 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and quackery In-Reply-To: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1980.212.30.203.31.1119999067.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > I still don't really like that idea, because it's strongly taking one > side in a dispute. Should we, for example, have a > [[Category:Pseudoscientists]] that we apply to [[Linus Pauling]] for his > wacked-out ideas on nutrition? (Of course, he could also get > [[Category:Scientists]] for his more respected work.) This sort of > derisive labelling I find troubling, even if it's derisive labelling > that's widely accepted. The term "Alternative medicine", by constrast, > doesn't carry nearly as much ideological baggage, because it can be read > as either good or bad depending on your perspective, so more accurately > simply labels a category of stuff without judging it. I would not object to classifying Pauling's ideas on nutrition (vast amounts of vitamin C etc.) as pseudo-science. The label is no more derisive than the topics under discussion deserve. We call vandalism vandalism. We don't call it "alternative editing". We call the trolls trolls. We don't call them "complementary editors". The labels are only derisive insofar as they are accurate. Such is the case with pseudoscience and quackery. Regards, Haukur From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Jun 28 22:57:50 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 08:57:50 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and quackery In-Reply-To: <1980.212.30.203.31.1119999067.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> <1980.212.30.203.31.1119999067.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050628225750.GI7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 08:51]: > I would not object to classifying Pauling's ideas on > nutrition (vast amounts of vitamin C etc.) as pseudo-science. > The label is no more derisive than the topics under discussion > deserve. We call vandalism vandalism. We don't call it > "alternative editing". We call the trolls trolls. We don't > call them "complementary editors". The labels are only > derisive insofar as they are accurate. Such is the case > with pseudoscience and quackery. Seconded. It's not [[Category:Earthmoving implements commonly held to be of wood and metal construction]]. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 23:38:41 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:38:41 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Confirmation in bug in ugrade. In-Reply-To: <062820052138.4885.42C1C3690004FD2E0000131522069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <062820052138.4885.42C1C3690004FD2E0000131522069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: > However, is there a way to make the message on the edit > page FLASH, even though it was highlighted, it took me > many edits to finally notice it. You get out of the habit > of looking at the boilerplate. I bet others are not noticing > it either. > -- thanx, silverback For firefox and netscape users yes. anyone useing it will not however be very popular. -- geni From haukurth at hi.is Tue Jun 28 23:39:33 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:39:33 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] My case for classifying homeopathy as pseudoscience and quackery In-Reply-To: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <2010.212.30.203.31.1120001973.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > "Alternative medicine" is excellent as an NPOV category without > introducing a needlessly pejorative term like "quack". "Not proven to > work" within the rules of mainstream science is already implicit in the > term "alternative". The concepts "not proven to work" and "proven not > to work" are very different, and quackery would have more kinship with > the latter. It's very hard to prove something doesn't ever work under any conditions. On the other hand most popular "alternative medicine" stuff *has* been put to scientific tests and *failed*. When tested in properly controlled double blind scientific studies (such as any new medicine is subjected to) homeopathy has failed. More than once. Homeopaths alternatively point to poorly conducted studies that seemed to show some efficacy and, more usually, anecdotal evidence. Sometimes they like to imply that their craft has never been tested scientifically and that scientific validation is just around the corner. Needless to say, that is not the case. This is, I think, what many people think of when they hear about "alternative medicine" - something new that hasn't been properly tested but just might work. That's the impression the quacks like to give (often in good faith, no doubt) but it's wrong. Most of this has been tested and failed long ago. That's why it's accurate to call it quackery and somewhat misleading to call it alternative medicine. > "Falsely presented" is a point that would need to be proven. Do you > have evidence that homeopathic medicines are not curative, or that they > are just water? Certainly. The homeopaths don't even really deny the fact. Their idea is that the pure water they sell has some magical properties. They don't usually deny that chemically it's pure water. James Randi (http://www.randi.org) offers his million dollar price to anyone who has a method for distinguishing between homeopathic water and normal water. > That may very well be the case, but I would not be > prepared to jump to that conclusion. Making definitive statements about > these practices requires more than parroting the opinions of their > opponents. I may be a parrot but I'm a fairly well informed one :) > I can just as easily see that "quack medicine" has > undeserved negative connotations, while "alternative" adequately warns > the user to proceed at his own risk. The credibility of the various > practices that come under this heading is wildly variable, and some may > indeed qualify as quackery, but certainly not all. The overwhelming majority of what quacks (and other well-meaning people) like to call alternative medicine is quackery. Sometimes the term is defined so broadly as to include massage. This is a further attempt to confuse the issue since massage has very little in common with, for example, homeopathy. To sum up the case against homeopathy: 1. Theory developed in the infancy of modern medicine. 2. No plausible mechanism by which it could work. 3. Proper scientific studies fail to show any efficacy. 4. No-one has come up with a method to distinguish between normal water and homeopathic water. 5. It's sold for profit to many people around the world, some of them sick and desperate. What more could you possibly want in order to classify something as quackery? > The degree of doubt that there might be about homeopathy does indeed > belong in the article on the topic. Our article on [[Holocaust denial]] is in the [[Category:Pseudohistory]]. That term sounds pretty derisive to me. Does the "degree of doubt that there might be" on the occurrence of the Holocaust deserve a prominent place and a sympathetic representation in any articles related to it? (I'm sorry for breaking Godwin's law. I honestly tried to come up with another well known example of pseudohistory. I tried the Apollo hoax theory but for some reason the relevant article isn't in the pseudohistory category. Nothing in that category is as well known as [[Holocaust denial]]. To be absolutely clear I'm not suggesting that any member of this list is a Holocaust denier or that the Holocaust is somehow comparable to homeopathy or other types of quackery.) My opinion is that [[Homeopathy]] belongs both in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] and in [[Category:Quackery]]. If there is a consensus that it doesn't I will of course defer to it. I'm willing to discuss other members of the alternative medicine category on their individual merits for classification as quackery. Regards, Haukur From chris at starglade.org Tue Jun 28 23:45:47 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:45:47 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I > don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user > does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they > probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block > vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do' > responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further > hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics. > > Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of > adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary. This is a fair point. I however disagree with your statement that being an admin will keep you out of "wikipolitics". Having the ability to ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would place the person with that power in a position where they will get involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not. Rollback, on the other hand, is just a shortcut for an action which anyone can take. Avoiding politics for those who desire to is simply not possible for someone with more abilities than the general community. As for your statement that user would prefer full admin powers rather than just rollback, that is really a subjective view based on your own experiences, and obviously people feel otherwise as I wouldn't have made the proposal if that viewpoint was universally held. I know that some people have scripts to emulate the rollback feature. Your penultimate sentence sums up why I made this proposal. "Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of adminship". What about the other people? That is why I made this proposal. Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCweErEq6+ijeBrJ8RArJhAKCurWYATj4STpA7hzShetvsmpUkjwCeLq6X RKMgiVsc5ZEL965/TMH0mw8= =7WbQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From dangrey at gmail.com Tue Jun 28 23:58:04 2005 From: dangrey at gmail.com (Dan Grey) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:58:04 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> Message-ID: I, quite simply, think this is a really good idea :-) Dan On 29/06/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > > I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I > > don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user > > does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they > > probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block > > vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do' > > responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further > > hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics. > > > > Most people who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of > > adminship. A Requests for Rollback feature would be unnecessary. > > This is a fair point. I however disagree with your statement that being > an admin will keep you out of "wikipolitics". Having the ability to > ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would > place the person with that power in a position where they will get > involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not. Rollback, on the > other hand, is just a shortcut for an action which anyone can take. > Avoiding politics for those who desire to is simply not possible for > someone with more abilities than the general community. > > As for your statement that user would prefer full admin powers rather > than just rollback, that is really a subjective view based on your own > experiences, and obviously people feel otherwise as I wouldn't have made > the proposal if that viewpoint was universally held. I know that some > people have scripts to emulate the rollback feature. > > Your penultimate sentence sums up why I made this proposal. "Most people > who want rollback wouldn't mind the other functionality of adminship". > What about the other people? That is why I made this proposal. > > Chris > > - -- > Chris Jenkinson > chris at starglade.org > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCweErEq6+ijeBrJ8RArJhAKCurWYATj4STpA7hzShetvsmpUkjwCeLq6X > RKMgiVsc5ZEL965/TMH0mw8= > =7WbQ > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From beesley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 00:00:57 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:00:57 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> Message-ID: <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> On 6/29/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > Having the ability to > ban/block/delete is a "power" which many do not have and therefore would > place the person with that power in a position where they will get > involved in wikipolitics, whether they like it or not. It shouldn't be seen as a power, but as a technical feature that is given to trusted users. There is no requirement for admin to use the features of blocking or deletion, so I don't understand why being an admin would force anyone into wikipolitics. If they don't want to be involved in the politics, they can just choose not to make controversial blocks, or even no blocks at all. If someone can be trusted to use rollback, they should be trusted to use deletion and blocking. Perhaps limiting admins to rollback rather than the other features could be something the ArbCom decides if an admin proves they can not be trusted with other features, rather than needing a separate request page for this. Angela. From haukurth at hi.is Wed Jun 29 00:24:07 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:24:07 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628225128.480C51190E0C@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050628225128.480C51190E0C@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <2041.212.30.203.31.1120004647.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> >> If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine >> and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the >> quackery category? > I would. > Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend > category except for proven frauds. I may well be mistaken. I'm not a native English speaker and often miss fine distinctions in meaning. Perhaps "quackery" has more negative connotations than I was aware of. What I mean by "quack medicine" is simply "treatments falsely presented as having curative powers". If the term has more negative connotations than that it may well be inappropriate for a Wikipedia category. I still think that "Alternative medicine" is misleading, has undeserved positive connotations and does not represent a NPOV. I still think the Quackery category and the Alternative medicine category should be merged. If Quackery is an unacceptable term then I suggest "Ineffective medicine". We can debate the inclusion of each item there on its merits. I would also be happy with Category:Pseudomedicine. Regards, Haukur From chris at starglade.org Wed Jun 29 01:12:12 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:12:12 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Angela wrote: > It shouldn't be seen as a power, but as a technical feature that is > given to trusted users. There is no requirement for admin to use the > features of blocking or deletion, so I don't understand why being an > admin would force anyone into wikipolitics. If they don't want to be > involved in the politics, they can just choose not to make > controversial blocks, or even no blocks at all. Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics, regardless of whether they use them. Having a privileged position will mean they become involved in politics, just by association. > If someone can be trusted to use rollback, they should be trusted to > use deletion and blocking. Perhaps limiting admins to rollback rather > than the other features could be something the ArbCom decides if an > admin proves they can not be trusted with other features, rather than > needing a separate request page for this. I do not agree with your first sentence. Rollback is just a shortcut function for going through history and saving a previous edit again, while deleting and blocking are privileged features. Since they are in clearly different categories I think that the level of trust required before granting people the different permissions should reflect this. Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwfVsEq6+ijeBrJ8RArbjAKCz1MwaINFbdrOcBU2eYxOfrkgG4gCg0U2p Q7suC887wtPG7eryr4ZP/Yo= =yETI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 01:20:58 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:20:58 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> Message-ID: > Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics, > regardless of whether they use them. Having a privileged position will > mean they become involved in politics, just by association. > not really. If you go through the lsit of admins you will find only a small number are really political. -- geni From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 29 01:52:22 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:52:22 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <6afb662e4274de853d5b323ee7910511@thescudder.com> References: <20050628143556.586E11AC5BB2@mail.wikimedia.org> <1551.212.30.203.31.1119970765.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d40506280823270513d1@mail.gmail.com> <1C802FF2-A232-4185-A4C5-7238BD3019C3@ctelco.net> <6afb662e4274de853d5b323ee7910511@thescudder.com> Message-ID: <42C1FED6.6070808@telus.net> Laura K Fisher wrote: > On Jun 28, 2005, at 9:43 AM, Fred Bauder wrote: > >> Alternative medicine might involve things like strong suggestion and >> placebos, and actually work. Quack medicine involves cleaning out the >> last assets of the victim and their family. >> >> Fred > > That's the best way to put the distinction I've heard. > > I strongly disagree with a merge and think that Quackery should be a > subcat of Medicine instead of Alternative medicine. One can dupe > patients with unnecessary traditional-type therapies as much as one > can with alternative ones. You could even get the scientologists to support that. :-) Ec From gdr at pobox.com Tue Jun 28 16:50:18 2005 From: gdr at pobox.com (Gdr) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:50:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pywikipedia bot : iso --> utf-8 Message-ID: MacGyverMagic wrote: > Since the upgrade yesterday, my python bot code is no longer working > and halts with the following error: You need to edit families/wikipedia_family.py and on lines 106?110 move all wikipedias from latin1 to latin1old. Hopefully the pywikipedia developers will fix this and make a new release soon. From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 03:44:31 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:44:31 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The elections are on, but I cast a blank ballot! Message-ID: If you haven't heard, the board member elections are official on. I'd like to encourage everyone who is eligible to participate, but I'd also like to encourage you do like I did and cast a blank ballot. Because we use approval voting, a blank ballot is the same as voting for everyone and the same as not voting for all. But it is also different because it shows your interest in the process, without either approving of or disapproving of any particular candidate. Since there already votes there is no risk of us going without a board, which is good. :) I have posted why I choose to vote blank and why I think you should do the same on my userpage, and I welcome comments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/vote_blank From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Wed Jun 29 04:05:39 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:05:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <2041.212.30.203.31.1120004647.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: On Wed, 29 Jun 2005, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > >> If you want to make a distinction between alternative medicine > >> and quackery would you object if I moved [[homeopathy]] to the > >> quackery category? > > > I would. > > > Me too. That's a really hard-to-defend > > category except for proven frauds. > > I may well be mistaken. I'm not a native English > speaker and often miss fine distinctions in meaning. Haukur, I think you are missing an important distinction here between the 2 English words. On the one hand, "Pseudo-science" embraces more than just fakery that is being passed off as medicine. Other examples of subjects that I think would be fairly categorized as pseudo-science would include Ley lines, the teleological theory of cultural evolution, the theories of Immanuel Velekovsky, & as someone mentioned upthread ghosts. I guess you could say that it is any hypothesis that cannot be proven experimentally, but the least controversial examples are the ones that _have_ been disproven -- yet still have their true believers. On the other hand, "quackery" is more properly applied to medicine that either does not work, or is harmful. One can graduate from a mainstream, accredited medical school, receive a medical degree, & even be board-certified -- & yet still be a quack. This is the case of a local physician here in Oregon, whose infamy is of more than local interest, since he is wanted in Australia for numerous counts of malpractice. [snip] > > I still think that "Alternative medicine" is misleading, > has undeserved positive connotations and does not represent > a NPOV. > I'm not entirely sure I know what to say in response to that. We all have erroneous preconceptions, many of which are invisible to ourselves until the moment comes & we see the mistake. Other times, only one individual is correct & the majority is wrong, & we only learn the truth much, much later. But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we accept the term & move on to other things? I see that we have 5 candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation who are all well qualified, but we can only elect two: isn't that problem worth at least as many posts as this one? Geoff From michael.turley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 04:34:22 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 00:34:22 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> Message-ID: I think this is an excellent idea. I am not an admin, and do not want to be an admin at this time. I would be interested in having the rollback feature available to me, and I think it would lead to me doing at least a little more counter-vandalism work. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused On 6/28/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi all, > > I didn't realise that MediaWiki 1.5 was so close to being introduced, > otherwise I wouldn't have come up with my previous proposal, mentoring > for admins, quite so quickly as I did! > > As unfortunately my proposal is not too popular, I have come up with a > new one titled "Requests for rollback", taking advantage of the > "privilege separation" available in MediaWiki 1.5. > > In a few words, it's a system like RfA but just granting rollback rather > than all admin powers > > This proposal is described as how I imagine it would be implemented at: > --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Talrias/Requests_for_rollback > > My reasoning behind creating this proposal is principally due to the > following: > > * Useful for those who do not wish to be nominated on WP:RFA, either > because they do not desire admin powers or because they would not be > confident with them. > * More people being able to quickly deal with vandalism is by no > means a bad thing. > * It devolves power to the community. > > I accept that some might say that is an unnecessary addition to > Wikipedia, duplicating requests for adminship, but I believe that people > who want to contribute to Wikipedia but do not wish to become > full-fledged admins will benefit from the times when rollback can be used. > > I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this. > > Chris > > - -- > Chris Jenkinson > chris at starglade.org > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCwbLVEq6+ijeBrJ8RAg8oAJ0SARCFkmcR14G9ZJ4kyvfgJP8zPQCeK1hm > S0KvMu3kfhdTh6bTO/cB3B4= > =rVph > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 05:12:14 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:12:14 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> Message-ID: <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> On 6/29/05, Michael Turley wrote: > I think this is an excellent idea. > > I am not an admin, and do not want to be an admin at this time. > > I would be interested in having the rollback feature available to me, > and I think it would lead to me doing at least a little more > counter-vandalism work. I strongly oppose it. Rollback is one of three four technical features made accessible to administrators as people that are generally trusted. The anti-admin lobby has tried to build adminship up into something it wasn't meant to be, isn't, never was and never will be, but that doesn't mean we need to accomodate them in this way. If you want the tools, then there's a page and a very simple process for you to go through to get them - else don't whinge when you don't have them. -- ambi From michael.turley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 06:56:06 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 02:56:06 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/05, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/29/05, Michael Turley wrote: > > I think this is an excellent idea. > > > > I am not an admin, and do not want to be an admin at this time. > > > > I would be interested in having the rollback feature available to me, > > and I think it would lead to me doing at least a little more > > counter-vandalism work. > > I strongly oppose it. Rollback is one of three four technical features > made accessible to administrators as people that are generally > trusted. The anti-admin lobby has tried to build adminship up into > something it wasn't meant to be, isn't, never was and never will be, > but that doesn't mean we need to accomodate them in this way. If you > want the tools, then there's a page and a very simple process for you > to go through to get them - else don't whinge when you don't have > them. > > -- ambi > Whinge? How is saying "I think that's a good idea" complaining or protesting in an annoying or persistent manner? (I had to look up "whinge", as I'd heard it, but never was fully certain what that meant.) That seems a little aggressive, and more than a bit rude, considering I only mentioned my support of a very simple idea. (Anti-admin lobby? Do you really think people get together and say "how can we oppose the admins today"?) Back to the subject: exactly why are you so strongly opposed to separating the tools, especially along these lines? It seems to me that this tool exerts exactly NO control over other users, while all the other admin tools that I am aware of do exert a degree of dominance over other users. Why shouldn't this be available individually to those who aren't interested in the powers that include domination? -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 29 08:10:45 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:10:45 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Copyright and Britannica Article List In-Reply-To: References: <20050625053230.43322.qmail@web80102.mail.yahoo.com> <42BFB338.9040400@telus.net> <98dd099a050627194547bacd6@mail.gmail.com> <42C11A87.3010501@telus.net> <42C19353.7070507@telus.net> Message-ID: <42C25785.7030807@telus.net> Andrew Gray wrote: >On 28/06/05, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>I can see the EB list being used that way, >>especially by newbies. The list just shows what we don't have; it does >>not suggest that the potential contributor seek out the Britannica >>article. If instead it inspires someone to research an otherwise >>obscure historical personage, then we all benefit. >> >> >The "obscure historical personage" is one of the key things for us; I >think we're past the stage that we run the risk of failing to include >a field of academic interest through not knowing about it (Having a >bad article through no expert knowledge is another matter). But a lot >of those personages will be in the 1911 Encyclopedia, or the various >other old encyclopedias we have lists for - I just went to look at the >project page, and was happily surprised to see that Britannica is just >one of a set of similar projects being undertaken as comparisons. > >Hmm. The original Oxford /Dictionary of National Biography/ was >originally printed in 1909. It'd be an excellent source for things >like this; I wonder if an index is available? I note that the >Australian and Canadian equivalents have had lists set up. > Yes there is, and there is a statistical analysis in reprint volume 22. Each reprint volume (which consolidated 3 original volumes each) has its own index. What's more the original body was in alphabetical order anyway. Ec From haukurth at hi.is Wed Jun 29 11:47:08 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:47:08 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> >On the one hand, "Pseudo-science" embraces more than just fakery that >is being passed off as medicine. Other examples of subjects that I >think would be fairly categorized as pseudo-science would include >Ley lines, the teleological theory of cultural evolution, the theories >of Immanuel Velekovsky, & as someone mentioned upthread ghosts. I >guess you could say that it is any hypothesis that cannot be proven >experimentally, but the least controversial examples are the ones >that _have_ been disproven -- yet still have their true believers. I fully agree. >On the other hand, "quackery" is more properly applied to medicine >that either does not work, or is harmful. I fully agree. >One can graduate from a >mainstream, accredited medical school, receive a medical degree, & >even be board-certified -- & yet still be a quack. I fully agree. Some doctors with education in scientific medicine are quacks. The discipline itself, however, isn't quackery. Homeopathy, on the other hand, is pseudo-medicine. Everyone who practices homeopathy is a quack while she's doing it, in the sense that she is providing medicine that doesn't work. I keep coming back to homeopathy because it is probably the pseudo-medicine discipline with the greatest mainstream popularity. It even has some degree of official recognition in some countries. And yet it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt not to work. >But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative >medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we >accept the term & move on to other things? I am arguing that the term is misleading for the articles that category currently holds (I won't repeat my argument here, see my earlier posts). I suggest we replace it with "Pseudo-medicine" and will do so myself if objections are not raised. >I see that we have 5 >candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation who are all well qualified, >but we can only elect two: isn't that problem worth at least as >many posts as this one? Certainly. I wish them the best of luck. If this discussion is overly burdening the mailing list I suggest we continue it on the talk page of Category:Alternative medicine. Regards, Haukur From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 12:22:17 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:22:17 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050629122217.GJ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Michael Turley (michael.turley at gmail.com) [050629 16:56]: > Back to the subject: exactly why are you so strongly opposed to > separating the tools, especially along these lines? It seems to me > that this tool exerts exactly NO control over other users, while all > the other admin tools that I am aware of do exert a degree of > dominance over other users. Why shouldn't this be available > individually to those who aren't interested in the powers that include > domination? If you want the equivalent of a rollback function, there are tools to simulate it using Javascript. (I don't have details to hand, sorry.) - d. From chris at starglade.org Wed Jun 29 12:23:07 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:23:07 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42C292AB.2000601@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rebecca wrote: > I strongly oppose it. Rollback is one of three four technical features > made accessible to administrators as people that are generally > trusted. The anti-admin lobby has tried to build adminship up into > something it wasn't meant to be, isn't, never was and never will be, > but that doesn't mean we need to accomodate them in this way. If you > want the tools, then there's a page and a very simple process for you > to go through to get them - else don't whinge when you don't have > them. I am quite offended you would label me in this way, as part of an "anti-admin lobby". I made this proposal in good faith as a way to *improve* Wikipedia as it would increase the number of vandal fighters! You are accusing me of whinging? Whatever happened to assume good faith? I find this incredibly bad form of you, and even more shocking that you are one of the people who forms the Arbitration Committee who regularly rules that "no personal attacks" is one of Wikipedia's key policies. Let me remind you that I have never voted on requests for adminship before, and that I have never insulted or in any way had a confrontation with any Wikipedia admin. Do you have any proof of these accusations? The only person to make such ridiculous claims as an 'anti-admin lobby' and 'me whinging' is you. Maybe you have strong feelings about that - but that is certainly no reason to attack or insult others in this way. Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwpKrEq6+ijeBrJ8RAnr9AKCLF032zAhexfBde7wHiN1bMPjn4ACgzzdR U+wfQEXmfq+p0jfkVDVzIiY= =Vnsm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 12:32:28 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:32:28 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050629123228.GK7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 21:47]: > I am arguing that the term is misleading > for the articles that category currently > holds (I won't repeat my argument here, > see my earlier posts). I suggest we replace > it with "Pseudo-medicine" and will do so > myself if objections are not raised. I raise an objection: that's not what it's called in English (my overriding objection), and "pseudo-medicine" is an invented term hence original research. The current article on [[Alternative medicine]] has suffered a bad case of Gohde and could do with a lot of cleaning up, but the Category links to Pseudoscience and Protoscience get the point across IMO (having as it does both). - d. From haukurth at hi.is Wed Jun 29 13:26:59 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:26:59 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protoscience category In-Reply-To: <20050629114714.A2D561AC5D1B@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050629114714.A2D561AC5D1B@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1106.212.30.203.31.1120051619.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> >I raise an objection: that's not what it's called in English (my overriding >objection), and "pseudo-medicine" is an invented term hence original >research. Very well, you're probably right. I think I've said my piece on this topic and I've got a better idea of the various opinions of other community members. It seems we have reached the typical Wikipedian conclusion of calling a truce on a status quo which is unacceptable to everyone :) At any rate I will proceed with caution in any changes I make to these articles and categories. >The current article on [[Alternative medicine]] has suffered a bad case of >Gohde and could do with a lot of cleaning up, but the Category links to >Pseudoscience and Protoscience get the point across IMO (having as it does >both). Currently the Protoscience category includes such topics as String theory and Quantum gravity as well as Phrenology (old debunked non-sense) and Biorythm (recent debunked non-sense). To me it does not seem that these things have enough in common to be usefully included in the same category. Regards, Haukur From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 13:40:21 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:10:21 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Vandalism and quackery In-Reply-To: <20050628225750.GI7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628203434.9E99C1AC5C54@mail.wikimedia.org> <1980.212.30.203.31.1119999067.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <20050628225750.GI7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C2A4C5.4090001@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 David Gerard wrote: > Seconded. It's not [[Category:Earthmoving implements commonly held to be of > wood and metal construction]]. > Why call a spade a spade, when you can call it a bloody shovel? :) - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwqTE/RxM5Ph0xhMRA0LrAJ9WqZiSvq5SD17Yqyv3yBkb8iRsZgCfUjqQ j/7F1ojQ9qLhDJDM8lc9R4Q= =dd1n -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 13:45:38 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:45:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <20050628155223.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> <20050628155223.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <2f33f2d40506290645717e07b6@mail.gmail.com> On 6/28/05, David Gerard wrote: > Note that the alternative medicine area in particular was badly fouled up > by [[User:John Gohde]], aka [[User:Mr-Natural-Health]], whose idiosyncratic > and confrontative behaviour currently has him banned for a year. So the > area is generally in really bad need of a cleanup and one should take care > before using it as an example in the present discussion ;-) Sorry, I didn't know that... /Habj From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 13:58:32 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:58:32 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protoscience category In-Reply-To: <1106.212.30.203.31.1120051619.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050629114714.A2D561AC5D1B@mail.wikimedia.org> <1106.212.30.203.31.1120051619.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050629135832.GL7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Haukur ?orgeirsson (haukurth at hi.is) [050629 23:27]: > >The current article on [[Alternative medicine]] has suffered a bad case of > >Gohde and could do with a lot of cleaning up, but the Category links to > >Pseudoscience and Protoscience get the point across IMO (having as it does > >both). > Currently the Protoscience category includes such > topics as String theory and Quantum gravity as well > as Phrenology (old debunked non-sense) and Biorythm > (recent debunked non-sense). To me it does not seem > that these things have enough in common to be usefully > included in the same category. Phrenology has almost certainly fallen well into pseudoscience (if it still has followers). Biorhythms, I don't know enough about. String theory probably isn't. Stuff like [[Ufology]] probably belongs there - some cranks, some people trying to gather information in a respectable manner. I started the category for the sake of [[Alternative medicine]] and added stuff from [[List of protosciences]] to it as I thought were sensible. There was a lot of editorial decision-making involved. We need a handy NPOV definition of "protoscience" that divides these things up elegantly. This sort of thing is endlessly fascinating :-) - d. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 14:04:56 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:04:56 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <530912670506290703609a077d@mail.gmail.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> <42C292AB.2000601@starglade.org> <530912670506290703609a077d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5309126705062907044fd93ef3@mail.gmail.com> On 6/30/05, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/29/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > > Let me remind you that I have never voted on requests for adminship > > before, and that I have never insulted or in any way had a confrontation > > with any Wikipedia admin. Do you have any proof of these accusations? > > > > The only person to make such ridiculous claims as an 'anti-admin lobby' > > and 'me whinging' is you. Maybe you have strong feelings about that - > > but that is certainly no reason to attack or insult others in this way. That was not specifically directed at you; rather, the previous poster. I apologise if I worded my point badly. The point is that if you want rollback, apply for adminship. Adminship should *not* be seen as some form of supreme power structure, as much as some users (and I don't count you as one of those) have tried very hard to make it so. It's simply a mop and a broom - and if you want that mop and broom, apply for it through the normal process rather than getting it by another name for no good reason. -- ambi From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 14:10:21 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:10:21 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <2f33f2d40506290645717e07b6@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050628075510.88A271AC5B4A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1124.212.30.203.31.1119958918.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <2f33f2d405062806222f2af853@mail.gmail.com> <20050628155223.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <2f33f2d40506290645717e07b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050629141020.GM7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Habj (sweetadelaide at gmail.com) [050629 23:45]: > On 6/28/05, David Gerard wrote: > > Note that the alternative medicine area in particular was badly fouled up > > by [[User:John Gohde]], aka [[User:Mr-Natural-Health]], whose idiosyncratic > > and confrontative behaviour currently has him banned for a year. So the > > area is generally in really bad need of a cleanup and one should take care > > before using it as an example in the present discussion ;-) > Sorry, I didn't know that... Editors who are looking for something to do and who have knowledge of the area and of the views held on it may like to look through edits under those two usernames and see what articles could do with checking over. There's quite a lot. There's also [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicine]], which was basically under his personal control, but will have lists and ideas on stuff to do. - d. From samrushing at charter.net Wed Jun 29 14:41:55 2005 From: samrushing at charter.net (samrushing at charter.net) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 9:41:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings Message-ID: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> I dont know why I am being bombarded with e-mail discussion groups. Please let me know how to remove these messages thanks Sam Rushing sam c From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 14:46:28 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:16:28 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings In-Reply-To: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> References: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> Message-ID: <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 samrushing at charter.net wrote: > I dont know why I am being bombarded with e-mail > discussion groups. > Please let me know how to remove these messages > thanks > Sam Rushing > > sam c > Send an email to wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org with the subject unsubscribe and you will be removed. - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCwrRE/RxM5Ph0xhMRA186AJ0Q7dY9k+k4YayFnXcrKgQTmQ+TwQCePunZ bR8nuugepnxwiWboFvJ33Cs= =H0Dq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 14:53:15 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:53:15 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings In-Reply-To: <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> References: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050629145315.GO7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Alphax (alphasigmax at gmail.com) [050630 00:48]: > samrushing at charter.net wrote: > > I dont know why I am being bombarded with e-mail > > discussion groups. > > Please let me know how to remove these messages > > thanks > > Sam Rushing > Send an email to wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org with the subject > unsubscribe and you will be removed. I've hand-unsubscribed Sam. - d. From ultrablue at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 15:00:59 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:00:59 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings In-Reply-To: <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> References: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/05, Alphax wrote: > > Send an email to wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org with the subject > unsubscribe and you will be removed. > That really works? Heh, I had no idea. ~Mark Ryan From kkrueger at whoi.edu Wed Jun 29 15:07:57 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:07:57 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <20050629150756.GD4932@whoi.edu> On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 11:47:08AM -0000, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > Some doctors with education in scientific medicine are quacks. The > discipline itself, however, isn't quackery. Homeopathy, on the other > hand, is pseudo-medicine. Everyone who practices homeopathy is a quack > while she's doing it, in the sense that she is providing medicine that > doesn't work. I think we should avoid calling any person a quack. We can and should refer to acts of quackery, or to particular disproven treatments as quack treatments, but it seems unnecessarily inflammatory to label persons like that. (Likewise, we should say that Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were found to have told lies -- not that they "are liars". The former comes across as a flat statement of fact; the latter is a character smear.) (A little [[E-Prime]] can go a long way.) > I keep coming back to homeopathy because it is probably the > pseudo-medicine discipline with the greatest mainstream popularity. It > even has some degree of official recognition in some countries. And > yet it has been shown beyond any reasonable doubt not to work. The aspect of it that I really find interesting is how water is only supposed to "remember" the substances the homeopath wishes it to -- even though all the water in the world could be considered to contain a homeopathic dilution of dinosaur pee. :) > >But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative > >medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we > >accept the term & move on to other things? > > I am arguing that the term is misleading for the articles that > category currently holds (I won't repeat my argument here, see my > earlier posts). I suggest we replace it with "Pseudo-medicine" and > will do so myself if objections are not raised. If we're taking "quackery" (or "pseudo-medicine") to mean remedies that have been demonstrated to _not_ work, then we still need a place to put remedies that are unproven either way, and ones which are too broad to categorize clearly as working or not-working as a whole. Take herbal medicine, for instance. It's pretty well established that some herbs do have pharmacologically active ingredients which are effective for the purposes those herbs are traditionally recommended. However, there's also an awful lot of sheer nonsense about herbs. Large portions of the practice can't accurately be classed as "pseudoscience" since practitioners don't imitate science. Or take massage. There are certainly pseudoscientific and pseudomedical claims made about some forms of massage, such as reflexology -- which holds that massaging specific areas of your feet can cure afflictions of specific parts of the rest of your body. But massage is also recognized as part of physical therapy. As a whole subject, where does massage belong w.r.t. medicine? The category "complementary medicine" seems to me to fit perfectly. -- Karl A. Krueger From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Jun 29 15:09:03 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 08:09:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protoscience category Message-ID: Protoscience is anything scientists are still working on, which hasn't become really established. The problem is that Science itself has only just begun to tackle the really difficult problems. In Aristotle's time, they merely thought that "heavy things fall faster". It wasn't until 1600 or 1620 that it was definitively proven that heavy, dense objects (think cannonballs!) fall faster and faster - and that this is NOT related to their weight. That is, a 10-pound cannonball and a 20-pound cannonball, dropped from a tower at the same time, will hit the ground at the same time! It was not until the period 1860 - 1910 (or so) that the Germ Theory of Disease became well known, and there was considerable resistance among doctors to even LOOKING at the research results. Now we have psychology, political science, economics: these fields are still in their infancy. How can we describe them accurately and without bias? And what about climatology? The global warming theory is so _politically_ controversial (with liberals and conservatives evenly split on it) that we've been unable to take the NPOV-dispute tag off the article for the whole 3 years we've been trying to write it. I'm good friends with William Connolley, but he can't write NPOV for crap (sorry, Doc!). Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed From michael.turley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 15:44:53 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:44:53 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <5309126705062907044fd93ef3@mail.gmail.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <5309126705062822126523701d@mail.gmail.com> <42C292AB.2000601@starglade.org> <530912670506290703609a077d@mail.gmail.com> <5309126705062907044fd93ef3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/05, Rebecca wrote: > On 6/30/05, Rebecca wrote: > > On 6/29/05, Chris Jenkinson wrote: > > > Let me remind you that I have never voted on requests for adminship > > > before, and that I have never insulted or in any way had a confrontation > > > with any Wikipedia admin. Do you have any proof of these accusations? > > > > > > The only person to make such ridiculous claims as an 'anti-admin lobby' > > > and 'me whinging' is you. Maybe you have strong feelings about that - > > > but that is certainly no reason to attack or insult others in this way. > > That was not specifically directed at you; rather, the previous > poster. I apologise if I worded my point badly. The point is that if > you want rollback, apply for adminship. Adminship should *not* be seen > as some form of supreme power structure, as much as some users (and I > don't count you as one of those) have tried very hard to make it so. > It's simply a mop and a broom - and if you want that mop and broom, > apply for it through the normal process rather than getting it by > another name for no good reason. > > -- ambi > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ambi Your claim is still ridiculous, regardless of who you addressed it to. (There is no anti-admin cabal.) Adminship is the granting of the tools necessary and desired to assist with the mission of Wikipedia and nothing more. I prefer to leave the tools regarding dominance and control of other users in other, more experienced hands. For example, I couldn't begin to tell you what impact an IP block has, and I don't care to learn. At this time, I have no interest in protecting a page and would rather leave that power in the hands of those more experienced in judging when it is appropriate to do so. Further, there are admin candidates that, at this time, I'd hate to see get the ability to block others, yet would still benefit greatly from the rollback tool. An example is Weyes. On this page, [[User_talk:Ozdusters]], he posted something to the effect of "this is your final warning, do this one more time and you'll be blocked". This is a very aggressive, authoritarian thing to post, especially when he didn't have any ability to back up his threats, and why it'll be at least another month or two before I would consider supporting him as an admin.* However, I think Weyes would be extremely well served by having the rollback tool available to him. *(Unless he's made an admin over my objections, in which case I'll immediately support him as an admin.) This is an example of why I think separation of the rollback tool is a great idea. The fact that I don't covet all of your admin tools shouldn't be used as an excuse for you to dismiss my ongoing concerns that they are used properly. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:19:39 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:19:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? Message-ID: Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong? So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES and added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the primer sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became involved in the discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, and I tried to calm it down by removing some personal attacks. I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best way to do it. I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a sockpuppet of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my emails. Can someone please explain this? Thanks, Kurita77 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:22:21 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:22:21 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Michael Turley >Back to the subject: exactly why are you so strongly opposed to >separating the tools, especially along these lines? It seems to me >that this tool exerts exactly NO control over other users, while all >the other admin tools that I am aware of do exert a degree of >dominance over other users. Why shouldn't this be available >individually to those who aren't interested in the powers that include >domination? Interesting that you would use the highly emotive word "domination"; if others share your understanding of what adminship involved, then Rebecca would be entirely warranted in her view that there is an "anti-admin" group out there for that reason alone. Regarding the rollback feature, it makes edit wars considerably easier, which is not a good thing. Jay. From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:44:52 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:44:52 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Will someone give me a response? Please? None of the admins I have emailed have responded. This is frightening. The way you people act is directly contrary to the literature Spangineer sent me. Kurita77 >From: "Kurita Ryohan" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:19:39 -0500 > >Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong? > >So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES and >added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the >Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the primer >sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became involved >in the discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, and I tried >to calm it down by removing some personal attacks. > >I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through >because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to >refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best way >to do it. > >I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal >messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an >admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a >sockpuppet of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my >emails. Can someone please explain this? > >Thanks, >Kurita77 > >_________________________________________________________________ >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Jun 29 16:48:56 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:48:56 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <77592599-415E-413F-9971-DC7D6418DA8E@ctelco.net> Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 Fred On Jun 29, 2005, at 10:19 AM, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong? > > So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at > SNES and added a small section to NES. I added an article and image > for the Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I > read the primer sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy > pages. I became involved in the discussion at Jihad because it > seems to show up a lot, and I tried to calm it down by removing > some personal attacks. > > I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them > through because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're > supposed to refactor without removing the context. I thought that > would be the best way to do it. > > I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of > personal messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to > remove them. Now an admin named Carbonite has blocked me > indefinitely claiming I am a sockpuppet of someone named > Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my emails. Can someone > please explain this? > > Thanks, > Kurita77 > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - > it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/ > direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sweetadelaide at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:49:19 2005 From: sweetadelaide at gmail.com (Habj) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:49:19 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2f33f2d40506290949207e29f@mail.gmail.com> While I know nothing about your case - and not personally will dig into it - I think it takes more than 25 minutes to check the background to your story... give it a little time. /Habj On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Will someone give me a response? Please? None of the admins I have emailed > have responded. > > This is frightening. The way you people act is directly contrary to the > literature Spangineer sent me. > > Kurita77 > > >From: "Kurita Ryohan" > >Reply-To: English Wikipedia > >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > >Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? > >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:19:39 -0500 > > > >Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong? > > > >So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES and > > >added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the > >Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the primer > > >sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became involved > > >in the discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, and I tried > >to calm it down by removing some personal attacks. > > > >I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through > >because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to > >refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best way > > >to do it. > > > >I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal > >messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an > >admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a > >sockpuppet of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my > >emails. Can someone please explain this? > > > >Thanks, > >Kurita77 > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > > >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > > >_______________________________________________ > >WikiEN-l mailing list > >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:50:45 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:50:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <77592599-415E-413F-9971-DC7D6418DA8E@ctelco.net> Message-ID: I keep seeing that word, what is a sockpuppet? And why are you people so hostile? Kurita77 >From: Fred Bauder >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:48:56 -0600 > >Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see > >http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? >title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 > >Fred > > >On Jun 29, 2005, at 10:19 AM, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > >>Can someone please tell me what I have done wrong? >> >>So far I have edited only a few articles. I cleaned up a vandal at SNES >>and added a small section to NES. I added an article and image for the >>Eyeshield 21 anime and added a link to the manga's page. I read the >>primer sent to me by Spangineer and the Wikipedia policy pages. I became >>involved in the discussion at Jihad because it seems to show up a lot, >>and I tried to calm it down by removing some personal attacks. >> >>I removed personal attacks from the discussion by striking them through >>because policy on Remove Personal Attacks says that we're supposed to >>refactor without removing the context. I thought that would be the best >>way to do it. >> >>I got a bunch of nasty messages back claiming that my removal of personal >>messages was "vandalism" when it's clearly policy to remove them. Now an >>admin named Carbonite has blocked me indefinitely claiming I am a >>sockpuppet of someone named Enviroknot. Carbonite isn't responding to my >>emails. Can someone please explain this? >> >>Thanks, >>Kurita77 >> >>_________________________________________________________________ >>Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's >>FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/ direct/01/ >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 16:51:54 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <77592599-415E-413F-9971-DC7D6418DA8E@ctelco.net> References: <77592599-415E-413F-9971-DC7D6418DA8E@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050629165154.GP7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]: > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once the devs have the bugs from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on IRC ;-) - d. From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 16:54:57 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:54:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <20050629165154.GP7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? I can't understand why you people are acting this way. Kurita77 >From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000 > >Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]: > > > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 > > >CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go >look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once the devs have the bugs >from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on IRC ;-) > > >- d. > > > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:03:29 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:03:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please. Someone. ANYONE. We're supposed to be bold when editing but then we get indefinitely blocked? Why are you doing this to me? Why are you refusing to respond? Why am I getting nothing but nasty emails accusing me of being someone else? Kurita77 >From: "Kurita Ryohan" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:54:57 -0500 > >Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? I can't understand why >you people are acting this way. > >Kurita77 > >>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia >>To: English Wikipedia >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000 >> >>Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]: >> >> > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? >> > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 >> >> >>CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go >>look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once the devs have the bugs >>from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on IRC ;-) >> >> >>- d. >> >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ From michael.turley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:04:00 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:04:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/29/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Michael Turley > >Back to the subject: exactly why are you so strongly opposed to > >separating the tools, especially along these lines? It seems to me > >that this tool exerts exactly NO control over other users, while all > >the other admin tools that I am aware of do exert a degree of > >dominance over other users. Why shouldn't this be available > >individually to those who aren't interested in the powers that include > >domination? > > Interesting that you would use the highly emotive word "domination"; if > others share your understanding of what adminship involved, then Rebecca > would be entirely warranted in her view that there is an "anti-admin" group > out there for that reason alone. Regarding the rollback feature, it makes > edit wars considerably easier, which is not a good thing. > > Jay. The blocking feature makes newbie biting much easier, which is not a good thing. Page locking makes enforcing a single POV easier, which is not a good thing. *All tools have a proper use, and all tools can be used abusively.* Ignoring the proper use of a tool in favor of it's potential abusive use is a specious argument, in my opinion. It still doesn't address the reason why ambi thinks (and perhaps you agree) that they belong in an unseparable package. If that's the case, why not give admins all the powers of bureaucrats? And stewards? And arbitrators? And all the powers of Jimbo Wales, while we're at it? It would certainly more convenient to have all the powers in one single package. Regarding "domination". I chose the word to best express why *I* am uninterested in a particular subset of admin tools. I prefer persuasion to force. I have no current interest in tools of force here at Wikipedia; I intend to test the boundaries of wikilove, good reason, and persuasion. I believe my understanding of what adminship involves is very similar to your own. However, my preferences regarding implementation are obviously different. I prefer that you and others have those domination tools. However, I think you're being disingenuous if you don't admit that that is what they are. I support the existence of "overwhelming force" being available to those who are interested, capable, and willing to use it judiciously. Finally, the rollback feature, as far as I can tell, is unique, in that it is a very valuable editing enhancement, but is the only one that doesn't have any powers of enforcement behind it. That's why I think it should be available separately to those who are interested. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From shimgray at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:05:21 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:05:21 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: <20050629165154.GP7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On 29/06/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? I can't understand why > you people are acting this way. A sockpuppet is another user account operated by the same user, under the pretence it's a second person. (For example, consider I'm arguing with you, and a new person appears on my side. On the internet, it's quite difficult to tell, with no "history", if that person is actually someone who agrees with me, or just myself pretending to be someone else. It's surprisingly common) There are special technical process (I don't understand them either, I confess...) to attempt to figure out if two usernames are being used by the same person; David's comment about "checkuser" means that he's looking into that. Note Habj's comment: these things do take a bit of time, people are volunteers and will do things when they have a spare moment. My apologies if you've been blocked accidentally; if so, it'll probably be resolved, but not immediately - again, these things take time. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From carrp_x at yahoo.com Wed Jun 29 17:25:25 2005 From: carrp_x at yahoo.com (Pat Carr) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:25:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050629172525.12104.qmail@web32501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Here's a synopsis of Kurita77's contributions at Wikipedia: 1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom injunction. 2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also editing features such as section headings and bold text. 6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's comments. 10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal Attacks". 16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield 21". Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield article. In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that this article brought him here. 20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page referencing several Wikipedia policies and instructing Brandon to "calm down". 22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR. All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. It's crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot. --- Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Please. Someone. ANYONE. > > We're supposed to be bold when editing but then we > get indefinitely blocked? > Why are you doing this to me? Why are you refusing > to respond? Why am I > getting nothing but nasty emails accusing me of > being someone else? > > Kurita77 > > >From: "Kurita Ryohan" > >Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked > indefinitely? > >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:54:57 -0500 > > > >Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? > I can't understand why > >you people are acting this way. > > > >Kurita77 > > > >>From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) > >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > >>To: English Wikipedia > >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked > indefinitely? > >>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 02:51:54 +1000 > >> > >>Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]: > >> > >> > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see > >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > >> > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 > >> > >> > >>CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me > in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go > >>look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once > the devs have the bugs > >>from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on > IRC ;-) > >> > >> > >>- d. > >> > >> > >> > >>_______________________________________________ > >>WikiEN-l mailing list > >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! > Download today - it's FREE! > >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > > >_______________________________________________ > >WikiEN-l mailing list > >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > _________________________________________________________________ > FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get > it now! > http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:25:43 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:25:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please, anyone? The reason given is this: Autoblocked because your IP address has been recently used by "Kurita77". The reason given for Kurita77's block is: "Sockpuppet of User:Enviroknot (who is blocked for violating an ArbCom injunction)". Wouldn't I have been automatically blocked anyways if I was this guy? Can someone PLEASE give me back my account? People keep leaving me messages and I can't respond. I want to keep editing the page I came here to edit in the first place on Eyeshield 21. Also to the ones who sent me vulgar emails please stop it. Deleting them is no fun because I have to see that language first to know to delete it. Kurita77 >From: Andrew Gray >Reply-To: andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk >To: English Wikipedia , kurita77lineman at hotmail.com >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:05:21 +0100 > >On 29/06/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > > Will someone PLEASE explain to me what is going on? I can't understand >why > > you people are acting this way. > >A sockpuppet is another user account operated by the same user, under >the pretence it's a second person. > >(For example, consider I'm arguing with you, and a new person appears >on my side. On the internet, it's quite difficult to tell, with no >"history", if that person is actually someone who agrees with me, or >just myself pretending to be someone else. It's surprisingly common) > >There are special technical process (I don't understand them either, I >confess...) to attempt to figure out if two usernames are being used >by the same person; David's comment about "checkuser" means that he's >looking into that. > >Note Habj's comment: these things do take a bit of time, people are >volunteers and will do things when they have a spare moment. > >My apologies if you've been blocked accidentally; if so, it'll >probably be resolved, but not immediately - again, these things take >time. > >-- >- Andrew Gray > andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:36:42 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:36:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <20050629172525.12104.qmail@web32501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Why do you keep attacking me? >1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of >Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom >injunction. Is it against policy to edit at certain times of day? People edit all the time from what I understand. I got up this morning, signed in, and created my account after reading all the stuff on how to edit. >2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of >BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also >editing features such as section headings and bold >text. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction_2 Hello? Policies and Guidelines, Rules, and all the editing tools are spelled out right here. You obviously wanted people to read them so I did. I didn't want to make my edits look bad. This is supposed to be a professional-quality encyclopedia right? >6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal >Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's >comments. That's because Policy says No Personal Attacsk and we are supposed to Remove Personal Attacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_personal_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Remove_personal_attacks >10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal Attacks". Why is this a bad thing? >16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield 21". >Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield article. >In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that this >article brought him here. It did. I was trying things out first. I also reverted a vandal who tagged his name into the SNES article. >20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page >referencing several Wikipedia policies and instructing >Brandon to "calm down". I was assuming good faith and giving Brandon a friendly message. It was not an instruction, it was a friendly suggestion. >22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR. Because I remembered that there's policy like that but I couldn't tell if I'd violated it, the 3RR policy has a bunch of exceptions. I asked before I got in trouble. >All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. It's >crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot. > I'm not this guy Enviroknot whoever he is, I'm just me. I came in here because I was referenced to it. PLEASE, just give me back my account. This is completely unfair of you. I don't understand what makes you act this way. Kurita77 _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From carrp_x at yahoo.com Wed Jun 29 17:54:45 2005 From: carrp_x at yahoo.com (Pat Carr) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:54:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050629175445.68660.qmail@web32510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> According to the email headers, Kurita77's IP is 66.69.141.11. Sound familiar? That IP is listed on the ArbCom case page as one of Enviroknot's IPs. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KaintheScion_et_al./Proposed_decision#Sockpuppets_2 Carbonite --- Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Why do you keep attacking me? > > >1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of > >Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom > >injunction. > > Is it against policy to edit at certain times of > day? People edit all the > time from what I understand. I got up this morning, > signed in, and created > my account after reading all the stuff on how to > edit. > > > >2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of > >BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also > >editing features such as section headings and bold > >text. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction_2 > > Hello? Policies and Guidelines, Rules, and all the > editing tools are spelled > out right here. You obviously wanted people to read > them so I did. I didn't > want to make my edits look bad. This is supposed to > be a > professional-quality encyclopedia right? > > > >6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal > >Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's > >comments. > That's because Policy says No Personal Attacsk and > we are supposed to Remove > Personal Attacks. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_personal_attacks > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Remove_personal_attacks > > >10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal > Attacks". > Why is this a bad thing? > > >16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield > 21". > >Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield > article. > >In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that > this > >article brought him here. > It did. I was trying things out first. I also > reverted a vandal who tagged > his name into the SNES article. > > >20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page > >referencing several Wikipedia policies and > instructing > >Brandon to "calm down". > I was assuming good faith and giving Brandon a > friendly message. It was not > an instruction, it was a friendly suggestion. > > >22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR. > Because I remembered that there's policy like that > but I couldn't tell if > I'd violated it, the 3RR policy has a bunch of > exceptions. I asked before I > got in trouble. > > >All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. > It's > >crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot. > > > I'm not this guy Enviroknot whoever he is, I'm just > me. I came in here > because I was referenced to it. > > PLEASE, just give me back my account. This is > completely unfair of you. I > don't understand what makes you act this way. > > Kurita77 > > _________________________________________________________________ > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer > virus scan from McAfee? > Security. > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:57:04 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Someone just sent me this. If this is really how you people want to be I will leave. Kurita77 >From: Blank >To: Kurita77Lineman at hotmail.com >Subject: Re: Die in shit fatass >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:42:54 > >Fuck off loser. >We don't give two shits who you are. >We just don't like new users. >This is OUR encyclopedia. >You can go to hell. Keep that jap crap off Wikipedia we don't need it. >Go the fuck away Jew-lover. _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 17:59:11 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:59:11 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <20050629175445.68660.qmail@web32510.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I told you via email that I didn't have cable modem service until this morning. My stupid neighbors are putting in a pool and they cut my lines. It was in and out several times. I have no control over what IP I get. I'm now getting very sure that you were the one who sent the email I just forwarded to this list. Kurita >From: Pat Carr >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:54:45 -0700 (PDT) > >According to the email headers, Kurita77's IP is >66.69.141.11. Sound familiar? That IP is listed on the >ArbCom case page as one of Enviroknot's IPs. See >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KaintheScion_et_al./Proposed_decision#Sockpuppets_2 > >Carbonite > >--- Kurita Ryohan wrote: > > > Why do you keep attacking me? > > > > >1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of > > >Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom > > >injunction. > > > > Is it against policy to edit at certain times of > > day? People edit all the > > time from what I understand. I got up this morning, > > signed in, and created > > my account after reading all the stuff on how to > > edit. > > > > > > >2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of > > >BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also > > >editing features such as section headings and bold > > >text. > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction_2 > > > > Hello? Policies and Guidelines, Rules, and all the > > editing tools are spelled > > out right here. You obviously wanted people to read > > them so I did. I didn't > > want to make my edits look bad. This is supposed to > > be a > > professional-quality encyclopedia right? > > > > > > >6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal > > >Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's > > >comments. > > That's because Policy says No Personal Attacsk and > > we are supposed to Remove > > Personal Attacks. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_personal_attacks > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Remove_personal_attacks > > > > >10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal > > Attacks". > > Why is this a bad thing? > > > > >16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield > > 21". > > >Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield > > article. > > >In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that > > this > > >article brought him here. > > It did. I was trying things out first. I also > > reverted a vandal who tagged > > his name into the SNES article. > > > > >20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page > > >referencing several Wikipedia policies and > > instructing > > >Brandon to "calm down". > > I was assuming good faith and giving Brandon a > > friendly message. It was not > > an instruction, it was a friendly suggestion. > > > > >22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR. > > Because I remembered that there's policy like that > > but I couldn't tell if > > I'd violated it, the 3RR policy has a bunch of > > exceptions. I asked before I > > got in trouble. > > > > >All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. > > It's > > >crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot. > > > > > I'm not this guy Enviroknot whoever he is, I'm just > > me. I came in here > > because I was referenced to it. > > > > PLEASE, just give me back my account. This is > > completely unfair of you. I > > don't understand what makes you act this way. > > > > Kurita77 > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer > > virus scan from McAfee? > > Security. > > >http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 18:38:42 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:38:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Now not only are you ignoring my emails, you are pasting only your own emails into Wikipedia and NOT posting my responses. To top it off, you blanked my user page after denying me the ability to edit it myself. You are acting in horribly bad faith and I want to know why you are doing this. Someone, please. Give me back my account. I have done nothing wrong. Kurita77 >From: "Kurita Ryohan" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:59:11 -0500 > >I told you via email that I didn't have cable modem service until this >morning. My stupid neighbors are putting in a pool and they cut my lines. >It was in and out several times. > >I have no control over what IP I get. > >I'm now getting very sure that you were the one who sent the email I just >forwarded to this list. > >Kurita > >>From: Pat Carr >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia >>To: English Wikipedia >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:54:45 -0700 (PDT) >> >>According to the email headers, Kurita77's IP is >>66.69.141.11. Sound familiar? That IP is listed on the >>ArbCom case page as one of Enviroknot's IPs. See >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/KaintheScion_et_al./Proposed_decision#Sockpuppets_2 >> >>Carbonite >> >>--- Kurita Ryohan wrote: >> >> > Why do you keep attacking me? >> > >> > >1st edit: His first edit was made within minutes of >> > >Enviroknot being blocked for violating the ArbCom >> > >injunction. >> > >> > Is it against policy to edit at certain times of >> > day? People edit all the >> > time from what I understand. I got up this morning, >> > signed in, and created >> > my account after reading all the stuff on how to >> > edit. >> > >> > >> > >2nd edit: Quoted Enviroknot and struck-out many of >> > >BrandonYusufToropov's comments. Kurita77 used also >> > >editing features such as section headings and bold >> > >text. >> > >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction_2 >> > >> > Hello? Policies and Guidelines, Rules, and all the >> > editing tools are spelled >> > out right here. You obviously wanted people to read >> > them so I did. I didn't >> > want to make my edits look bad. This is supposed to >> > be a >> > professional-quality encyclopedia right? >> > >> > >> > >6th edit: Began lecturing Brandon on "No Personal >> > >Attacks". Again struck-out several of Brandon's >> > >comments. >> > That's because Policy says No Personal Attacsk and >> > we are supposed to Remove >> > Personal Attacks. >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_personal_attacks >> > >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Remove_personal_attacks >> > >> > >10th edit: Again lectured about "No Personal >> > Attacks". >> > Why is this a bad thing? >> > >> > >16th-18th edits: Uploaded an image of "Eyeshield >> > 21". >> > >Added a disambiguation link to the Eyeshield >> > article. >> > >In an email he sent to me, Kurita77 claimed that >> > this >> > >article brought him here. >> > It did. I was trying things out first. I also >> > reverted a vandal who tagged >> > his name into the SNES article. >> > >> > >20th edits: Posted a message on Brandon's talk page >> > >referencing several Wikipedia policies and >> > instructing >> > >Brandon to "calm down". >> > I was assuming good faith and giving Brandon a >> > friendly message. It was not >> > an instruction, it was a friendly suggestion. >> > >> > >22nd edit: Posted a question on AN/3RR. >> > Because I remembered that there's policy like that >> > but I couldn't tell if >> > I'd violated it, the 3RR policy has a bunch of >> > exceptions. I asked before I >> > got in trouble. >> > >> > >All of the above happened in less than 3 hours. >> > It's >> > >crystal clear that Kurita == Environknot. >> > > >> > I'm not this guy Enviroknot whoever he is, I'm just >> > me. I came in here >> > because I was referenced to it. >> > >> > PLEASE, just give me back my account. This is >> > completely unfair of you. I >> > don't understand what makes you act this way. >> > >> > Kurita77 >> > >> > >>_________________________________________________________________ >> > Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer >> > virus scan from McAfee? >> > Security. >> > >>http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > WikiEN-l mailing list >> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > >> >> >>__________________________________________________ >>Do You Yahoo!? >>Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >>http://mail.yahoo.com >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement From carrp_x at yahoo.com Wed Jun 29 18:59:24 2005 From: carrp_x at yahoo.com (Pat Carr) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:59:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050629185924.43475.qmail@web32515.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I know I'm risking feeding the trolls, (since it's already been determined by IP evidence that this is Enviroknot / ElKabong / KaintheScion) so I'll keep it short. What exactly is your problem with me posting *my own* words into Wikipedia? I didn't feel like retyping my own words, so I pasted them. Many people don't read the mailing list. When your Enviroknot account is unblocked in a few hours, you can respond all you want. As for your accusation that I sent the offensive email, please provide some proof immediately or apologize. I'm not holding my breath for either. Carbonite --- Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Now not only are you ignoring my emails, you are > pasting only your own > emails into Wikipedia and NOT posting my responses. > > To top it off, you blanked my user page after > denying me the ability to edit > it myself. > > You are acting in horribly bad faith and I want to > know why you are doing > this. > > Someone, please. Give me back my account. I have > done nothing wrong. > > Kurita77 > > >From: "Kurita Ryohan" > >Reply-To: English Wikipedia > > >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked > indefinitely? > >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:59:11 -0500 > > > >I told you via email that I didn't have cable modem > service until this > >morning. My stupid neighbors are putting in a pool > and they cut my lines. > >It was in and out several times. > > > >I have no control over what IP I get. > > > >I'm now getting very sure that you were the one who > sent the email I just > >forwarded to this list. > > > >Kurita ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 29 19:12:52 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:12:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C2F2B4.5040503@telus.net> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >>One can graduate from a >>mainstream, accredited medical school, receive a medical degree, & >>even be board-certified -- & yet still be a quack. >> >> >I fully agree. > >Some doctors with education in scientific >medicine are quacks. The discipline itself, >however, isn't quackery. Homeopathy, on the >other hand, is pseudo-medicine. Everyone who >practices homeopathy is a quack while she's >doing it, in the sense that she is providing >medicine that doesn't work. > I have not had occasion to use them, but If I look at the prices of homeopathic medicines I find them rather modest. Compare that with the prices of heavily patented medicines sold by major pharmaceutical companies. The improved efficacy of some of these is often only incremental over that of the drug whose patent has expired. Some of these producers are quite happy to withhold medicines from those who can't pay. It isn't the homeopaths who are failing to send AIDS drugs to Africa, or are using their patent powers to restrict domestic African production of these drugs. If indeed homeopathic medicine doesn't work as you allege, there is at least no recent claims of it doing direct harm. (Direct harm involves far more than any allegation of negligence for failing to send the victims to a "real" doctor.) The recent problems over Vioxx/Celebrex did not come from the homeopathic community >I keep coming back to homeopathy because it >is probably the pseudo-medicine discipline >with the greatest mainstream popularity. It >even has some degree of official recognition >in some countries. And yet it has been shown >beyond any reasonable doubt not to work. > I suspect that chiropractic is more popular, but that could vary from one place to the next. Your use of "beyond reasonable doubt" is too categorical. The popularity of homeopathy alone is not be enough to establish that the medicines work, but it is a clear expression of reasonable doubt. Healing involves more than medicines that produce the desired chemical results. It can involve more than the syllogistic thinking that has become so commonplace in the Western World ever since Aristotle. Attitude and hope are also factors in healing. I do not believe in God, but can still recognize the value of prayer to healing. Shamans had a vital role in their own societies, even if their medicine bags contained nothing but innocuous trinkets. When you show a man the wonders of modern medicine you are showing him that hope exists. When you demonstrate that those wonders are beyond his means, you have turned modern medicine into the offerings of a latter-day Pandora. Maybe he was better off with his vials of sterile water. >>But if it really doesn't hurt anything if we call it "Alternative >>medicine", & creates a bit of WikiLove to do so, then shouldn't we >>accept the term & move on to other things? >> >> >I am arguing that the term is misleading >for the articles that category currently >holds (I won't repeat my argument here, >see my earlier posts). I suggest we replace >it with "Pseudo-medicine" and will do so >myself if objections are not raised. > > Such a move would be objectionable POV pushing. Ec From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 19:22:46 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 14:22:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <20050629185924.43475.qmail@web32515.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >I know I'm risking feeding the trolls, (since it's >already been determined by IP evidence that this is >Enviroknot / ElKabong / KaintheScion) so I'll keep it >short. I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten someone else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid neighbors who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before trying to dig in for their new pool. I'm hoping one of them hits a power line next. It'd serve them right. >What exactly is your problem with me posting *my own* >words into Wikipedia? That you REFUSED TO POST MY RESPONSES. I gave you my responses to your accusations and you didn't include them, knowing that I would be unable to edit on Wikipedia thanks to your block. You denied me my right to respond to your accusations. >I didn't feel like retyping my >own words, so I pasted them. Many people don't read >the mailing list. When your Enviroknot account is >unblocked in a few hours, you can respond all you >want. I do not HAVE an Enviroknot account. I only have one account, and you blocked it. >As for your accusation that I sent the offensive >email, please provide some proof immediately or >apologize. I'm not holding my breath for either. If you DIDN'T send it, I apologize, but I think you did. You're obviously technologically capable enough to have done so, your behavior towards me lends credibility to that assumption, and it was obviously someone on this mailing list who did it. Your refusal to deal with me in good faith is giving me a better idea of what Wikipedia is really like and it's not the rosy place depicted in your frontpage and your call for new users to "be bold" and make edits. Kurita77 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From saintonge at telus.net Wed Jun 29 19:22:46 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:22:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Protoscience category In-Reply-To: <1106.212.30.203.31.1120051619.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050629114714.A2D561AC5D1B@mail.wikimedia.org> <1106.212.30.203.31.1120051619.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C2F506.7010402@telus.net> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > Currently the Protoscience category includes such > >topics as String theory and Quantum gravity as well >as Phrenology (old debunked non-sense) and Biorythm >(recent debunked non-sense). To me it does not seem >that these things have enough in common to be usefully >included in the same category. > > Using the example of phrenology, you will find that when the believers no longer feel the need to defend the topic gradually fades away. Trolls and troll-feeders are bound in each other's destiny. Ec From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 19:37:06 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 14:37:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Carbonite, Are you REALLY that stupid? I don't think so. I don't think this one was from you. If the other one wasn't you then you get my apologies. Either way Wikipedia needs to start policing their admins. Kurita77 >From: Blank >To: Kurita77Lineman at hotmail.com >Subject: Re: You don't GET to respond you fat shit >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:51:08 > >Fuck off loser. >I'm goint to delete your response in a second. >I told you last time, this is OUR encyclopedia. >Go edit somewhere else. Or go sit on the couch and eat and pretend you're >not a fat slobby Jew-lover. >Carb, but you'll never prove it. _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee? Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From morven at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 19:57:39 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:39 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: <20050629185924.43475.qmail@web32515.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc005062912574f74a58a@mail.gmail.com> Doesn't this sound familiar? It seems we are having a procession of users claiming that somehow they got Enviroknot's IP. -Matt On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten someone > else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid neighbors > who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before trying to dig in > for their new pool. From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 19:58:28 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 14:58:28 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am still blocked. Why are you people doing this? What is wrong with you? Kurita77 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 20:01:43 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:01:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005062912574f74a58a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm now on 66.69.133.72. You can check it if you like. I told you, my idiot neighbors are putting in a pool and didn't check the utility maps before they started digging. They cut the cable lines and everything has been getting patched and re-patched for the past few days. What the hell is wrong with you people? Kurita77 >From: Matt Brown >Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia > >To: English Wikipedia >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:39 -0700 > >Doesn't this sound familiar? It seems we are having a procession of >users claiming that somehow they got Enviroknot's IP. > >-Matt > >On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > > I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten someone > > else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid >neighbors > > who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before trying to dig >in > > for their new pool. >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 20:11:42 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:11:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Ok fine. Now I'm apparently 66.69.137.7. I told you, it's been changing every time the cable company has to splice another part of the connection. Will you kindly give me back my account? Kurita77 >From: "Kurita Ryohan" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:01:43 -0500 > >I'm now on 66.69.133.72. You can check it if you like. > >I told you, my idiot neighbors are putting in a pool and didn't check the >utility maps before they started digging. They cut the cable lines and >everything has been getting patched and re-patched for the past few days. > >What the hell is wrong with you people? > >Kurita77 > > >>From: Matt Brown >>Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia >> >>To: English Wikipedia >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:39 -0700 >> >>Doesn't this sound familiar? It seems we are having a procession of >>users claiming that somehow they got Enviroknot's IP. >> >>-Matt >> >>On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: >> > I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten someone >> > else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid >>neighbors >> > who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before trying to dig >>in >> > for their new pool. >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From kurita77lineman at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 20:23:33 2005 From: kurita77lineman at hotmail.com (Kurita Ryohan) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:23:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Why do you people not respond? What the hell is wrong with you? What a bunch of complete assholes you are. Kurita77 >From: "Kurita Ryohan" >Reply-To: English Wikipedia >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:11:42 -0500 > >Ok fine. > >Now I'm apparently 66.69.137.7. > >I told you, it's been changing every time the cable company has to splice >another part of the connection. > >Will you kindly give me back my account? > >Kurita77 > >>From: "Kurita Ryohan" >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia >>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org >>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:01:43 -0500 >> >>I'm now on 66.69.133.72. You can check it if you like. >> >>I told you, my idiot neighbors are putting in a pool and didn't check the >>utility maps before they started digging. They cut the cable lines and >>everything has been getting patched and re-patched for the past few days. >> >>What the hell is wrong with you people? >> >>Kurita77 >> >> >>>From: Matt Brown >>>Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia >>> >>>To: English Wikipedia >>>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>>Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:39 -0700 >>> >>>Doesn't this sound familiar? It seems we are having a procession of >>>users claiming that somehow they got Enviroknot's IP. >>> >>>-Matt >>> >>>On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: >>> > I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten someone >>> > else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid >>>neighbors >>> > who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before trying to >>>dig in >>> > for their new pool. >>>_______________________________________________ >>>WikiEN-l mailing list >>>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >>_________________________________________________________________ >>Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! >>http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >_________________________________________________________________ >Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! >http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Wed Jun 29 20:26:32 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:26:32 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As a general note, one will usually get considerably faster results in what one wants if one does not A) Continually nag and insist that the unpaid volunteers are working too slowly because it takes more than 25 minutes B) Begin crying abuse over nothing C) Ask things like "what the hell is wrong with you people." -Snowspinner On Jun 29, 2005, at 4:11 PM, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Ok fine. > > Now I'm apparently 66.69.137.7. > > I told you, it's been changing every time the cable company has to > splice another part of the connection. > > Will you kindly give me back my account? > > Kurita77 > > >> From: "Kurita Ryohan" >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >> Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 15:01:43 -0500 >> >> I'm now on 66.69.133.72. You can check it if you like. >> >> I told you, my idiot neighbors are putting in a pool and didn't >> check the utility maps before they started digging. They cut the >> cable lines and everything has been getting patched and re-patched >> for the past few days. >> >> What the hell is wrong with you people? >> >> Kurita77 >> >> >> >>> From: Matt Brown >>> Reply-To: Matt Brown ,English Wikipedia >> l at Wikipedia.org> >>> To: English Wikipedia >>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? >>> Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:57:39 -0700 >>> >>> Doesn't this sound familiar? It seems we are having a procession of >>> users claiming that somehow they got Enviroknot's IP. >>> >>> -Matt >>> >>> On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: >>> > I'm nothing of the sort. I already told you, I may have gotten >>> someone >>> > else's IP. Our cable service is up and down thanks to my stupid >>> neighbors >>> > who couldn't be bothered to check the utility maps before >>> trying to dig in >>> > for their new pool. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>> >> >> _________________________________________________________________ >> Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http:// >> search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - > it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/ > direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From beesley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 20:29:22 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:29:22 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b722b800506291329b097d73@mail.gmail.com> On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > Why do you people not respond? What the hell is wrong with you? > > What a bunch of complete assholes you are. I've put Kurita on moderation so his posts will have to be approved before being sent to the list. I'll leave it up to the regular list admins to decide if they want to block him completely. Angela From gmaxwell at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 20:59:24 2005 From: gmaxwell at gmail.com (Gregory Maxwell) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:59:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: <42f90dc005062912574f74a58a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/05, Kurita Ryohan wrote: > I'm now on 66.69.133.72. You can check it if you like. > I told you, my idiot neighbors are putting in a pool and didn't check the > utility maps before they started digging. They cut the cable lines and > everything has been getting patched and re-patched for the past few days. > What the hell is wrong with you people? Well Kurita, enviroknott obviously lives near you. Because he's been such a pest we have decided to block everyone in your area who makes edits remotely resembling enviroknott. I'm afraid that if you want to edit you're just going to have to track him down and ask him to move to a new community. Sorry. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Jun 29 21:05:55 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:05:55 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Michael Turley > >The blocking feature makes newbie biting much easier, which is not a >good thing. The only newbies who get bitten by this are ones who are abusing policy (and other editors). >Page locking makes enforcing a single POV easier, which is not a good >thing. > >*All tools have a proper use, and all tools can be used abusively.* Yeah, in theory. But rollback is ideally suited for edit warring, and newbies would take full advantage. Jay. From michael.turley at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 21:15:37 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 17:15:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/29/05, JAY JG wrote: > >From: Michael Turley > > > >The blocking feature makes newbie biting much easier, which is not a > >good thing. > > The only newbies who get bitten by this are ones who are abusing policy (and > other editors). > > >Page locking makes enforcing a single POV easier, which is not a good > >thing. > > > >*All tools have a proper use, and all tools can be used abusively.* > > Yeah, in theory. But rollback is ideally suited for edit warring, and > newbies would take full advantage. > > Jay. Rollback is *ideally suited* for reverting vandalism. Perhaps it is equally suited for edit warring, but if it were *more* suited for edit warring than its intended purpose, I'm pretty sure it would have been written out of the software by now. The proposal floated does not include offering rollback ''carte blanche'' for newbies. It proposes a system similar to WP:RFA where the feature would have to be requested and approved by consensus. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From haukurth at hi.is Wed Jun 29 22:10:05 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:10:05 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Homeopathy and syllogism In-Reply-To: <20050629202843.E49901190DF3@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050629202843.E49901190DF3@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1977.212.30.203.31.1120083005.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > I have not had occasion to use them, but If I look at the prices of > homeopathic medicines I find them rather modest. Compare that with the > prices of heavily patented medicines sold by major pharmaceutical > companies. The improved efficacy of some of these is often only > incremental over that of the drug whose patent has expired. Some of > these producers are quite happy to withhold medicines from those who > can't pay. It isn't the homeopaths who are failing to send AIDS drugs > to Africa, or are using their patent powers to restrict domestic > African production of these drugs. Completely true and completely irrelevant. > If indeed homeopathic medicine doesn't work as you allege, there is at > least no recent claims of it doing direct harm. (Direct harm involves > far more than any allegation of negligence for failing to send the > victims to a "real" doctor.) The recent problems over Vioxx/Celebrex > did not come from the homeopathic community. True enough, I suppose, and also irrelevant. I don't think there's direct harm done by homeopathy beyond that which selling any completely useless product under false pretenses would entail. That the product's advertised effects are medical makes the practice all the more repellant. > Your use of "beyond reasonable doubt" is too > categorical. The popularity of homeopathy alone > is not be enough to establish that the medicines > work, but it is a clear expression of reasonable doubt. Here I must disagree with you. To repeat an earlier example I don't think the popularity of Holocaust denial is a clear expression of reasonable doubt that the Holocaust occurred. Nor do I think that the popularity of Mormonism is a clear expression of reasonable doubt that America was colonized by a Hebrew tribe in 600 B.C. To compare with something at hand I'd say that there is more doubt that Kurita77 is Enviroknot than there is about homeopathy being useless. And I hope you agree that that case is beyond any *reasonable* doubt. And yet, unlike homeopathy, the hypothesis that Kurita77 is a user with no connection to Enviroknot does not break any *physical* laws. It's *conceivable* that all the facts linking the two are coincidences. It is, however, so unlikely that we can dismiss the possibility for practical purposes. There is ample information on homeopathy available on the Internet. Please study it carefully for yourself and see what conclusion you come to on the efficacy of the discipline. > Healing involves more than medicines that produce the desired chemical > results. It can involve more than the syllogistic thinking that has > become so commonplace in the Western World ever since Aristotle. There is no useful alternative to syllogism. Regards, Haukur From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Jun 29 22:29:26 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 08:29:26 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] New user, blocked indefinitely? In-Reply-To: References: <42f90dc005062912574f74a58a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050629222926.GQ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Kurita Ryohan (kurita77lineman at hotmail.com) [050630 06:01]: > What the hell is wrong with you people? Mostly that we're not as stupid as you hope we are? I think that's probably it. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Wed Jun 29 23:56:00 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:56:00 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: <42C2F2B4.5040503@telus.net> References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C2F2B4.5040503@telus.net> Message-ID: > If indeed homeopathic medicine doesn't work as you allege, there is at > least no recent claims of it doing direct harm. (Direct harm involves > far more than any allegation of negligence for failing to send the > victims to a "real" doctor.) Hmmm of course to make that stement you have to accept that agrivations are not due to any active effect of homeopathy. you also have to ignore this http://www.adrugrecall.com/zicam/zicam.html (although of course not all homeopaths would accept that as homeoapthy. -- geni From mfairbc045 at rogers.com Wed Jun 29 22:53:56 2005 From: mfairbc045 at rogers.com (mfairbc045) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 18:53:56 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia enquiry Message-ID: <001101c57cfd$70529e80$6500a8c0@fairbairnsqezu0> Dear Mailing list, I am searching for permission to use a frame enlargement from FULL METAL JACKET. Any ideas as to who I would contact about this? It's for a book on film art. Cheers, Marty Fairbairn, PhD Trustee, Upper Grand District School Board Member, Guelph Police Services Board 53 Ptarmigan Drive Guelph, ON N1C 1B4 Tel: (519) 824-1703 FAX: (519) 824-5421 Email: mfairbc045 at rogers.com From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 01:08:27 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 11:08:27 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] iCheckUser is broken in 1.5 (was New user, blocked indefinitely?) In-Reply-To: <20050629165154.GP7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <77592599-415E-413F-9971-DC7D6418DA8E@ctelco.net> <20050629165154.GP7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050630010827.GS7309@thingy.apana.org.au> David Gerard (fun at thingy.apana.org.au) [050630 02:52]: > Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050630 02:49]: > > Seems to be a sockpuppet of Enviroknot, see > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? > > title=Talk:Jihad&diff=17828932&oldid=17827080 > CheckUser doesn't appear to be switched on for me in 1.5 as yet, or I'd go > look. I'll ask for it to be switched back on once the devs have the bugs > from the 1.5 beta under control, and I'm back on IRC ;-) CheckUser is broken in 1.5, so I can't do IP checks for the moment. I've filed a bug on it, and Tim will probably look into it when the devs have dealt with all the exciting new bugs that 1.5 going live will reveal! What fun ... - d. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Thu Jun 30 02:51:37 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 19:51:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <20050629172544.C3BA31190C11@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050629172544.C3BA31190C11@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42C35E39.6070305@earthlink.net> Michael Turley wrote: >The blocking feature makes newbie biting much easier, which is not a >good thing. >... >Regarding "domination". I chose the word to best express why *I* am >uninterested in a particular subset of admin tools. I prefer >persuasion to force. I have no current interest in tools of force >here at Wikipedia; I intend to test the boundaries of wikilove, good >reason, and persuasion. >... >Finally, the rollback feature, as far as I can tell, is unique, in >that it is a very valuable editing enhancement, but is the only one >that doesn't have any powers of enforcement behind it. > The rollback feature *is* a power of enforcement, just like blocking is, in the rhetorical framework you're using (other people prefer the rhetoric of janitorial tools). Blocking doesn't have any additional powers of enforcement behind it either, as we regularly find when dealing with vandals who can edit from multiple IP addresses. Rollback is just as susceptible to use in biting newbies as blocking, although people may differ on the degree of seriousness involved. Reverting is widely considered a "slap in the face" to the person being reverted. If we are to use your rhetoric, then I don't see how we can avoid considering it an instrument of force. If you really are such a wiki-pacifist as you claim, and prefer persuasion to force in all circumstances, then you shouldn't be interested in having the rollback function either. --Michael Snow From andrew.lih at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 03:20:50 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 11:20:50 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ed171fb05062920203c54f452@mail.gmail.com> I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea of separating out features to be doled out on a finer grain level, but many oppose it because it is creating different shades, and thereby different classes, of users, which is something Wikipedia has never been about. As mentioned in other threads, this leads to "collecting privileges" like medals or awards, when the spirit of Wikipedia has been to treat adminship as even "no big deal." A reminder - the primary reason for admin status was because of page deletion, and that's where the "trusted user" idea came from. On 6/30/05, Michael Turley wrote: > > Rollback is *ideally suited* for reverting vandalism. Perhaps it is > equally suited for edit warring, but if it were *more* suited for edit > warring than its intended purpose, I'm pretty sure it would have been > written out of the software by now. Um, but because rollback is given only to trusted users right now, this is not a problem. Even for admins, they are discouraged from using rollback for issues related to legitimate content issues. Rollback should be used for fighting vandalism and trolling, and not as a standard part of an editor's toolbox. -User:Fuzheado From michael.turley at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 03:21:52 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:21:52 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C35E39.6070305@earthlink.net> References: <20050629172544.C3BA31190C11@mail.wikimedia.org> <42C35E39.6070305@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On 6/29/05, Michael Snow wrote: > Michael Turley wrote: > > >The blocking feature makes newbie biting much easier, which is not a > >good thing. > >... > >Regarding "domination". I chose the word to best express why *I* am > >uninterested in a particular subset of admin tools. I prefer > >persuasion to force. I have no current interest in tools of force > >here at Wikipedia; I intend to test the boundaries of wikilove, good > >reason, and persuasion. > >... > >Finally, the rollback feature, as far as I can tell, is unique, in > >that it is a very valuable editing enhancement, but is the only one > >that doesn't have any powers of enforcement behind it. > > > The rollback feature *is* a power of enforcement, just like blocking is, > in the rhetorical framework you're using (other people prefer the > rhetoric of janitorial tools). Blocking doesn't have any additional > powers of enforcement behind it either, as we regularly find when > dealing with vandals who can edit from multiple IP addresses. Rollback > is just as susceptible to use in biting newbies as blocking, although > people may differ on the degree of seriousness involved. > > Reverting is widely considered a "slap in the face" to the person being > reverted. If we are to use your rhetoric, then I don't see how we can > avoid considering it an instrument of force. If you really are such a > wiki-pacifist as you claim, and prefer persuasion to force in all > circumstances, then you shouldn't be interested in having the rollback > function either. > > --Michael Snow No, this is incorrect. Blocking users and locking pages exert complete dominance over either the other user, or the page in question. From what I know, rollback exercises no control at all over the other user, and no more control over the page than regular editing because unlike the other two I mentioned, rollback doesn't foreclose the other person's ability to re-edit. Reversion is a bit of a slap in the face, but it's a tool that every editor possesses equally. No single user has a monopoly of force. Where there is no monopoly of force, people either live in a constant state of warfare, learn to get along together, or appeal to someone who does have overwhelming force to apply. >From what I know of it, rollback is merely a more convenient way to accomplish an edit. It doesn't eliminate the possibility of the rollback being reverted like a block or lock does. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From saintonge at telus.net Thu Jun 30 04:40:53 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:40:53 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pseudoscience category - GSPOV In-Reply-To: References: <20050629012101.9145E1AC5C8D@mail.wikimedia.org> <4100.212.30.203.31.1120045628.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C2F2B4.5040503@telus.net> Message-ID: <42C377D5.5090609@telus.net> geni wrote: >>If indeed homeopathic medicine doesn't work as you allege, there is at >>least no recent claims of it doing direct harm. (Direct harm involves >>far more than any allegation of negligence for failing to send the >>victims to a "real" doctor.) >> >> > >Hmmm of course to make that stement you have to accept that >agrivations are not due to any active effect of homeopathy. > >you also have to ignore this > >http://www.adrugrecall.com/zicam/zicam.html > >(although of course not all homeopaths would accept that as homeoapthy. > And even if we accept this product as homeopathic (a determination that I am in no position to make) it is still only one product. I suppose that the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia. could be checked by someone with ready access to see if the product is included The 2003 California appelate case of National Council against Health Fraud v. Botanical Laboratories, Inc. This is from the losers' own website. http://www.quackpotwatch.org/opinionpieces/filed_7.htm is instructive . The judges concluded "Appellant believes that no one should be allowed to market homeopathic remedies. Congress has decided otherwise, and officially recognizes the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia. Appellant?s broad-brush approach of sweeping all homeopathic remedies into a single bag marked "undesirable" simply does not work in the courts, where each claimed instance of unfair advertising and unfair business practice must be closely scrutinized. Appellant failed to present any admissible evidence in this case that respondents are guilty of false advertising and unfair business practices with respect to any of their products.." Ec From erik_moeller at gmx.de Thu Jun 30 05:03:55 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 07:03:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator Message-ID: <42C37D3B.3020407@gmx.de> Because the sandbox talk page is frequently vandalized, and because this is a larger issue, I'm posting this here. I'd like to know whether I'm alone with this position. Currently, the Wikipedia Sandbox features 5 links to "experimental projects": * Hangman * Chess * Go/Weiqi * Checkers * Poetry Ever since WikiChess became popular and accepted on Wikipedia, the sandbox has turned into an incubator for new "wikigames". The problem with this is that, as long as a page is a subpage of the sandbox, it is very difficult to delete it, because it is regarded as "legitimate playground." On the other hand, once a game has found a sufficient number of players, these players are all likely to vote "keep" when the game eventually and inevitably creeps into the Wikipedia namespace, as has happened with chess. Therefore, the sandbox has become an incubator for a potentially unlimited number of wikigames which are almost impossible to get rid of once they've become popular. While there's nothing wrong with some harmless games, I strongly feel that such games need to be limited because: 1) Eventually, these gaming activities will attract users who do nothing *but* playing games, and therefore use our donation-sponsored hardware effectively as an Internet gameserver. These users can exist outside our normal community framework, potentially causing problems when they interact with the rest of the community and the site. 2) A couple of wikigames don't make much of a difference, but once there's 10 or 20 popular ones, the constant edits to these pages will start to clutter up Special:Recentchanges. 3) The Wikipedia: namespace is meant primarily for policies; an abundance of gaming-related pages complicates browsing and searching. 4) The more visible these activities become, the more they become a reflection on our project to outsiders. I'm not arguing that any existing wikigame activities should be suspended -- that would be an exercise in futility, as anyone trying to do so will be shouted down by the existing player community. No, my suggested solution is this: All subpages of Wikipedia:Sandbox should be deleted. There's no need to have any "experimental development" pages. Users who want to conduct non-game experiments can use user sandboxes for this purpose. If someone wants to start a new wikigame, they should start it in the Wikipedia: namespace, where it will receive a much more intense assessment right from the start. If a game started in the proper namespace survives VfD, then it may very well be fun or useful enough to exist. In other words, I would strongly argue in favor of shutting down the sandbox as a VfD-resistant incubator for games which distract from the purpose of building an encyclopedia. There is value to wikigames as entertainment and as an artistic effort, but there's a separate wiki dedicated to this already -- http://games.wikicities.com/ -- and I feel that our own gaming related efforts should be limited at best. Regards, Erik From shebs at apple.com Thu Jun 30 05:28:22 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:28:22 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator In-Reply-To: <42C37D3B.3020407@gmx.de> References: <42C37D3B.3020407@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42C382F6.2030105@apple.com> Erik Moeller wrote: > > Ever since WikiChess became popular and accepted on Wikipedia, the > sandbox has turned into an incubator for new "wikigames". The problem > with this is that, as long as a page is a subpage of the sandbox, it > is very difficult to delete it, because it is regarded as "legitimate > playground." On the other hand, once a game has found a sufficient > number of players, these players are all likely to vote "keep" when > the game eventually and inevitably creeps into the Wikipedia > namespace, as has happened with chess. Wow, I had no idea the sandbox was being used this way. Zap it. Automated daily deletion of subpages, perhaps? Users can host games on their own subpages if they really want, or (better) set up a dedicated wiki, call it wikiplay or something. Stan From shebs at apple.com Thu Jun 30 05:28:22 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:28:22 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator In-Reply-To: <42C37D3B.3020407@gmx.de> References: <42C37D3B.3020407@gmx.de> Message-ID: <42C382F6.2030105@apple.com> Erik Moeller wrote: > > Ever since WikiChess became popular and accepted on Wikipedia, the > sandbox has turned into an incubator for new "wikigames". The problem > with this is that, as long as a page is a subpage of the sandbox, it > is very difficult to delete it, because it is regarded as "legitimate > playground." On the other hand, once a game has found a sufficient > number of players, these players are all likely to vote "keep" when > the game eventually and inevitably creeps into the Wikipedia > namespace, as has happened with chess. Wow, I had no idea the sandbox was being used this way. Zap it. Automated daily deletion of subpages, perhaps? Users can host games on their own subpages if they really want, or (better) set up a dedicated wiki, call it wikiplay or something. Stan From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 09:34:33 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:34:33 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power Message-ID: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> I accidentally deleted this from the moderation queue, so am forwarding it by hand as wikien-l is an official conduit for complaints about blocking. This is not meant to imply that I attribute any substance to this complaint whatsoever, and personally I would say "cheers to Bishonen, keep up the good work." But anyway. - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Nathan J. Yoder" To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 04:09:43 -0400 Subject: bishonen exercises abuse of admin power I was just recently given a temporary block for all of wikipedia by bishonen for comments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_transgendered_people Of course, that block was based on an injunction in an RfA that she was a party to (as a person filing a complaint, not an arbitrator). It's a conflict of interest and she definitely over stepped bounds there. This reeks of personal vendetta and given her personal history of irrational behavior and personal dislike for me it's not surprising Not only that, her block was based on non-existant "personal attacks." Calling someone a hypocrite or a liar has already been determined to not constitute a personal attack, however she has decided to override already existing Wikipedia policy and invent her own. Another issue I'd like to address is regarding my RfA (since I can't comment in it due to being blocked). 1. The admins invented a new Wikipedia policy on the spot, that IRC logs can't be used. Their reference is a meta article which is not part of Wikipedia policy. Not just that, but they violate their newly invented policy by using evidence from IRC against me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Njyoder/Proposed_decision#Disruptive_edits_with_respect_to_Bishonen.27s_RfA 2. Just for emphasis, there is not wikipedia policy against posting IRC logs, so that can't be used against me. Not just that, but it's totally and utterly irrelevent to the reason the RfA was created--for my actions on the gender articles. The whole thing involving Bishonen existed over about 2 days and ended over 3 weeks before the RfA, but it was drug up again for the sole purpose of using it as "evidence" against me. I pointed this out in the RfA, but the arbs ignored it completely because it didn't support the conclusion that they wanted to reach. 3. There are "findings of fact" that include disagreement over my edits on pages. A disagreement is not grounds for an RfA at all. 4. I wasn't ever using personal attacks. The arbitrators deliberately refused to define personal attacks since they knew that if they did try to define them in a way that made me a violator, they'd end up being guilty themselves. If I'm going to be accused of using personal attacks, they better damn well define them, because the policy page on it and other disinterested third parties don't consider accusing someone of lying to be a personal attack. 5. I was said to not have cited sources in the "findings of fact," and yet there was _no_ evidence of this. You'd think they'd at least provide a link to something I didn't cite a source for. I didn't insert new information into the gender article. I removed information because some of it was wrong (which I did cite sources for), some of it was _obviously_ POV, some of it was totally incoherent and some of it I was asking for a source for. The only thing I removed for reasons of factual accuracy was the etmology, for which I did quote an external source regarding the etymology of it. So it's a lie to say that I didn't cite anything. To say it's a "finding of fact" that I didn't cite sources for things I removed makes no sense. That's not how wikipedia works. According to them, if I remove or add anything I have to cite a source, but if AlexR and Axon add or remove anything, they don't need any citations at all. That's completely backwards, if something in an article is contested and no source is provided, it is standard wikipedia procedure to remove it until a source can be provided. This makes even less sense because neither Axon nor AlexR (the main parties to the dispute) never accused me of violating the rules to no cite sources. That was something added in by an arbitrator on a whim for no reason. I don't even understand their complaints, I removed a lot of very bad, non-encyclopedic garbage from it and as a result now two people are working on completely new versions of the article. 6. "2.5) Njyoder seems to lack insight into the complexities involved in crafting an adequate article regarding gender; his editing style could be fairly characterized as ham-handed [38] and [39]." Some of these bullet points shouldn't even exist. Personal opinion of my understanding and editing style aren't even relevent and yet 3 aribtrators voted on this. If these arbs weren't biased, it should have received _zero_ votes. I'll note that most of these points were added by one arb, even though most of them, even from the standpoint of the complaintants, weren't actually relevent. It's trully sad, he could have completely fabricated numerous accusations, like saying I was making racist remarks and inserted it as a bullet point and none of the other arbitrators would have bothered to check if it was true and would have just voted "support." 7. They are disputing my arguing style in quite a few bullet points and are arguing that I should be banned on the basis that they basically disagree with my viewpoint. It makes no sense to reprimand me for persisting with my argument when those arguing against me were persisting with theirs just as much. It's also not against any wikipedia policies to stand firm in your views, if it were, there would be a lot of problems. Also, they engage in a strawman by quite literally, out of my entire argument, just quoting a part of a single sentence. they got my "basic argument" entirely wrong and I'm betting you the arbitrators didn't even bother reading through it, they just took the summary given by Axon and AlexR even though I actually gave a summary myself. 8. "Extensive attempts by other editors to explain that the talk page was not an appropriate venue for extended discussion of the "truth" of a particular reference were ineffective." and "The establishment of truth is not one of the purposes of Wikipedia which merely attributes the knowledge it contains to published sources." These are just plain ridiculous points. Talk pages most certainly exist to discuss the validity of things included in an article. Wikipedia does not exist to simply parrot any arbitrary source that someone decided to pick. Of course, it appears the arbitrators voted to suggest that you should just blindly take any information from any source and it's perfectly ok as long as you cite it. Not just that, but that's not what was even being contested on the talk pages. Most people arguing against me weren't arguing that it shouldn't be discussed on the talk pages, they were arguing that the source was actually valid and thusly should be included. You'll also note that this is another example of inventing a policy on the spot. Why don't the arbitrators put up a vote for this as a policy and see how well it goes over? I guarantee you that it will be shot down quickly, because it's absurd. Following their logic, you can include any information from any source in a Wikipedia article. As long as it's a published source, nothing else matters. This wasn't a quotation of popular opinion either, this was a matter of statistical fact as stated by the Wikipedia article. It stated something from the Kinsey Report as fact, even though it was factually incorrect. In what strange bizzarro wikipedia is incorrect information allowed to be included simply because it's from a popular published source? I guess this means now I can start taking statistics from random popular websites that were clearly pulled out of thin air. ---- Anyway, as you can see the arbitrators are inventing new policies, refusing to address my concerns, not reading what happened and are fabricating things which never happened. They're proposing a ban on all gender/sexuality related articles. I've only made two significant edits on any gender/sexuality articles (gender and bisexuality). If you include talk pages, I've edited a total of 3 pages for which there is dispute: gender, bisexuality and third gender. This doesn't make any sense to me, I'm basically being banned from all sexuality articles for removing a single paragraph (with strong evidence backing my reason doing so--I cited NUMEROUS expert sources and a primary source) from a single sexuality article. I'm also being banned for removing POV, incoherent sentences and bad information from a single gender related article. How the heck does a year long ban make sense here? This is a bad case of the arbs trying to enforce their own opinions. Heck, at least one of the arbs on the case (ambi) is part of the LGBT Wikipedia notice board that tries to regulate articles, so it's pretty obvious she wants to keep those articles as-is. THE FOLLOWING IS JUST A RANT AND IS NOT DIRECTLY RELEVENT, NO NEED TO READ. I don't really care so much for editing the article so much as I care about the absolutely astounding level of intellectual dishonesty going on here. They don't like someone challenging obvious POV and extremist LGBT propaganda (yes, I can provide direct links, if necessary, to the parties trying to defend obvious POV). They are trying desperately to make as large a number possible of Wikipedia articles on every tiny little subject concerning LGBT things and the articles themselves read as if they are taken straight out of a LGBT book for a queer studies course, except a lot more poorly written. I imagine a couple years from now they'll have an article for everything, even things like Gay_rights_and_the_views_of_third_baptist_church_in_podunk,Utah. I just am so surprised how sheltered some of these sub-cliques are, because you know damn well their the types are college undergrads (with mommy and daddy paying their way), they just discovered they had a large group of people they can whine to and have validate heir feelings and biases. I think a few years down the road, when they start meeting those of the gobbleteequa type outside of school, they'll realize what pansies they are and that most gobbleteequa aren't whiny academic PC cowards who have no understanding of the real world. Yes, that's right, you're not actually representative of the group, you're representative of just the extremists. You're theoreticians and idealists. And you know the irony of it all? It's almost always the most privileged who are whining about being underprivileged. The ones who actually ARE underprivileged get pissed off at these types for that very reason and as a result become more distanced from movements (they scared the less privileged ones off). The one example that I always like to think of is how the rich white female feminists always try to speak for all women and then have they audacity to privilege check middle and lower class black women when said black women call the rich white ones on their BS. This is paralleled in all of the gobbleteequa groups as well and is truly sad. :-( ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 10:06:02 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 06:06:02 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power In-Reply-To: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> > This is not meant to imply that I attribute any substance to this complaint > whatsoever, and personally I would say "cheers to Bishonen, keep up the > good work." But anyway. Of course you would say cheers, you're the one who created the injunction and in the process violated Wikipedia policy by personally attacking me in the injunction itself. It's too bad there's no one to regulate the arbitrators. Also, it appears bishonen, out of her personal vendetta, has renewed my block: > Nathan, I blocked you for 24 hours at 0:15 UTC. You're perhaps not > aware that the clock is automatically reset if you try to edit > without being logged in to your usual account. I've noticed here > that that has happened several times now. (Only the latest time it's > happened will be recorded on the blocklist.) In other words, you're > lengthening your block yourself. Provided you stop doing it now, I'm > willing to unblock you 24 hours after my original block, as a > gesture of good will. Bishonen | talk 30 June 2005 08:02 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Njyoder I'd say a gesture of good will would to be to stop lying and to remove the block since it was motivated by a personal vendetta. She didn't even check the ips and I'm not sure she even has the authority to do that in the first place. Go ahead, check the ips yourself, they two are not the same. Admins most certainly should not be blocking ips and extending blocks without checking them first. It doesn't even make sense anyway, why would I post during a block with the same ip? Notice how she didn't provide a link to whatever account was supposedly doing the editing and what article it was editing. Yes, totally honest admins make an accusation of circumventing a ban without providing a link to where it was supposedly cirumvented! Also, I have to wonder if David Gerard, the one who created the injunction, is ever going to bother abiding by the no personal attacks rule himself and actually bother to qualify what counts as a personal attack. He won't bother since he knows he's guilty of it himself. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 10:13:45 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 06:13:45 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power In-Reply-To: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1415762247.20050630061345@energon.org> Aha, I figured out why it's doing it. I just hit "edit page" while still logged in as njyoder and the thing automatically renews the block whenever I do that. This is what happens when you upgrade to beta version of software. Try a test block on another account and you'll see it will automatically renew the block even if you're logged in as the same user who was originally blocked. That's a bug or some strange misfeature. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From bishonen at ungoodthinkful.com Thu Jun 30 10:44:59 2005 From: bishonen at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:44:59 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power Message-ID: Nathan, somebody showed me the message where you comment on my post on your talk page. Thank you for quoting me so people can see for themselves what I said. *Your* take on it is: "Also, it appears bishonen, out of her personal vendetta, has renewed my block", with many another choice accusation. I apologize for offering to shorten your block, I take it back. Oh, btw, I also see your next post to the mailing list, where you have "figured out why it's doing it". Is that your idea of an apology? Bishonen From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 10:58:20 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:58:20 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power In-Reply-To: <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> Message-ID: <20050630105819.GV7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Nathan J. Yoder (njyoder at energon.org) [050630 20:06]: > Also, I have to wonder if David Gerard, the one who created the > injunction, is ever going to bother abiding by the no personal attacks > rule himself and actually bother to qualify what counts as a personal > attack. He won't bother since he knows he's guilty of it himself. [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] Owing to the list's lack of patience with complainants going off into attack jags, your posts here are now moderated. Please do try harder to speak politely. Thanks! - d. From ultrablue at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 11:01:13 2005 From: ultrablue at gmail.com (Mark Ryan) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:01:13 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power In-Reply-To: <1415762247.20050630061345@energon.org> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <1415762247.20050630061345@energon.org> Message-ID: It certainly sounds like a bug. There are many bugs associated with the upgrade to MediaWiki 1.5 (and also many invaluable new features). The developers will obviously work to fix any problems, but that will take time. I suggest if you don't want your block to be extended automagically by the software, stop trying to edit until the block has expired. ~Mark Ryan On 6/30/05, Nathan J. Yoder wrote: > Aha, I figured out why it's doing it. I just hit "edit page" while > still logged in as njyoder and the thing automatically renews the > block whenever I do that. This is what happens when you upgrade to > beta version of software. Try a test block on another account and > you'll see it will automatically renew the block even if you're logged > in as the same user who was originally blocked. That's a bug or some > strange misfeature. > > ---------------------------------------------- > Nathan J. Yoder > http://www.gummibears.nu/ > http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key > ---------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 30 11:13:06 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 05:13:06 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power In-Reply-To: <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> Message-ID: <7B364ABA-D7CA-4991-95C6-96D21C9D058F@ctelco.net> Figuring out which accounts are the sockpuppets or Ip addresses of banned users is inexact and there may be collateral damage when a new user mimics the editing style and tactics of a banned user. The ban of a user regularly using sockpuppets or editing anonymously is in effect a ban of all users who are edit in the same way. Obviously if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and flies like a duck, it might be a grebe and not the original duck at all. Likewise the real duck might be sanctioned for what the grebe has done. Fred On Jun 30, 2005, at 4:06 AM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote: >> This is not meant to imply that I attribute any substance to this >> complaint >> whatsoever, and personally I would say "cheers to Bishonen, keep >> up the >> good work." But anyway. >> > > Of course you would say cheers, you're the one who created the > injunction and in the process violated Wikipedia policy by personally > attacking me in the injunction itself. It's too bad there's no one to > regulate the arbitrators. > > Also, it appears bishonen, out of her personal vendetta, has renewed > my block: > > >> Nathan, I blocked you for 24 hours at 0:15 UTC. You're perhaps not >> aware that the clock is automatically reset if you try to edit >> without being logged in to your usual account. I've noticed here >> that that has happened several times now. (Only the latest time it's >> happened will be recorded on the blocklist.) In other words, you're >> lengthening your block yourself. Provided you stop doing it now, I'm >> willing to unblock you 24 hours after my original block, as a >> gesture of good will. Bishonen | talk 30 June 2005 08:02 (UTC) >> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Njyoder > > I'd say a gesture of good will would to be to stop lying and to remove > the block since it was motivated by a personal vendetta. > > She didn't even check the ips and I'm not sure she even has the > authority to do that in the first place. Go ahead, check the ips > yourself, they two are not the same. Admins most certainly should not > be blocking ips and extending blocks without checking them first. It > doesn't even make sense anyway, why would I post during a block with > the same ip? > > Notice how she didn't provide a link to whatever account was > supposedly doing the editing and what article it was editing. Yes, > totally honest admins make an accusation of circumventing a ban > without providing a link to where it was supposedly cirumvented! > > Also, I have to wonder if David Gerard, the one who created the > injunction, is ever going to bother abiding by the no personal attacks > rule himself and actually bother to qualify what counts as a personal > attack. He won't bother since he knows he's guilty of it himself. > > ---------------------------------------------- > Nathan J. Yoder > http://www.gummibears.nu/ > http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key > ---------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Jun 30 12:23:16 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:23:16 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] new software bug or bad state? Message-ID: <063020051223.9406.42C3E434000C9087000024BE22007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> I just had a flakey login where it looked like it succeeded, but my watchlist was unavailable, but I was able to look at my user contributions. But any further viewing of pages, look like I am NOT logged in. I edited and saved on Talk:Fox news. The change showed up on the page, but the change did not show up on the history of the page. I am the last contributer in the history, but that version is not the version that shows when viewed. This is either another bug, or the system has gotten itself into an unstable flakey state. --Silverback From gerrit at nl.linux.org Thu Jun 30 13:11:23 2005 From: gerrit at nl.linux.org (Gerrit Holl) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:11:23 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Please remove me from daily mailings In-Reply-To: References: <4404pq$14hg7uv@mxip18a.cluster1.charter.net> <42C2B444.3030207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050630131123.GA32252@topjaklont.student.utwente.nl> Mark Ryan wrote: > List-Unsubscribe: , > > On 6/29/05, Alphax wrote: > > > > Send an email to wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org with the subject > > unsubscribe and you will be removed. > > > > That really works? Heh, I had no idea. It says so in the headers. Gerrit. -- Weather in Twenthe, Netherlands 30/06 14:25: 19.0?C Few clouds mostly cloudy wind 2.7 m/s S (57 m above NAP) -- In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. -Dwight David Eisenhower, January 17, 1961 From chris at starglade.org Thu Jun 30 14:25:22 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:25:22 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05062920203c54f452@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ed171fb05062920203c54f452@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42C400D2.5090604@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Andrew Lih wrote: > I'm fairly sympathetic to the idea of separating out features to be > doled out on a finer grain level, but many oppose it because it is > creating different shades, and thereby different classes, of users, > which is something Wikipedia has never been about. As mentioned in > other threads, this leads to "collecting privileges" like medals or > awards, when the spirit of Wikipedia has been to treat adminship as > even "no big deal." I don't think that having the rollback feature would necessarily create a different "caste" of Wikipedians. As David Gerard pointed out above, rollback can be emulated using JavaScript if really desired. Having access to rollback is really no extra privilege over the rest of the community. It's just a one-click reversion. And, if more people have access to what were previously adminship abilities, treating adminship as "no big deal" will definitely continue. > A reminder - the primary reason for admin status was because of page > deletion, and that's where the "trusted user" idea came from. [...] > Um, but because rollback is given only to trusted users right now, > this is not a problem. > > Even for admins, they are discouraged from using rollback for issues > related to legitimate content issues. Rollback should be used for > fighting vandalism and trolling, and not as a standard part of an > editor's toolbox. In my proposal I outlined that the rollback feature is only to be used for fighting vandalism/trolling. Since users must go through a confirmation procedure similar to the current RfA one (albeit with a lower threshold), it will still only be given out to trusted users. Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCxADSEq6+ijeBrJ8RAhYJAJ41CYiioVDvDysPU/dp36pgDdJJJwCdHxXB UjFehYwSrAsoOot0awh1qqs= =pI0U -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Jun 30 14:29:00 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:29:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator Message-ID: I suggest creating a new project, called WikiGames. Let wiki addicts have an entirely separate server. Erik created WikiNews, as an offshoot of en.wikipedia Current events. Why not create one more wiki? I really believe in giving free rein to hackers (er, enthusiastic programmers who seek to extend the capabilities of computer systems). But once they've discovered something useful, it should be packaged in a way that the rest of us (mere mortals) can also enjoy and access. And they should also clean up their mess and move on. How hard is it to set up a new wiki? Takes 30 minutes, right? Or they can just go to http://games.wikicities.com/ as Erik suggested. Ed Poor Technical Consultant Unification Encyclopedia Project P.S. I'm still a wiki admin and mailing list admin at wikien! From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Jun 30 14:29:00 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:29:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The sandbox incubator Message-ID: I suggest creating a new project, called WikiGames. Let wiki addicts have an entirely separate server. Erik created WikiNews, as an offshoot of en.wikipedia Current events. Why not create one more wiki? I really believe in giving free rein to hackers (er, enthusiastic programmers who seek to extend the capabilities of computer systems). But once they've discovered something useful, it should be packaged in a way that the rest of us (mere mortals) can also enjoy and access. And they should also clean up their mess and move on. How hard is it to set up a new wiki? Takes 30 minutes, right? Or they can just go to http://games.wikicities.com/ as Erik suggested. Ed Poor Technical Consultant Unification Encyclopedia Project P.S. I'm still a wiki admin and mailing list admin at wikien! From timwi at gmx.net Thu Jun 30 14:33:48 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:33:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Fastfission wrote: > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly > regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty > straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always > either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in > bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is > generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming > these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather > that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as > "pseudoscience". It is the year 2047. After a plentiful dinner, Bob and Stan have somehow got into this discussion that doesn't seem to want to come to an end. Bob is a Creationist, firmly believing in the truth of the Bible. Stan is a scientist and defends Darwin's theory of evolution. To settle the dispute, Stan gets up and grabs a book from the shelf. The front cover reads, "Wikipedia 1.0 - Category Index". Knowing that if there's one thing he and Bob can agree on, it's the reliability of the world-renowned Wikipedia, he browses through it and eventually presents to Bob a page led by the heading "Category:Pseudoscience". His finger points to the place where Creationism is listed. "See, Creationism is pseudoscience," he explains. Bob snaps the book out of Stan's hands and browses forward a fair chunk of pages. Under "Category:Satanic lies", he shows to Stan, we find a reference to the entry on "Evolution". "See, Evolution is a Satanic lie." No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume that it does. And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations. I am happy to have [[Creationism]] listed under [[Category:Pseudoscience]], but only because it happens to agree with my POV. Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudoscience]]... Timwi From laura at thescudder.com Thu Jun 30 15:58:53 2005 From: laura at thescudder.com (Laura K Fisher) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 09:58:53 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] new software bug or bad state? In-Reply-To: <063020051223.9406.42C3E434000C9087000024BE22007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <063020051223.9406.42C3E434000C9087000024BE22007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: I've had something similar with the editing. The change shows in the current revision and my user contributions and watchlist, but it takes a few minutes to actually appear in the page history. Laurascudder On Jun 30, 2005, at 6:23 AM, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > I just had a flakey login where it looked like it succeeded, but my > watchlist was unavailable, but I was able to look at my user > contributions. But any further viewing of pages, look like I am NOT > logged in. I edited and saved on Talk:Fox news. The change showed up > on the page, but the change did not show up on the history of the > page. I am the last contributer in the history, but that version is > not the version that shows when viewed. > This is either another bug, or the system has gotten itself into an > unstable flakey state. > --Silverback > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From haukurth at hi.is Thu Jun 30 16:00:40 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:00:40 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <20050630142952.BDA511AC59F3@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050630142952.BDA511AC59F3@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the > stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume > that it does. > > And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations. > > [snip] > > Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something > unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered > pseudoscience]]... Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]? Such over-qualifications with the good intention of being as NPOV as possible is something which Wikipedia has too much of already. My favorite example is this sentence which I found on the [[Britney Spears]] article about two months ago: "Britney Spears is often regarded by many as a controversial sexual figure" In my opinion the following sentences are fine: 1. Britney Spears is a controversial sexual figure. 2. Holocaust denial is pseudohistory. 3. Creationism is pseudoscience. And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's fine too. Because it is. Regards, Haukur From timwi at gmx.net Thu Jun 30 16:47:01 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:47:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: David 'DJ' Hedley wrote: > I don't believe that it is necessary. A rollback button is useful, but I > don't see why it is worth a "Requests for Rollback" to get it. If a user > does RC patrol and wants the aid of rollback (ie, 'the mop'), then they > probably would prefer full admin powers in order to be able to block > vandals, and so on. Being an admin doesn't have many set, 'must do' > responsibilities - RC patrollers can happily become admins without further > hassles, if they want to keep out of Wikipolitics. If only it was as easy to become admin as you're making it out to be! The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and who doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and night, can't possibly be a suitable admin. I especially don't get why most people seem to think that someone with a minimum number of edits and/or a minimum average number of edits per day is automatically a more suitable admin. I would think that someone who edits frantically is much more likely to turn into a troublemaker than someone who edits only sporadically. Timwi From timwi at gmx.net Thu Jun 30 16:56:27 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:56:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> Message-ID: Chris Jenkinson wrote: > > Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics, > regardless of whether they use them. Can't say I agree, from own experiences. For what admins are you speaking? My own experiences tell me that it's always your own actions that involve you in wikipolitics. This can include actions that don't require admin privileges, such as nominating something on VfD. (Comment on my talk page: "How dare you VfD other people's articles??" -- apparently you're only allowed to VfD your own articles.) Timwi From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 17:14:09 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:14:09 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia enquiry In-Reply-To: <001101c57cfd$70529e80$6500a8c0@fairbairnsqezu0> References: <001101c57cfd$70529e80$6500a8c0@fairbairnsqezu0> Message-ID: <98dd099a050630101417ad22c0@mail.gmail.com> Hi Marty, This is a general Wikipedia mailing list, usually used primarily for discussing Wikipedia policy and things like that. The best place for asking factual questions of this sort is generally at the Wikipedia "Reference desk" (at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk). According to the US copyright office (http://www.copyright.gov/records/cohm.html), the rights to "Full Metal Jacket" are owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, who are in turn owned by Time Warner Inc. You will need to contact whoever their licensing/permissions office is to request this usage, I imagine -- I can't find any easy link to such an office through Google, but I believed the name of that division may be "Warner Brothers Consumer Products". FF On 6/29/05, mfairbc045 wrote: > Dear Mailing list, > > I am searching for permission to use a frame enlargement from FULL METAL JACKET. Any ideas as to who I would contact about this? It's for a book on film art. > > Cheers, > > Marty Fairbairn, PhD > Trustee, Upper Grand District School Board > Member, Guelph Police Services Board > 53 Ptarmigan Drive > Guelph, ON > N1C 1B4 > Tel: (519) 824-1703 > FAX: (519) 824-5421 > Email: mfairbc045 at rogers.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 17:24:27 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:24:27 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05063010245deba1c7@mail.gmail.com> On 6/30/05, Timwi wrote: > Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something > unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered > pseudoscience]]... Well, "pseudoscience" is not something "widely" considered -- it is something which is reflective of the consideration of a relatively small community (the scientific community, very small in the world at large). And if we have, [[Category:Theories or beliefs considered by mainstream scientists to be pseudoscience]] why would we not also have [[Category:Theories or beliefs considered by fundamentalist Christians to be lies of Satan]]? The American Association for the Advancement of Science claims 10 million members. According to the Wikipedia article [[Evolution poll]], far far FAR greater numbers in the USA believe in some variety of Creationism. 45% of citizens in 2001 believe in straight Biblical creationism -- some some 126 million people or so! (yuck!) So appeals to consensus don't help us much, unless we start plugging in the *specific* communities we are talking about. I can't see any good reason not to label Evolution as a [[Satanic lie]] if we'll label Creationism [[Pseudoscience]] -- they've certainly got us beat in the numbers game! (Sigh...) FF From chris at starglade.org Thu Jun 30 17:35:34 2005 From: chris at starglade.org (Chris Jenkinson) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:35:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <42C1E12B.3080906@starglade.org> <8b722b8005062817004d8b68c6@mail.gmail.com> <42C1F56C.9020308@starglade.org> Message-ID: <42C42D66.40708@starglade.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Timwi wrote: > Chris Jenkinson wrote: > >> >> Just that the feature is there will involve them in Wikipolitics, >> regardless of whether they use them. > > > Can't say I agree, from own experiences. For what admins are you speaking? > > My own experiences tell me that it's always your own actions that > involve you in wikipolitics. This can include actions that don't require > admin privileges, such as nominating something on VfD. (Comment on my > talk page: "How dare you VfD other people's articles??" -- apparently > you're only allowed to VfD your own articles.) As I'm not an admin at Wikipedia I'm not speaking from my experiences there. I've been a moderator on several large community sites, and I frequently get asked to do things which I either can't do, am not allowed to do and all kinds of other stuff like that. Admittedly, there are less moderators on that site than admins on Wikipedia, but the principle remains. Those having what other people see as "power" will always be politicking with those who have the "power". Wikipedia just has a more diluted-power environment (no bad thing - this proposal dilutes it even further). Chris - -- Chris Jenkinson chris at starglade.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCxC1mEq6+ijeBrJ8RAhFFAJsF4sz4G5QxbsugFmsnlWPHoT+ebgCeI1EQ SiEXPxjwBA/p1d1x5ikpStQ= =oOrz -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 30 17:39:44 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:39:44 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] new software bug or bad state? In-Reply-To: <063020051223.9406.42C3E434000C9087000024BE22007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From: actionforum at comcast.net > >I just had a flakey login where it looked like it succeeded, but my >watchlist was unavailable, but I was able to look at my user contributions. > But any further viewing of pages, look like I am NOT logged in. I >edited and saved on Talk:Fox news. The change showed up on the page, but >the change did not show up on the history of the page. I am the last >contributer in the history, but that version is not the version that shows >when viewed. >This is either another bug, or the system has gotten itself into an >unstable flakey state. This is what I was referring to before; Wikipedia iis regularly and randomly logging people out, sometimes immediately after they login. It continutes to happen to me, and I've seen it happen to others as well. Jay. From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 30 17:38:11 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 13:38:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98961323-7A6B-47BC-8ED3-0FDCC0214FD8@sbcglobal.net> The important insertion that Wikipedia is not making in this debate is that pseudoscience is wrong. That most reasonable people do believe pseudoscience to be wrong is incidental. The term itself does not necessarily imply the value judgment that "satanic lies" does. -Snowspinner On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:33 AM, Timwi wrote: > Fastfission wrote: > >> [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly >> regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty >> straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always >> either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in >> bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is >> generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming >> these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather >> that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as >> "pseudoscience". >> > > > It is the year 2047. > > After a plentiful dinner, Bob and Stan have somehow got into this > discussion that doesn't seem to want to come to an end. Bob is a > Creationist, firmly believing in the truth of the Bible. Stan is a > scientist and defends Darwin's theory of evolution. > > To settle the dispute, Stan gets up and grabs a book from the > shelf. The front cover reads, "Wikipedia 1.0 - Category Index". > Knowing that if there's one thing he and Bob can agree on, it's the > reliability of the world-renowned Wikipedia, he browses through it > and eventually presents to Bob a page led by the heading > "Category:Pseudoscience". His finger points to the place where > Creationism is listed. > > "See, Creationism is pseudoscience," he explains. > > Bob snaps the book out of Stan's hands and browses forward a fair > chunk of pages. Under "Category:Satanic lies", he shows to Stan, we > find a reference to the entry on "Evolution". > > "See, Evolution is a Satanic lie." > > > No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X > under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia > takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority > will assume that it does. > > And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations. > > I am happy to have [[Creationism]] listed under > [[Category:Pseudoscience]], but only because it happens to agree > with my POV. > > Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something > unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely > considered pseudoscience]]... > > Timwi > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 30 18:06:27 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:06:27 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630142952.BDA511AC59F3@mail.wikimedia.org> <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <50D984AC-01A8-4723-8BE9-9656CBA76AB0@ctelco.net> Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. Categories are an aid to the reader to in finding information. To take an example from a current arbitration case (Yoder); He removed the category "Geography of Israel" from the article on Golan Heights. His view was that having the article in that category established or somehow endorsed Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. However the purpose of the category is to point the reader to the articles which have information which falls into the category, not to establish a fact. Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- science, without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough that a the category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean that articles may fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an exercise in logic but in finding information. Fred On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate > to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's > fine too. Because it is. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 30 18:21:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:21:39 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: >From: Haukur ?orgeirsson > > > No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under > > [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the > > stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume > > that it does. > > > > And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations. > > > > [snip] > > > > Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something > > unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered > > pseudoscience]]... > >Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] >being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you >prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories >or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]? > >Such over-qualifications with the good intention >of being as NPOV as possible is something which >Wikipedia has too much of already. Indeed; for example, there have been persistent attempts by a small number of editors to remove Wikipedia all instances of the phrase "Conspiracy theory", particularly in titles, in the name of "NPOV", and replace them with various circumlocutions. Having generally failed at that, in some cases they have restored to creating POV forks of articles which, for example, list the commonly understood view of 9/11 (Al Qaeda hijackers) as just another "conspiracy theory", on the grounds that it is a theory about a conspiracy. Jay. From sean at epoptic.org Thu Jun 30 18:22:41 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 11:22:41 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: (message from Timwi on Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:47:01 +0100) References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> Message-ID: <200506301822.j5UIMfGo005669@orwen.epoptic.com> > The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent > [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out > adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and > who doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and > night, can't possibly be a suitable admin. So we should give admin privileges to people who aren't dedicated and don't think about Wikipedia's well-being? Huh? -- Sean Barrett | The right to be heard does not include the right sean at epoptic.com | to be taken seriously. --Hubert H. Humphrey From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 30 18:35:37 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:35:37 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Timwi > >If only it was as easy to become admin as you're making it out to be! > >The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent >[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out >adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and who >doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and night, >can't possibly be a suitable admin. That's hardly the case. There currently are hundreds of admins (500?), with 2 or 3 new ones being created weekly, so its hardly impossible. And I've never seen the argument made that someone should be an admin simply because they aren't completley Wiki-addicted. >I especially don't get why most people seem to think that someone with a >minimum number of edits and/or a minimum average number of edits per day is >automatically a more suitable admin. I would think that someone who edits >frantically is much more likely to turn into a troublemaker than someone >who edits only sporadically. I've also never seen anyone make a "minimum average number of edits per day" argument for or against adminship. As for the "minimum number of edits" argument, you have misconstrued it; people with a large number of edits are not automatically considered more suitable. In fact, I've seen more than one nomination for admin that was soundly rejected even though the editors in question had many thousands, even tens of thousands of edits. The real point is that the more you edit, the better people are able to guage whether or not they think you have a good grasp of policy and are reliable. People who are very new to Wikipedia are not likely to have a good grasp of policy, and people with very few edits are not well enough known yet; in other words, there is not yet enough evidence to show they will use admin powers responsibly. Jay. From shimgray at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 18:44:06 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 19:44:06 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 30/06/05, JAY JG wrote: > >The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent > >[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out > >adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and who > >doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and night, > >can't possibly be a suitable admin. > > That's hardly the case. There currently are hundreds of admins (500?), with > 2 or 3 new ones being created weekly, so its hardly impossible. We've 498 just now; number five hundred will probably be created tomorrow (or tonight, possibly, in the Deep West)... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From delirium at hackish.org Thu Jun 30 18:44:51 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:44:51 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630142952.BDA511AC59F3@mail.wikimedia.org> <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C43DA3.8050808@hackish.org> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >>No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X under >>[[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia takes the >>stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority will assume >>that it does. >> >>And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations. >> >>[snip] >> >>Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something >>unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely considered >>pseudoscience]]... >> >> > >Once again. Do you object to [[Holocaust denial]] >being in the [[Pseudohistory]] category? Would you >prefer to have something "NPOV" like [[Category:Theories >or beliefs widely considered pseudohistory]]? > > Yes. Some neutral title like [[Category:Non-mainstream historical claims]] or [[Category:Non-mainstream historical theories]] would be much better. Although on a larger level, I'm not convinced using any of these labels is superior to not using them at all. Is [[Atlantis]] under [[Category:Pseudohistory]]? What about [[The Bible]]? -Mark From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 30 18:57:20 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:57:20 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <50D984AC-01A8-4723-8BE9-9656CBA76AB0@ctelco.net> Message-ID: >From: Fred Bauder > >Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, is >not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. Categories >are an aid to the reader to in finding information. > >To take an example from a current arbitration case (Yoder); He removed the >category "Geography of Israel" from the article on Golan Heights. His view >was that having the article in that category established or somehow >endorsed Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. However the purpose of >the category is to point the reader to the articles which have information >which falls into the category, not to establish a fact. Just to clarify, Fred is referring to User:Yuber. Jay. > >Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- science, >without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough that a the >category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean that articles may >fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an exercise in logic but >in finding information. > >Fred > >On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > >>And if someone uses Wikipedia in 50 years to demonstrate >>to her friend that Creationism is pseudo-science that's >>fine too. Because it is. > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 19:39:46 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 05:39:46 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pseudoscience and pseudohistory In-Reply-To: <50D984AC-01A8-4723-8BE9-9656CBA76AB0@ctelco.net> References: <20050630142952.BDA511AC59F3@mail.wikimedia.org> <1665.212.30.203.31.1120147240.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <50D984AC-01A8-4723-8BE9-9656CBA76AB0@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <20050630193945.GW7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Fred Bauder (fredbaud at ctelco.net) [050701 04:06]: > Likewise [[cold fusion]] may be included in the Category Pseudo- > science, without us knowing whether or not it can occur. It is enough > that a the category is a useful guide to the reader. That can mean > that articles may fall into contradictory categories, as it is not an > exercise in logic but in finding information. Actually, [[Cold fusion]] is in all the categories "Pseudoscience", "Protoscience" and "Pathological science". And aspects of it are arguably all of these, and I see no problem with that. - d. From gamaliel8 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 30 19:50:08 2005 From: gamaliel8 at yahoo.com (Rob) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:50:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] bug? I can't seem to edit. Message-ID: <20050630195008.93166.qmail@web31902.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I can't seem to edit while I am logged in. Every time I hit 'save changes' it acts as if I hit 'show preview'. For some reason the sandbox works for me, but not my userpage or any articles. I can delete and move pages, but not rollback. I can edit while logged out. Gamaliel ____________________________________________________ Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com From dpbsmith at verizon.net Thu Jun 30 20:10:11 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:10:11 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? Message-ID: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> How do libraries handle it? When I was about eleven, I discovered that my local library had a copy of Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" shelved among the science books. I went to the librarian full of indignation, demanding that they reshelve it under "science fiction." The librarian somehow calmed me down... and the book stayed where it was. Well, I'm older. (And to tell the truth the geologists seems to be a lot less uniformitarian than they used to be. Asteroids extinguishing the dinosaurs? Well, OK. But I still don't think the fall of manna that saved the Israelites resulted from the earth passing through a comet's tail.) Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction. Who does? and how? From smoddy at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 20:20:34 2005 From: smoddy at gmail.com (Sam Korn) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:20:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? In-Reply-To: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> References: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: > Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all > the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system > can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's > some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any > case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction. > Who does? and how? Quite often, this will be done by the publisher (certainly in my experience with school libraries), who will put a Dewey number on the copyrights page. Not exactly neutral, but that's the way it seems to be done as far as I can tell. Sam From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 30 20:22:55 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 14:22:55 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? In-Reply-To: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> References: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <9D713FE2-7705-4502-BFB9-1D4A8E016EE1@ctelco.net> Hopefully the book is cross-referenced under both "categories." Fred On Jun 30, 2005, at 2:10 PM, wrote: > How do libraries handle it? > > When I was about eleven, I discovered that my local library had a > copy of > Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" shelved among the > science books. > I went to the librarian full of indignation, demanding that they > reshelve it > under "science fiction." The librarian somehow calmed me down... > and the book > stayed where it was. > > Well, I'm older. (And to tell the truth the geologists seems to be > a lot less > uniformitarian than they used to be. Asteroids extinguishing the > dinosaurs? > Well, OK. But I still don't think the fall of manna that saved the > Israelites > resulted from the earth passing through a comet's tail.) > > Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of > thing all > the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal > system > can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps > there's > some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But > in any > case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or > science fiction. > Who does? and how? > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 20:13:11 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:13:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped Message-ID: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> It appears that my e-mails to this list are being dropped by the moderator, just so people know why I haven't been able to respond. In case this one isn't dropped too, you should know that David Gerard, one of the arbs on my RfA is the one who is censoring me. How can arbitrators not claim bias when they're engaging in active censorship? I can't respond on Wikipedia now and now not even on this list. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From shimgray at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 20:29:54 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:29:54 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? In-Reply-To: References: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On 30/06/05, Sam Korn wrote: > > Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all > > the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system > > can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's > > some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any > > case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction. > > Who does? and how? > > Quite often, this will be done by the publisher (certainly in my > experience with school libraries), who will put a Dewey number on the > copyrights page. Not exactly neutral, but that's the way it seems to > be done as far as I can tell. This is part of the CIP process - cataloguing-in-print. Basically, a proof copy of the book is catalogued to a basic standard, and this gets put on the flyleaf; it means that you can open a book and create a catalogue record without having to go to the effort of cataloguing it. Classification numbers generally get assigned at this stage, but they're often inaccurate (especially for more abtruse subjects), and libraries often reclassify from scratch on receipt. This I wouldn't put too much faith in. The cataloguer is quite often not the publisher - in the US, it's often the Library of Congress. (Look carefully, you'll see "The Library of Congress has catalogued the X edition as follows: ...") -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From shimgray at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 20:38:29 2005 From: shimgray at gmail.com (Andrew Gray) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:38:29 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? In-Reply-To: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> References: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On 30/06/05, dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: > Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all > the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system > can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's > some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any > case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction. > Who does? and how? Dewey is in fact controlled by a very strong central organisation - you should see the money they charge! It's currently in the 22nd edition, of four hefty hardbound volumes; one a guide to implementing, two detailed references, and a voluminous index; even then, you still find quite impressive ambiguities. If you want, I can go and have a look at the weekend and see if it discusses the classification of such books; it'd be interesting to note what, if anything, it has to say. [And as a sidenote - I have done guerrilla reshelving in the past, I confess...] -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 20:44:45 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 06:44:45 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped In-Reply-To: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> References: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> Message-ID: <20050630204445.GX7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Nathan J. Yoder (njyoder at energon.org) [050701 06:26]: > It appears that my e-mails to this list are being dropped by the > moderator, just so people know why I haven't been able to respond. In > case this one isn't dropped too, you should know that David Gerard, > one of the arbs on my RfA is the one who is censoring me. > How can arbitrators not claim bias when they're engaging in active > censorship? I can't respond on Wikipedia now and now not even on this > list. I dropped your messages for the attacks contained therein; I let this one through for having a lot fewer of them. The remaining readers of wikien-l are largely sick of fifty-message threads of querulous ranting, so they're not being encouraged. You don't have some sort of intrinsic right to rant as you please here; you can be sure at least a few of the many admins reading this list will have looked into the incidents upsetting you. And I must point out that you always have the option of not making personal attacks in your posts. You appear to take anything said about you that you don't like as an attack, yet are unable to perceive your own attacks on others. The reference to [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] should be all a reasonable person needs; that you don't seem to get it should not ultimately be anyone else's problem. The wikien-l admins really don't like work, so try to avoid it as far as possible. But letting the list turn to querulous ranting is leading to (fairly justified IMO) complaints. So we'll be trying harder to stop the rubbish at a sensible point. - d. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 30 21:10:28 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:10:28 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped In-Reply-To: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> References: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> Message-ID: <60A23C5F-6D0B-4ABE-B85E-381836806573@ctelco.net> Your block will soon end and, provided your posts to the list do not continue to harp on being banned. your mail will go through and all will be back to normal. Fred On Jun 30, 2005, at 2:13 PM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote: > It appears that my e-mails to this list are being dropped by the > moderator, just so people know why I haven't been able to respond. In > case this one isn't dropped too, you should know that David Gerard, > one of the arbs on my RfA is the one who is censoring me. > > How can arbitrators not claim bias when they're engaging in active > censorship? I can't respond on Wikipedia now and now not even on this > list. > > ---------------------------------------------- > Nathan J. Yoder > http://www.gummibears.nu/ > http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key > ---------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From timwi at gmx.net Thu Jun 30 21:19:37 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 22:19:37 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: <200506301822.j5UIMfGo005669@orwen.epoptic.com> References: <42C1B2D5.6020907@starglade.org> <001901c57c25$8a1bf790$4c469d51@hedlatora> <200506301822.j5UIMfGo005669@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: Sean Barrett wrote: >>The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent >>[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out >>adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and >>who doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and >>night, can't possibly be a suitable admin. > > So we should give admin privileges to people who aren't dedicated and > don't think about Wikipedia's well-being? Huh? Just a *bit* black-and-white there, are we? From delirium at hackish.org Thu Jun 30 21:19:35 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:19:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries? In-Reply-To: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> References: <20978756.1120162211397.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <42C461E7.8020706@hackish.org> dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: >Anyway, it seems to me that librarians must deal with this sort of thing all >the time. And the many public libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system >can't just fall back on the Library of Congress. Although perhaps there's >some central authority that recommends Dewey classifications. But in any >case, someone has to decide whether Velikovsky is science or science fiction. >Who does? and how? > > From my limited experience talking to librarians, and much less limited experience browsing libraries, the typical way it's done is to cross-reference under any categories that seem relevant, and shelve under the one that the author seemed to be aiming for. So if it's clearly intended to be a work of science-fiction, it'll be shelved there. If it's intended to be speculative science or something of that sort, it may be shelved under science. They generally avoid some of the problems in this discussion because categories like "pseudoscience" don't exist---a book expounding a physics theory will be shelved under physics, and whether it's a good book by a Nobel Prize winner or a crappy book by a kook isn't the cataloging system's job to judge. -Mark From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Jun 30 21:30:23 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:30:23 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal: Requests for rollback In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: Timwi > >Sean Barrett wrote: >>>The current situation seems to be that the people who frequent >>>[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]] are quite paranoid with giving out >>>adminship status. Anyone who isn't obviously completely dedicated and who >>>doesn't think of nothing else than Wikipedia's well-being day and night, >>>can't possibly be a suitable admin. >> >>So we should give admin privileges to people who aren't dedicated and >>don't think about Wikipedia's well-being? Huh? > >Just a *bit* black-and-white there, are we? Rather less so than your original claims. Jay. From haukurth at hi.is Thu Jun 30 21:47:51 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:47:51 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, > is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. > Categories are an aid to the reader to in finding information. I don't understand the dichotomy you seem to be trying to uphold. Wikipedia provides information but not truth? What is truth? Here's the start of our article on the Eiffel Tower: "The Eiffel Tower ... is a metallic tower built on the Champ de Mars in Paris ... and is nowadays the most famous landmark and symbol of Paris." This is information. And truth. When we say "Homeopathy is a pseudoscience." we are also providing information by writing down a true statement. If I may paraphrase a couple of sentences from a certain sci-fi franchise: "The first duty of every Wikipedian is to the truth, scientific truth, historical truth and personal truth. It is the guiding principle of Wikipedia." When reasonable people interpret available data in different ways we try to describe each position fairly. Then there are some unreasonable positions. Those are usually dealt with in separate articles and otherwise ignored. Here's an excerpt from the start of the [[Apollo program]] article: "Project Apollo ... was devoted to the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth within the decade of the 1960s. This goal was achieved with the Apollo 11 mission in 1969." There are many people who disagree with this but since their position is unreasonable it is not dealt with in the main article but relegated to a separate article. Now, *that* article will try to fairly present the views of those who believe that the Apollo program was a hoax. However, by choosing to privilege the reasonable view in the main article Wikipedia has *already* chosen a position, whatever category the hoax article is put into. Or let's take [[Earth]]. Here's an excerpt from the lead: "The planet formed around 4.57 billion (4.57?109) years ago and shortly thereafter acquired its single natural satellite, the Moon." There are many people who disagree with this. We try to describe their positions fairly in separate articles, e.g. [[Creationism]]. The article on creationism may try to be scrupulously fair to the creationists but the bottom line is that Wikipedia has *already* acknowledged the scientific facts as superior to the creationist theories (at least the "Young Earth" variety) by including them in main articles like [[Earth]]. Including [[Creationism]] in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is just icing on a cake that has already been baked. Regards, Haukur From delirium at hackish.org Thu Jun 30 21:51:27 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:51:27 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >There are many people who disagree with this. We try to >describe their positions fairly in separate articles, >e.g. [[Creationism]]. The article on creationism may >try to be scrupulously fair to the creationists but the >bottom line is that Wikipedia has *already* acknowledged >the scientific facts as superior to the creationist >theories (at least the "Young Earth" variety) by >including them in main articles like [[Earth]]. > >Including [[Creationism]] in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] >is just icing on a cake that has already been baked. > > It's particularly foul-smelling icing, though. NPOV certainly is compatible with not giving minority or conspiracy-theory opinions undue weight by inserting them everywhere or making them seem as if they're mainstream, but at the same time outright name-calling is a little inappropriate. Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience is across the line of good taste I think. Not mentioning the young-earth theory in the intro to [[Earth]] may imply that we judge it as not being a serious scientific position, but outright saying "Creationism is a load of horse-shit" is a little more inappropriate. -Mark From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Jun 30 22:09:15 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:09:15 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: On Jun 30, 2005, at 3:47 PM, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >> Establishing the truth of a proposition, however obvious, as this is, >> is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor the purpose of categories. >> Categories are an aid to the reader to in finding information. >> > > I don't understand the dichotomy you seem > to be trying to uphold. Wikipedia provides > information but not truth? What is truth? "What is truth?" Indeed, and we have an article on it, but that article could not be said to offer a definitive and exhaustive answer. > Here's the start of our article on the Eiffel Tower: > > "The Eiffel Tower ... is a metallic tower built > on the Champ de Mars in Paris ... and is nowadays > the most famous landmark and symbol of Paris." > > This is information. And truth. Yes, the sun rises in the east. > > When we say "Homeopathy is a pseudoscience." > we are also providing information by writing > down a true statement. If I may paraphrase > a couple of sentences from a certain sci-fi > franchise: Homeopathy is also alternative medicine and is, by report, the school of medicine used by the Royal family of the United Kingdom. > > "The first duty of every Wikipedian is to the truth, > scientific truth, historical truth and personal truth. > It is the guiding principle of Wikipedia." This quotation may exist somewhere, but a Google search results in this return: 'Your search - Wikipedia "historical truth and personal truth" - did not match any documents' Who says that and in what context? > > When reasonable people interpret available data > in different ways we try to describe each position > fairly. Right, but we ought not declare one viewpoint or another "the truth." At least not within Wikipedia. > > Then there are some unreasonable positions. Those > are usually dealt with in separate articles and > otherwise ignored. Here's an excerpt from the > start of the [[Apollo program]] article: > > "Project Apollo ... was devoted to the goal of landing a man on the > Moon > and returning him safely to Earth within the decade of the 1960s. This > goal was achieved with the Apollo 11 mission in 1969." > > There are many people who disagree with this but > since their position is unreasonable it is not dealt > with in the main article but relegated to a separate > article. Now, *that* article will try to fairly present > the views of those who believe that the Apollo program > was a hoax. However, by choosing to privilege the > reasonable view in the main article Wikipedia has > *already* chosen a position, whatever category the > hoax article is put into. Same with 9/11. There is no way we could feature the view that it was all cooked up by plotters in the Bush administration or that the building did not collapse but was demolished by planted explosives. > > Or let's take [[Earth]]. Here's an excerpt from the lead: > > "The planet formed around 4.57 billion (4.57?109) years ago and > shortly > thereafter acquired its single natural satellite, the Moon." > > There are many people who disagree with this. We try to > describe their positions fairly in separate articles, > e.g. [[Creationism]]. The article on creationism may > try to be scrupulously fair to the creationists but the > bottom line is that Wikipedia has *already* acknowledged > the scientific facts as superior to the creationist > theories (at least the "Young Earth" variety) by > including them in main articles like [[Earth]]. > > Including [[Creationism]] in [[Category:Pseudoscience]] > is just icing on a cake that has already been baked. Good cake. Fred > > Regards, > Haukur > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From haukurth at hi.is Thu Jun 30 22:16:23 2005 From: haukurth at hi.is (Haukur =?iso-8859-1?Q?=DEorgeirsson?=) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 22:16:23 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Creationism is not horse-shit, it's pseudo-science In-Reply-To: <20050630212034.E54BE1AC5963@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050630212034.E54BE1AC5963@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <1146.212.30.203.31.1120169783.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> > It's particularly foul-smelling icing, though. NPOV certainly is > compatible with not giving minority or conspiracy-theory opinions undue > weight by inserting them everywhere or making them seem as if they're > mainstream, but at the same time outright name-calling is a little > inappropriate. Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience > is across the line of good taste I think. Not mentioning the > young-earth theory in the intro to [[Earth]] may imply that we judge it > as not being a serious scientific position, but outright saying > "Creationism is a load of horse-shit" is a little more inappropriate. No-one is proposing that we do. Pseudo-science is a word with a particular meaning, not name-calling (unless applied to something that isn't actually pseudo-science). There are, Godwin help me, nazi categories on Wikipedia. That's not name-calling either, when used appropriately. Regards, Haukur From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 22:21:43 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 08:21:43 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> Message-ID: <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050701 07:55]: > Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience > is across the line of good taste I think. Saying Intellient Design is pseudoscience wouldn't be, though, as imitating science is its precise purpose. So how would you categorise creationism? Mythology, like [[Xenu]]? - d. From jtkiefer at wordzen.net Thu Jun 30 22:25:18 2005 From: jtkiefer at wordzen.net (Jtkiefer) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:25:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Creationism is not horse-shit, it's pseudo-science In-Reply-To: <1146.212.30.203.31.1120169783.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630212034.E54BE1AC5963@mail.wikimedia.org> <1146.212.30.203.31.1120169783.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <42C4714E.602@wordzen.net> Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: >>It's particularly foul-smelling icing, though. NPOV certainly is >>compatible with not giving minority or conspiracy-theory opinions undue >>weight by inserting them everywhere or making them seem as if they're >>mainstream, but at the same time outright name-calling is a little >>inappropriate. Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience >>is across the line of good taste I think. Not mentioning the >>young-earth theory in the intro to [[Earth]] may imply that we judge it >>as not being a serious scientific position, but outright saying >>"Creationism is a load of horse-shit" is a little more inappropriate. >> >> > >No-one is proposing that we do. Pseudo-science is a >word with a particular meaning, not name-calling >(unless applied to something that isn't actually >pseudo-science). > >There are, Godwin help me, nazi categories on Wikipedia. >That's not name-calling either, when used appropriately. > >Regards, >Haukur > >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > Creationism is a prickly problem, wikipedia can't really take either side due to the fact that no matter what you write on it it's almost impossible to avoid POV pushing. -Jtkiefer From delirium at hackish.org Thu Jun 30 22:22:23 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:22:23 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C4709F.8030102@hackish.org> David Gerard wrote: >Delirium (delirium at hackish.org) [050701 07:55]: > > > >> Saying, as Wikipedia, that Creationism is pseudoscience >>is across the line of good taste I think. >> >> > > >Saying Intellient Design is pseudoscience wouldn't be, though, as imitating >science is its precise purpose. So how would you categorise creationism? >Mythology, like [[Xenu]]? > > We have an overview article [[Origin beliefs]], which seems to be a reasonably neutral yet succinct and descriptive term for the class of beliefs about the origin of the universe that lay outside the scientific community. How about [[Category:Origin beliefs]]? -Mark From michael.turley at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 22:27:29 2005 From: michael.turley at gmail.com (Michael Turley) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:27:29 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: On 6/30/05, Haukur ?orgeirsson wrote: > When we say "Homeopathy is a pseudoscience." > we are also providing information by writing > down a true statement. If I may paraphrase > a couple of sentences from a certain sci-fi > franchise: > > "The first duty of every Wikipedian is to the truth, > scientific truth, historical truth and personal truth. > It is the guiding principle of Wikipedia." You've mentioned four separate truths there. I'm of the opinion that Wikipedia tries to serve all of them, not just the scientific truth. In what order we serve them is the primary puzzle, and that differs on a case by case basis. For example, I think mention of Creationism is perfectly appropriate for the article on [[Earth]]. Should it be the first mention? No. Mention of the scientific explanation of the origin of the earth should similarly get mention in the [[Creationism]] article. It's not our job to decide what view is the right one, even though we've all probably already made our own decisions. It is our job to catalog and present the views, preferably thoroughly referenced and cited, ordered by vague consensus judgements of levels of acceptance and importance, and then let the readers make the final decision of what they believe. We are catalogers of existing third party views of the truth, nothing more. We shouldn't be here to judge the truth or falsehood of anything; only the level of acceptance of various views of the truth. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused From jtkiefer at wordzen.net Thu Jun 30 22:32:52 2005 From: jtkiefer at wordzen.net (Jtkiefer) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:32:52 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42C47314.3070603@wordzen.net> I think wikipedia will always end up taking the scientific view as long as the scientific view is the prevailing view in americn society From jtkiefer at wordzen.net Thu Jun 30 22:35:27 2005 From: jtkiefer at wordzen.net (Jtkiefer) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:35:27 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: <42C47314.3070603@wordzen.net> References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> <42C4695F.1010401@hackish.org> <20050630222143.GY7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <42C47314.3070603@wordzen.net> Message-ID: <42C473AF.4050107@wordzen.net> This of course is not to say that american society may not eventually change to a point of view where creationism is the main theory of life and the theory of natural selection is more of a minority opinion. -Jtkiefer From skyring at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 23:11:51 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:11:51 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] OK, You're Busted! In-Reply-To: <001101c57cfd$70529e80$6500a8c0@fairbairnsqezu0> References: <001101c57cfd$70529e80$6500a8c0@fairbairnsqezu0> Message-ID: <550ccb820506301611d462c5e@mail.gmail.com> "William sauntered slowly down the road towards school. His person was freely decorated with bandages that were the results of a skirmish between William and a new geyser that his family had lately had installed. "The man who installed it had said in answer to Mrs Brown's enquiries: 'No, Madam, it's a new model and it can't possibly explode. I defy anyone,' he had added, 'to make this geyser explode.' It was a very foolish thing to say in the hearing of William, but then, of course, he did not know William. William had accepted the statement as a challenge, and had worked hard and conscientiously on the new geyser till he made it explode. When finally they picked him up from the debris (after ascertaining that the house still stood!) his first remark had been a triumphant: 'There! And he said it couldn't explode!'" The story goes on to say how William saw himself as a seeker of truth and justice, and his conscience was clear, even if he was covered with bandages and he could tell little girls that his whole face had been burnt off, except for his eyes. Well, like William, I put truth and justice above geysers, and perhaps I'm being foolish in pointing out loopholes in the system, but here goes. Purely as a hypothetical, let's say that I've been hauled up before the Grand Jury, found to be a naughty Wikipedian and banned. I don't agree with the decision, in fact I think the Grand Jury has its head up its bum, but that's not important. The effect of banning an editor is akin to being pulled over by the cops, but instead of putting the driver in prison or fining him or taking away his licence, they take away his licence plate. He can still drive, but now he's not identifiable! Doesn't this encourage bad behaviour instead of good? Yeah, I know that the IP address can be blocked, but IP addresses are easy to come by in these days of internet cafes, wifi hotspots and cheap dialup. When I'm on the road I don't have access to my ADSL, so I tend to go down to Starbucks and have a cuppa while I check my email, or duck into whatever internet shop I'm passing and buy an hour or so. Libraries and universities are another good place for free Internet. The bottom line is that if I know a certain Irish editor is an arrogant idiot, then I can correct his stupid mistakes, fix his wretched grammar, and adjust his spelling to conform to dictionary standards, and what are you gunna do? Revert obvious improvements? And if I know that a certain Melbourne editor is a bully with a short fuse, then just how can anyone stop me from lighting it? Getting an abusive editor out of Wikipedia seems like a bloody good idea to me. All with the firm intention of improving Wikipedia, of course. And giving myself a glow of righeousness. -- Peter in Cyberspace From skyring at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 23:20:05 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:20:05 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV In-Reply-To: References: <20050630193957.A20DB1AC5A2A@mail.wikimedia.org> <1097.212.30.203.31.1120168071.squirrel@webmail.hi.is> Message-ID: <550ccb820506301620689d6789@mail.gmail.com> On 7/1/05, Fred Bauder wrote: > > When we say "Homeopathy is a pseudoscience." > > we are also providing information by writing > > down a true statement. If I may paraphrase > > a couple of sentences from a certain sci-fi > > franchise: > > "The first duty of every Wikipedian is to the truth, > > scientific truth, historical truth and personal truth. > > It is the guiding principle of Wikipedia." > > This quotation may exist somewhere, but a Google search results in > this return: > 'Your search - Wikipedia "historical truth and personal truth" - did > not match any documents' > > Who says that and in what context? It's easily found in Google, and the OP indicated it was a paraphrase: "The first duty of a Wikipedian is to the truth--be it scientific truth, historical truth, PERSONAL truth. It is the guiding principle on which Wikipedia was founded!" -- Peter in Canberra From geniice at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 23:32:07 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 00:32:07 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV In-Reply-To: <98961323-7A6B-47BC-8ED3-0FDCC0214FD8@sbcglobal.net> References: <98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com> <98961323-7A6B-47BC-8ED3-0FDCC0214FD8@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: I've always though that the pseudoscience (and protoscience) catogries were far more trouble than they were worth. -- geni From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 20:46:16 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 16:46:16 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power Message-ID: <197244847.20050630164616@energon.org> > Oh, btw, I also see your next post to the > mailing list, where you have "figured out why it's doing it". Is that > your idea of an apology? I wonder how many times I'll have to resend this totally on-topic e-mail before it finally gets through (not censored by the mod). Let's put this response in a numerical list clearly outlining every totally relevent statement. 1. It's not an apology. 2. It's an acknowledgement that either your did something wrong or there is a bug with the system. 3. Are you going to apologize for your false accusation against me? The _only_ account under which I hit 'edit page' was njyoder. Knowing this, you must retract your accusation. 4. Since I have not actually violated the block, will you now remove it 24 hours from when it was originally issued (as you are obligated to)? 5. I'd like specific examples of what personal attacks I used that warrant this block. Note that no one has attempted to define personal attack yet because they know if they did the accusation and blocked would become completely unwarranted and make you look bad, as well as the other arbtrators in my case who _flat out refused_ to define it. Simplying describing someone's behavior--calling them a hypocrite, is NOT a personal attack. This has been a matter of debate on the no personal attacks talk page, especially considering the policy does not state what constitutes a personal attack. The examples given on the "no personal attacks" page (the closest thing to a definition) are very different things from what I've said and you'd either have to be either incredibly stupid or very dishonest to state otherwise. I expect a direct apology from you and a removal of the block immediatly. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 21:07:44 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:07:44 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped In-Reply-To: <20050630105819.GV7309@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050630093432.GT7309@thingy.apana.org.au> <1709371249.20050630060602@energon.org> <20050630105819.GV7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1157380481.20050630170744@energon.org> > I dropped your messages for the attacks contained therein; I let this one > through for having a lot fewer of them. The remaining readers of wikien-l > are largely sick of fifty-message threads of querulous ranting, so they're > not being encouraged. You don't have some sort of intrinsic right to rant > as you please here; you can be sure at least a few of the many admins > reading this list will have looked into the incidents upsetting you. So out of the entire history of the mailing list, you decide to do this just now? Uh huh. I had only sent about 3 e-mails so far and you all of a sudden decided to start censoring. Regardless of my "personal attacks" my e-mails were still perfectly on-topic and had legitimate questions. Censoring them isn't going to make me e-mail less, it's going to make me e-mail more in response to this nefarious behavior. Also, if the readers don't want to read certain e-mails, they don't have to it. It's simple really and it's also childish to not be able to just move past a thread you don't like. > And I must point out that you always have the option of not making > personal attacks in your posts. So why do you use them? > You appear to take anything said about you that you don't like as an > attack, yet are unable to perceive your own attacks on others. Pot, meet kettle, it's black! I only called one statement of yours a personal attack, so this statement is just plain ludicrous. I'm not sure what math you're using, but the kind I'm using one does not equal to many. > The > reference to [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] should be all a reasonable > person needs; that you don't seem to get it should not ultimately be anyone > else's problem. You have seriously got to be kidding me. Have you read the talk page for "no personal attacks"? There is a lot of debate going on about what constitutes a personal attack and what should/shouldn't be allowed. There is no clear consensus and you suggesting that it's just what a reasonable person needs just a way for you to continue being evasive and avoiding defining it. So I guess all this debate and the many people engaging in it on the talk page are just idiots, right? After all, it's *totally* obvious, it's just that so many people are too dumb to grasp the obvious and really majority support for your "obvious" definition isn't needed at all. I'm sorry, but the facts just aren't in your favor here. If you're going to defend yourself, you better damn well not cop-out like you're trying to do now. If you can't even see the gray area involved here, then you shouldn't be an admin at all. I'm curious, is it a personal attack if I call someone a black and white thinker? What about describing someone's views regarding a specific matter at hand as "tunnel vision"? > The wikien-l admins really don't like work, so try to avoid it as > far as possible. But letting the list turn to querulous ranting is > leading to (fairly justified IMO) complaints. So we'll be trying > harder to stop the rubbish at a sensible point. Huh? You stopped me after 3 e-mails. You even rejected my first response to bishonen which was in direct regard to my block and is one of the purposes of this list. Cutting it off that early is hardly a "sensible point." ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From njyoder at energon.org Thu Jun 30 21:24:42 2005 From: njyoder at energon.org (Nathan J. Yoder) Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 17:24:42 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped In-Reply-To: <60A23C5F-6D0B-4ABE-B85E-381836806573@ctelco.net> References: <846475809.20050630161311@energon.org> <60A23C5F-6D0B-4ABE-B85E-381836806573@ctelco.net> Message-ID: <8510477516.20050630172442@energon.org> > Your block will soon end and, provided your posts to the list do not > continue to harp on being banned. your mail will go through and all > will be back to normal. So let me get this straight, I'm not allowed to talk about the thing that was my whole purpose in e-mailing this list in the first place? Considering that 'blocked page' directly refers to this list, it would make no sense to then censor discussion about blocks. Gotca, the whole referral to this list thing was really just a farce to lure users into the false sense that there might be justice for malicious blocks. You are also missing the point completely, it's about the block being unjust and in not in accordance with wikipedia policy, it doesn't matter that the lbock will "soon end" (which is actually 12 hours now since the bug or whatever it was extended the ban wrongfully). But hey, even if an admin overstepped their bounds completely, it doesn't matter if the block is gone, right? And who cares about censorship?! I also find it curious that not a single person has defined what constitutes a personal attack yet. I think the admins knew all along that they were acting in error, which is why I've never received said definition or any clarification of any kind. What do you call it when someone in an authority position enforces an undefined rule? I wonder if that will even come close to being addressed. It seems doubtful since the arbitrators really don't actually care about being just or enforcing the rules properly, it's simply a matter of how many people you don't like you can get away with banning without a significant backlash against themselves. I say that in all seriousness true, the admins/arbs really don't seem to care at all about justice, but rather saving their ass when they act in prejudice. I think there is some sort of sense of infallibility coming from the fact that their positions are pretty much ensured, especially for arbitrators. I expect this to backfire severely in about 5-10 years as Wikipedia gets more popular and more of the general population becomes aware of this and people are forcibly removed from their positions due to public pressure. ---------------------------------------------- Nathan J. Yoder http://www.gummibears.nu/ http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key ---------------------------------------------- From timwi at gmx.net Thu Jun 30 23:42:43 2005 From: timwi at gmx.net (Timwi) Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:42:43 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship Message-ID: I was going to post this as a reply to another posting, but my thoughts have become somewhat general, and so I'm posting this as a new entry. I have come to realise that our current process of requesting adminship is at a sharp contrast to the wiki model in general. I have come to believe that we are not following our own principles that we so highly value. Why do we let anyone edit? Because we believe that assuming good faith is a good thing. We let people edit because they can't do any lasting damage anyway; if they turn out to be editing in bad faith, we can still revert their edits and block them later. No permanent damage done. We also let people edit because we believe that they are innocent until they show themselves guilty. Incidentally, with admin powers, we handle it quite differently. Not only does becoming an admin require majority support, but it is even the case that many people vote "oppose" on the grounds of lack of dedication, lack of a minimum number of edits, or lack of involvement in community issues. They can apparently get away with an argument that essentially amounts to saying "we can't really be sure they're innocent, so we'll have to assume they're guilty for now". As a result, there are people who are not admins even though they would never be doing anything wrong if they were. Those people should be admins. If we disregard for a moment that admins can delete images permanently, which surely can be rectified in a future software update, admins cannot do any lasting damage, just like editors. As such, their situation is a quite close analogy to the case of the editors. If we applied the current request-for-adminship philosophy to editing, we would have to vote on everybody's right to edit before allowing them to edit! Suppose for a moment that users were to start out as admins, and only lose the admin powers when they abuse them. (No, I'm not suggesting this, but let's explore this hypothetical scenario.) Suppose also that if admin powers are removed from an account, all accounts that are editing from the same IP also lose admin powers. Of course many of you will object to this model, because users could just open a new account from another IP to re-gain the administrative privileges. But if you think about it, editors are in exactly the same position: If they're blocked, they only need to edit from another IP to evade the block. We already have the societal mechanics (policies and procedures) in place to deal with this. The situation is exactly analogous. However, I am not suggesting such a radical change. As a first step, I would like to suggest to make it policy that "oppose" votes must be accompanied by reasoning indicating the nominee's past wrongdoing or potential for wrongdoing. It should not be permitted to vote "oppose" just because someone has "only a few hundred edits", as this is neither a crime nor a sign of bad faith. As a safeguard against crackpots nominating themselves straight after their first edit, however, I suggest that candidates must be nominated by an existing admin. In the long-term, my suggestion is to abolish the requirement for majority vote. Anyone who is already an admin is trusted; I think someone nominated by an existing admin should therefore be given a certain "initial trust" too. Thus, admins should be able to just appoint other admins. As for removing adminship, ideally I would like to see the process closely resemble that for blocking users. The things we have collected at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]] have evolved over time; a similar "deadminning policy", containing various behaviours that warrant deadminning without a vote, is surely conceivable. In particular, I can imagine the 3RR apply to page-protection, deletion/undeletion, or blocking/unblocking other users. Having more admins, and therefore more sensible admins ;-), makes this much easier to keep under control by the community. What if tens of people gang up, all become admins and then do lots of bad stuff? Well, it is already possible for people to gang up -- and indeed, gangs of web forum users have done so in the past. Please discuss! :) Timwi From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Jun 30 23:47:39 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 09:47:39 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050630234739.GZ7309@thingy.apana.org.au> Timwi (timwi at gmx.net) [050701 09:43]: Indeed. The present RFA procedure is horribly topheavy and instruction-crept. > As a first step, I would like to suggest to make it policy that "oppose" > votes must be accompanied by reasoning indicating the nominee's past > wrongdoing or potential for wrongdoing. It should not be permitted to > vote "oppose" just because someone has "only a few hundred edits", as > this is neither a crime nor a sign of bad faith. As a safeguard against > crackpots nominating themselves straight after their first edit, > however, I suggest that candidates must be nominated by an existing admin. Sounds good to me. > In the long-term, my suggestion is to abolish the requirement for > majority vote. Anyone who is already an admin is trusted; I think > someone nominated by an existing admin should therefore be given a > certain "initial trust" too. Thus, admins should be able to just appoint > other admins. I'd like to work our way to that stage slowly ;-) > As for removing adminship, ideally I would like to see the > process closely resemble that for blocking users. The things we have > collected at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]] have evolved over time; a > similar "deadminning policy", containing various behaviours that warrant > deadminning without a vote, is surely conceivable. In particular, I can > imagine the 3RR apply to page-protection, deletion/undeletion, or > blocking/unblocking other users. Having more admins, and therefore more > sensible admins ;-), makes this much easier to keep under control by the > community. Temp deadminning in the software? Hmm ... - d. From jack.i.lynch at gmail.com Thu Jun 30 23:54:25 2005 From: jack.i.lynch at gmail.com (Jack Lynch) Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 01:54:25 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Further Wladk madness In-Reply-To: <000301c57b08$f2ee5e70$207c0450@Galasien> References: <000301c57b08$f2ee5e70$207c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <49bdc743050630165418b33cd5@mail.gmail.com> This is the sort of thing I'd like to see more of here. I'm glad to help you clean up these contributions. You have my utmost respect Charles, and deserve it. Lets get back to writing an encyclopedia, and leave all the rhetoric and theatrics at the door. Jack (Sam Spade) On 6/27/05, Charles Matthews wrote: > I have posted about this before, namely the unkind reception often given to > User:Wladk, usually posting as an IP number 200.46.++. He has identified > himself as Wellington Perez Ishikawajima, Peruvian of Japanese extraction. > He has now initiated 100 pages or so; these exhibit almost all possible > problems, beginning with poor English. Only User:Wikibofh seems to have > recognised, as I do, that this prolific contributor is posting material that > includes real gems, and is expanding the East Asia coverage in a way for > which Wiki-en should be grateful. Plenty of really quite nasty comments > have been seen at VfD. > > To give an example of the value: a recent high profile biography of Mao > Zedong argues that the Chinese Communists only came to power after they were > handed factories in ex-Manchukuo (which Japan overran in 1931), by the > Soviets who invaded right at the end of WWII. Reading that, I realised that > I knew chapter and verse about that, from the WP articles I had been > cleaning up about Japanese heavy industry there. > > So - please can I have some help in my campaign to have these articles > cleaned up first, before rushing them to VfD? I think some Wikipedians' > comments (such as 'contribute to the WP in your native language') are > completely out of order. I see no reason to believe that the wiki process > does not work, with these articles as for all else. There is a listing I > maintain at > > [[User:Charles Matthews/Imperial Japan]]. > > I should be grateful to be notified of more such - I found around ten major > ones this morning alone, while the database was locked. > > > Charles > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >