From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 00:22:54 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:22:54 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: "The 32K limit made me do it" In-Reply-To: <4418c60e05022815192c1dace@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050227231231.CDA9F1AC1853@mail.wikimedia.org> <81d1f38bbb5922fa9f4862ee321a4357@verizon.net> <4223A1F1.2040400@thingy.apana.org.au> <4418c60e05022815192c1dace@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05022816221295de9c@mail.gmail.com> Obviously it depends on the article -- some split well, others would not, and the *size of the split pieces* would matter as well. For example, there's no easy way to split "Albert Einstein" (45K) anymore than it is, as none of the split parts would themselves warrant an article on their own. If you split it up, you'd get a very ugly outline which led to articles each one or two paragraphs long. You could cut it down, but I don't see any benefit in that: we don't need to pretend that everybody is going to *want* to read an entire article from start to finish. I'm sure there are many people who don't care about Einstein's political or religious views, and many who don't really care about the science, but by keeping the text there and well organized, we can let the user skip to their tastes. There are many summary style articles which are far longer than 32K -- it is not the length that makes them usable or un-usable, it is whether they have a good article structure, with good headings, so you can easily see what parts you are interested in and which you are not. With that in mind, I think the 32K warning should be pretty soft. Articles should be split up or cut down as a factor of their overall content, which cannot be measured by an arbitrary number of kilobytes. I'm not too worried about people with out of date browsers, I must admit. I wonder how well they fare with the CSS Wikipedia, anyway. My non-confrontational recommendation: "Note: This page is 38 kilobytes long. If appropriate, you may want to consider splitting it into a series of shorter articles or editing it to be more concise (see [[Wikipedia:Article size]] for more information)." I of course say this as somebody who struggles against his natural verbosity, but we all have our biases. FF On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:19:27 +0000, Zoney wrote: > On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 22:57:53 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > > dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote: > > > > > I've Been Bold and rewritten the message. It now reads: > > > "Note: This page is 38 kilobytes long. Under current article size > > > guidelines, articles that exceed 32KB are considered to be too long. It > > > may be appropriate to restructure this topic into a related series of > > > shorter articles, or split off a section of it as a separate article. > > > However, these are major structural changes which should not be made > > > hastily, and should be made by consensus agreement among editors of the > > > page. See the guidelines for details." > > > > I'd like it made harsher: see below. > > > > > > >> So what are the generally accepted criteria for length of articles in > > >> encyclopedias? > > > > > People should be getting tired of my stock answer to this, which is that > > > the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica contains articles > > > which exceed one megabyte in size. I need to get to the library and see > > > what size the juicier articles in the Britannica 3 Macropaedia are. > > > > A vastly important consideration is that text is remarkably harder to > > read on a screen than on paper. The 32K article that's a lot of work to > > read on screen is a lot easier to read on a printout - but almost no-one > > (comparatively) will be reading a printout. 32K is when your eyes fall off > > the screen, if not well before. > > > > > > - d. > > > > So? We don't necessarily intend for people to read all the way through > an article on a country that is hundreds of years old for example. > People will skip to particular sections. If someone does want to read > through an entire long article, printing it out is probably the most > likely option! > > 32K is far too restrictive for major parent articles - no matter the > number of sub articles. Even just including an adequate summary for > each sub-topic results in quite a large article - summarising history > of a country alone is a massive task, nevermind adding short sections > on culture (sports, literature, food+drink, lifestyle), geography, > economy, government (!!!). No... any country article below 32K is very > likely to not adequately cover the swathe of articles that accompany > it. > > 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 fastfission at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 00:30:14 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:30:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two small recommendations Message-ID: <98dd099a05022816302d6189e3@mail.gmail.com> I'm not sure where the most effective place to post recommendations is, but here are two I have: 1. If you currently click the "Search" or "Go" button without typing in a query, you get an ugly MySQL error. It ought to dump you into a generic "Search" page or something like that. I can see no advantage in giving the user a "badly formed search query" error. Surely this can't be too hard to change? 2. If you put in a Wiki URL without the /wiki/ you get an ugly Error 404 and then a 5 sec. redirect. (i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/Albert_Einstein -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein). Why? I see no reason why it shouldn't just automatically redirect, unless there is some tangible benefit for telling people that they left out the "wiki" (when it doesn't seem to affect anything). Is there anything else they could have possibly meant when typing in that query? Why chastise them if we can fairly guess their intention? FF From wikipedia at decumanus.com Tue Mar 1 08:59:51 2005 From: wikipedia at decumanus.com (Matthew Trump) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 03:59:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Kenneth Alan Message-ID: <61802.168.103.206.47.1109667591.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> This evening I blocked User:Borderer as an alias of User:Kenneth Alan, who was banned for a year by the arbitration committee on October 2, 2004 for highly abusive behavior and other controversial editing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Kenneth_Alan Many of you are familiar this user, so I wanted to notify the mailing list as a whole. Kenneth came back as Borderer in December. I noticed him in mid January, because an edit he made on one of my watchlist articles. The edit was suspicious enough that I went to the user's contributions and immediately verified it was him, based on the unique telltale constellation of topics that he has edited in the past. I didn't act at the time, however, because in his new identity he was editing in a very restrained and lowkey manner, and I was willing to look the other way and let him perhaps evolve into a productive editor, all the while with the ban hanging over his head. In the past two weeks, however, he began returning to form, insulting users in an increasingly strident manner, and rousing animosity in the way he has before. When he switched from small edits and additions to adding a full-scale essay (on [[Danelaw]]) linking 9th century Scandavian history with contemporary U.S. politics, I knew he was "back" in full and immediately blocked him again idefinitely. I apologize to anyone who have been antogonized by him in his new identity over the last month, not realizing it was him, but I wanted to give a chance to redeem himself. I will certainly not do so again. According to the rules of the arbitration com, I don't know how or if this affects the "clock" on his 1-year ban. best wishes to all, Matthew Trump [[User:Decumanus]] From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 15:23:40 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:23:40 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation In-Reply-To: References: <42238B74.7070905@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: Email discussion between myself and Tom about the Wikipedia 1.0 idea and [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]], forwarded with his permission. I've removed email addresses and some names (not secret, just that the discussion in question is at the named page, not here). Note that I've also created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]], a project category which is pretty much for use as a working set of 1.0 documents, rants and so forth. - d. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Gerard Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:23:37 +0000 Subject: Re: Wikipedia reputation To: Tom Haws On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:21:56 -0700, Tom Haws wrote: > I noted with that same sinking feeling [XXX]'s response to your note > at [[Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]]. It seems the > conventional way of talking about 1.0 is to add an impossible burden of > review work on top of the Wiki miracle. But what you and I are thinking > of is not much more than a programming effort to harness the miracle of > the Wikipedia dilettantism mill to automatically tell us which articles > (or article versions) are suspect/trusted, adult/family fare, > fledgling/mature, or any of a selected group of qualifiers that could be > used as selectors for various purposes. As you, I am confident the wiki > editing process would rate the entire encyclopedia on even multiple > aspects within days or weeks. This doesn't have to go on for months. I've answered [XXX] trying to explain why editorial committees are unlikely to scale. I can't see them working - I know how damned hard it is to get *one* article past WP:FAC, in areas I'm a subject matter expert in! I think editorial committees are an exercise in futility, but the people fond of such an approach can't be told otherwise. As such, I'd probably leave them to it and see if they come up with anything useful. > Of course the first item of business is to discover the relevant forum > to spread and build consensus on such a manner of thinking. I would > think Jimbo (having experienced it all) would be thinking in the same > direction as us, but from all I have seen, he has been pretty > tight-lipped. I hopefully imagine that his silence (assuming I haven't > simply missed the "right" places like the mailing list) is indicative of > dismay with the conventional proposals. I wonder if there perhaps is a > way to get his honest ideas, which of course we would value highly > without quoting him as an "authority". I think Jimbo is waiting for others to get on with it ;-) Presumably when it happens, it'll be simple and elegant and obvious in retrospect. Asking him really does work ;-) wikien-l is a good place to sound out ideas. > Other than getting into Jimbo's mind, and dedicating my own front page > to the issue (which I have done some time ago, and am willing to revise > per your thoughts), I don't know where to go with this. Who and what is > relevant to this issue? I've created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]]. Possibly others will add stuff to it. e.g. their own userspace thoughts pages. One thing: I really don't think our technical tools (MediaWiki features) are up to the job. URGENT: - rating system. May scale, editorial committees don't. VERY USEFUL: - references syntax (many mooted, none implemented). I should start a page on meta to this effect ... > I see this issue as urgent because of the fund-raising implications it has. I don't actually see it as urgent in that sense. I see it as something to get *right*, because if we don't do that it's going to splutter anyway. > I hope we can discuss specifics in a wider forum soon. I'll be taking it to wikien-l myself. Mind if I send this mail there? Or you can :-) > p.s. Your response will be bounced by my server, but excuse and ignore > the mistreatment. I will let your mail through. Ooooh, whitelists. Evil! I use Bayesian, of course, because Thunderbird and gmail do ;-) - d. From violetriga at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 17:58:33 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 17:58:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiUser trying to spam me Message-ID: After the RfAr resulted in a one year block for WikiUser I started getting numerous password reminders from Wikipedia. The IP address stated (217.204.65.210) is the same one used by WikiUser and it's clearly him. I wouldn't really mind but it's happened 30+ times now. It's not causing me any problems other than seeing my inbox fill up with the mails. Anyone know of any way we can stop him from doing this? Perhaps a block from him even viewing Wikipedia? ~~~~ Violet/Riga From rowan.collins at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 18:28:20 2005 From: rowan.collins at gmail.com (Rowan Collins) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 18:28:20 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Two small recommendations In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05022816302d6189e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05022816302d6189e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9f02ca4c05030110282f231b03@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:30:14 -0500, Fastfission wrote: > I'm not sure where the most effective place to post recommendations > is, but here are two I have: The best place to post both software and website configuration problems/suggestions is at the bug tracker: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org You have to set up an account, but only so there's a confirmed e-mail address, to make sure people don't leave a report and then "run away". Of the mailing lists, wikitech-l is the most appropriate: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l > 1. If you currently click the "Search" or "Go" button without typing > in a query, you get an ugly MySQL error. There are various open "bugs" and previous discussions about the search behaviour; you might want to search in the bug tracker and the mailing list archives (add "site:mail.wikimedia.org" to a Google search). But yes, that certainly seems like a bug, so if you don't find one, it would be worth opening a bug report about it. > 2. If you put in a Wiki URL without the /wiki/ you get an ugly Error > 404 and then a 5 sec. redirect. That was recently changed because the code that previously dealt with it had a rather major bug. The main reason to encourage people to use the extra "/wiki/" is that there are URLs that *don't* refer to wiki pages, such as those that are part of the software (the graphics used in the interface, for instance). So if people start thinking of en.wikipedia.org/ as being a correct alternative to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/, they are going to be confused when it *doesn't* work like that - especially since there is no way of predicting what URLs of that form will be needed for something else in the future. That's Brion's justification anyway: see http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-February/027873.html Of course, some people already *have* used URLs like that as though they were correct, and certainly it's handy to be able to type them, but I think it makes sense that as long as not all URLs of that form can be used that way (and guaranteed to always work that way) it's worth making people aware that they did the "wrong" thing. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP] From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Mar 1 19:43:17 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 11:43:17 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped Message-ID: I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, and one of them's mad at me. I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. Or is it Peyton Place? Ed Poor From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Tue Mar 1 19:56:18 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:56:18 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> To wit, I wish you'd e-mailed me or met me in talk before unilaterally desysopping me. :) But I've removed the RFAr. The matter is resolved to my satisfaction for now. -Snowspinner On Mar 1, 2005, at 1:43 PM, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's > first > Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, > and one of them's mad at me. > > I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in > a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. > > It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two > of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. > > Or is it Peyton Place? > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Mar 1 20:06:24 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:06:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The questions I have. Were any of them violating our blocking policies and why was it such an emergency that immediate action was required? Fred > From: "Poor, Edmund W" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 11:43:17 -0800 > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped > > I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first > Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, > and one of them's mad at me. > > I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in > a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. > > It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two > of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. > > Or is it Peyton Place? > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 1 20:04:59 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 21:04:59 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped References: Message-ID: <4224CAEB.2080208@yahoo.com> I asked Jamesday to remove Ed developer flag. Explanation of the reason why is here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Correct_use_of_admin_powers.3F Sorry Oncle. I love you, but you are not a steward so you should not desysop people. Only for urgent action would be okay for a developer to do so. I do not think Wikipedia was in danger. It seems you should not have developer flag anyway... so this is technical clean-up Sorry Anthere Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: > I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first > Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, > and one of them's mad at me. > > I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in > a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. > > It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two > of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. > > Or is it Peyton Place? > > Ed Poor From geniice at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 20:18:46 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 20:18:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:56:18 -0600, Phil Sandifer wrote: > But I've removed the RFAr. The matter is resolved to my satisfaction > for now. > > -Snowspinner So we don't get to find out what happens when every single member of arbcom has to recuse? From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Tue Mar 1 20:33:06 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi block... -Snowspinner On Mar 1, 2005, at 2:18 PM, geni wrote: > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:56:18 -0600, Phil Sandifer > wrote: > >> But I've removed the RFAr. The matter is resolved to my satisfaction >> for now. >> >> -Snowspinner > > > So we don't get to find out what happens when every single member of > arbcom has to recuse? > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From geniice at gmail.com Tue Mar 1 21:09:51 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 21:09:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer wrote: > Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi > block... > > -Snowspinner Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom members to make a case for questioning thier nutrality. -- geni From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Tue Mar 1 21:17:04 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 15:17:04 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <300036b4207106c361d0f24102f3be89@sbcglobal.net> Ah, OK. Sorry. Life stressful. Humor impaired. :( -Snowspinner On Mar 1, 2005, at 3:09 PM, geni wrote: > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer > wrote: >> Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the >> Ambi >> block... >> >> -Snowspinner > > Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably > racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom > members to make a case for questioning thier nutrality. > > > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Tue Mar 1 21:19:14 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 21:19:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiUser trying to spam me In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4224DC52.7040304@tiscali.co.uk> Violet/Riga wrote: > After the RfAr resulted in a one year block for WikiUser I started > getting numerous password reminders from Wikipedia. The IP address > stated (217.204.65.210) is the same one used by WikiUser and it's > clearly him. > > I wouldn't really mind but it's happened 30+ times now. It's not > causing me any problems other than seeing my inbox fill up with the > mails. Anyone know of any way we can stop him from doing this? > Perhaps a block from him even viewing Wikipedia? > > ~~~~ Violet/Riga I've had a couple myself, as has at least one other person involved. I suspect it's widespread. I think the simplest solution is to block mail from the address involved. The block can quickly be removed if you ever do need to get a new password, so it will cause no harm. For anyone getting these that doesn't know - you old password will still work so you don't need to reset it, just ignore the mail. --sannse -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.4.0 - Release Date: 22/02/05 From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 1 21:47:40 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 13:47:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050301214741.27632.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > The questions I have. Were any of them violating our blocking policies and > why was it such an emergency that immediate action was required? I would like to know this as well. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 1 22:55:51 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 15:55:51 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation In-Reply-To: References: <42238B74.7070905@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4224F2F7.4040005@sprintmail.com> I notice Jamesday proposed "...tagging based on quality metrics with no specific print or CD target. Anyone else could then use those metrics to select articles for any arbitrary target they desire, with only those selecting for non-online targets being liable." His context was legal concerns about an Editorial committee producing a CD or Paper Wikipedia. I think this is exactly the direction we need to go. We need to develop a Mediawiki mechanism for wiki-tagging metrics on all versions of all articles. Not weighted voting; that's anti-wiki. Harness the dilettantism (thanks David Gerard), and do straight Wiki-tagging of all attributes except Trust. Set trust according to known trust of saving editor (anon, newbie, seasoned, admin, etc.). Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." David Gerard wrote: >Email discussion between myself and Tom about the Wikipedia 1.0 idea >and [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]], forwarded with his >permission. I've removed email addresses and some names (not secret, >just that the discussion in question is at the named page, not here). > >Note that I've also created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]], a project >category which is pretty much for use as a working set of 1.0 >documents, rants and so forth. > > >- d. > > > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >From: David Gerard >Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 23:23:37 +0000 >Subject: Re: Wikipedia reputation >To: Tom Haws > > >On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:21:56 -0700, Tom Haws wrote: > > > >>I noted with that same sinking feeling [XXX]'s response to your note >>at [[Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]]. It seems the >>conventional way of talking about 1.0 is to add an impossible burden of >>review work on top of the Wiki miracle. But what you and I are thinking >>of is not much more than a programming effort to harness the miracle of >>the Wikipedia dilettantism mill to automatically tell us which articles >>(or article versions) are suspect/trusted, adult/family fare, >>fledgling/mature, or any of a selected group of qualifiers that could be >>used as selectors for various purposes. As you, I am confident the wiki >>editing process would rate the entire encyclopedia on even multiple >>aspects within days or weeks. This doesn't have to go on for months. >> >> > > >I've answered [XXX] trying to explain why editorial committees are >unlikely to scale. I can't see them working - I know how damned hard >it is to get *one* article past WP:FAC, in areas I'm a subject matter >expert in! > >I think editorial committees are an exercise in futility, but the >people fond of such an approach can't be told otherwise. As such, I'd >probably leave them to it and see if they come up with anything >useful. > > > > >>Of course the first item of business is to discover the relevant forum >>to spread and build consensus on such a manner of thinking. I would >>think Jimbo (having experienced it all) would be thinking in the same >>direction as us, but from all I have seen, he has been pretty >>tight-lipped. I hopefully imagine that his silence (assuming I haven't >>simply missed the "right" places like the mailing list) is indicative of >>dismay with the conventional proposals. I wonder if there perhaps is a >>way to get his honest ideas, which of course we would value highly >>without quoting him as an "authority". >> >> > > >I think Jimbo is waiting for others to get on with it ;-) > >Presumably when it happens, it'll be simple and elegant and obvious in >retrospect. > >Asking him really does work ;-) wikien-l is a good place to sound out ideas. > > > > >>Other than getting into Jimbo's mind, and dedicating my own front page >>to the issue (which I have done some time ago, and am willing to revise >>per your thoughts), I don't know where to go with this. Who and what is >>relevant to this issue? >> >> > > >I've created [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]]. Possibly others will add >stuff to it. e.g. their own userspace thoughts pages. > >One thing: I really don't think our technical tools (MediaWiki >features) are up to the job. > >URGENT: >- rating system. May scale, editorial committees don't. >VERY USEFUL: >- references syntax (many mooted, none implemented). > >I should start a page on meta to this effect ... > > > > >>I see this issue as urgent because of the fund-raising implications it has. >> >> > > >I don't actually see it as urgent in that sense. I see it as something >to get *right*, because if we don't do that it's going to splutter >anyway. > > > > >>I hope we can discuss specifics in a wider forum soon. >> >> > > >I'll be taking it to wikien-l myself. Mind if I send this mail there? >Or you can :-) > > > > >>p.s. Your response will be bounced by my server, but excuse and ignore >>the mistreatment. I will let your mail through. >> >> > > >Ooooh, whitelists. Evil! I use Bayesian, of course, because >Thunderbird and gmail do ;-) > > >- d. >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > From sean at epoptic.org Wed Mar 2 00:28:19 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:28:19 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <4224CAEB.2080208@yahoo.com> (message from Anthere on Tue, 01 Mar 2005 21:04:59 +0100) References: <4224CAEB.2080208@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200503020028.j220SJpo029312@orwen.epoptic.com> > I asked Jamesday to remove Ed developer flag. > > Explanation of the reason why is here : > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Correct_use_of_admin_powers.3F > > Sorry Oncle. I love you, but you are not a steward so you should not > desysop people. Only for urgent action would be okay for a developer to > do so. I do not think Wikipedia was in danger. Speaking as an arbiter (but only for myself -- not the Committee) I agree with Anthere. Ed is a valued contributor, both for his edits and sometimes but not always ;-> for his peace-making activities. However, he does not need the ability to desysop people. -- Sean Barrett | Something broke on Daddy's sean at epoptic.com | spaceship. --Marilyn Lovell From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 1 23:48:51 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:48:51 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: geni wrote: > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer wrote: > >>Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi >>block... >> >>-Snowspinner > > > Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably > racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom > members to make a case for questioning thier nutrality. > > Maybe I'm misunderstanding something you've said, but I'd like to ask: can you tell me a Wikipedian (admin or otherwise) who is 100% impartial and neutral on all matters? Perhaps if you could we wouldn't need a committee and we could just make that person the sole arbitrator on all cases. A user such as this that shows no fear nor favour would be excellent. Incidently, should you find such an editor may I take you to my farm and show you my latest pet? It's a pink unicorn. You might be interested. Cheers, TBSDY From sean at epoptic.org Wed Mar 2 00:50:45 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:50:45 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: (csherlock@ljh.com.au) References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <200503020050.j220ojMR029364@orwen.epoptic.com> > Maybe I'm misunderstanding something you've said, but I'd like to ask: > can you tell me a Wikipedian (admin or otherwise) who is 100% impartial > and neutral on all matters? Me -- and I'll ban anybody who says otherwise! From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 2 00:03:58 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:03:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation In-Reply-To: <4224F2F7.4040005@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <20050302000359.66266.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tom Haws wrote: > I notice Jamesday proposed > "...tagging based on quality metrics with no specific print or CD > target. Anyone else could then use those metrics to select articles for > any arbitrary target they desire, with only those selecting for > non-online targets being liable." His context was legal concerns about > an Editorial committee producing a CD or Paper Wikipedia. Ack! No more blasted meta tages (meaning templates). A smarter system is needed that does not require an editor to edit or in any way change the content of an article by using said system. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 2 00:11:37 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 16:11:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <200503020028.j220SJpo029312@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <20050302001137.82186.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sean Barrett wrote: > Speaking as an arbiter (but only for myself -- not the Committee) I > agree with Anthere. Ed is a valued contributor, both for his edits > and sometimes but not always ;-> for his peace-making activities. > However, he does not need the ability to desysop people. Unless there is an emergency, desysoping needs to be done via community consensus and/or ArbCom ruling. But it is very hard to get mad at Uncle Ed. :) Besides, the issue is moot now that the purely technical mistake of Ed having the developer tag set has been fixed. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 2 00:12:49 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 11:12:49 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Poor, Edmund W wrote: > I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first > Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, > and one of them's mad at me. > > I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in > a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. > > It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two > of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. > > Or is it Peyton Place? > > Ed Poor Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins? TBSDY From anthere9 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 2 04:59:57 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 05:59:57 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped References: Message-ID: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> csherlock at ljh.com.au a ?crit: > Poor, Edmund W wrote: > >> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first >> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, >> and one of them's mad at me. >> >> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in >> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. >> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two >> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. >> >> Or is it Peyton Place? >> >> Ed Poor > > > Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before > this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and > formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins? > > TBSDY There is a clear process to desysop people; It is (ahum) on *technically* possible to developers and stewards. Developers can do it in case of urgency. But normally it is done by stewards. The current stewards are * Andre Engels (en, nl, de, fr, nds, ...) * Angela (en) * Anthere (fr, en) * ArnoLagrange (fr, eo, en, es, it, de, ...) * Daniel Mayer (en, es) * Fantasy (en, de, it, fr, es) * Karl Wick (en, es) * Looxix (fr, en, nl) Stewards can set or remove status from anyone, on any projects. The transparency is ensured through the bureaucrat log on meta. Requests for status are also made on meta, publicly : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions Stewards are not supposed to desysoped anyone just because they feel like it; They do it after community agreement, and there is a sorta rule that a steward avoid doing so in his own language project (for example, Fantazy avoids desysoping people on german, and Mav would avoids on en... when it is a community decision, not a personal request...). We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in need of a break. In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the english wikipedia without first arbcom decision. Ed was able to do it essentially because he still had the developer flag. But he was not really supposed to do so. The flag is now removed - not as a punishment - as it is not me to judge whether there was indeed urgency. But as a technical clean-up, as Ed is now not a developer any more. I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All this is rather a mistake from us. Anthere From redgum46 at lycos.com Wed Mar 2 07:44:49 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:44:49 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A nasty and weird site Message-ID: <20050302074449.DD69DE5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical. http://www.wikipediasucks.com/ Some interesting popups appear when you leave the site which perhaps indicate what its worth. Its claim that "There are now thousands of pages if you search for 'wikipedia sucks' in any search engine." is wrong - the supplied does a google search for pages with the words wikipedia or sucks, which not surprisingly does yield thousands of results. But a search for the phrase brings out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for "religious hate crimes"? Bizarre! However, I do feel compelled to ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo? -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 2 09:39:17 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 09:39:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030220050939.25559.422589C5000C7170000063D722058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> > We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious > lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in > need of a break. > > In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the > english wikipedia without first arbcom decision. This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling. 172 should have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself. It is not a difficult evidentiary matter, and desysopping is not as severe as blocking someone,which any sysop is allowed to do. After sysop powers are just a privlege, an opportunity to serve. It might even be a good idea to sunset sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see if the sysop can get elected again. 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe), but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition to the discipline at that time. It is not like sysop powers are some right. -- Silverback From theresaknott at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 11:40:09 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:40:09 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <030220050939.25559.422589C5000C7170000063D722058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030220050939.25559.422589C5000C7170000063D722058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050302034024a891bb@mail.gmail.com> > > This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling. You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference. >172 should > have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself. But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example) >and desysopping is not as severe as blocking > someone,which any sysop is allowed to do. Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people. > It might even be a good idea to sunset > sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see > if the sysop can get elected again. I'm not sure that's a good idea at all. > > 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even > been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe), > but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition > to the discipline at that time. It is not like sysop powers are some right. I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to make the decision. Theresa From mackensen at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 12:38:44 2005 From: mackensen at gmail.com (Charles Fulton) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 12:38:44 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb050302034024a891bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <030220050939.25559.422589C5000C7170000063D722058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <1bfe3eb050302034024a891bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On the other hand, a fair point is raised. 172 has abused his admin powers as thoroughly as can be - and certainly moreso than anyone I've ever seen in my time here. He UNBLOCKED himself repeatedly, and his unblocking summaries ("no violation of the 3RR") and ("They did not look at the content of the last edit, just the edit summary. Now quit wasting my time. I have one reply to make on talk, then I will go away") suggest to me that he regards himself above the law. It was always my impression that any sysop who had that kind of arbitrary power would be in front of a firing squad in fairly short order. Indeed, an arbitration case has been brought, but it's currently sitting at 1-1, with two recusals. I find Ambi's reasoning for rejection - and I respect Ambi very much - troubling: "There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious, particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles (relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration) Yes, he's had articles featured, but he's clearly revert-warring as well, something arbcom specifically asked him not to do. He's also abusing his powers as an administrator. Is this not worth investigation, just because he's had featured articles? Are Featured Articles now functioning as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards? Charles (Mackensen) On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:40:09 +0000, Theresa Knott wrote: > > > > This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling. > > You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference. > > >172 should > > have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself. > > But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his > privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example) > > >and desysopping is not as severe as blocking > > someone,which any sysop is allowed to do. > > Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people. > > > It might even be a good idea to sunset > > sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see > > if the sysop can get elected again. > > I'm not sure that's a good idea at all. > > > > > 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even > > been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe), > > but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition > > to the discipline at that time. It is not like sysop powers are some right. > > I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do > think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to > make the decision. > > Theresa > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 2 13:34:15 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:34:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030220051334.28458.4225C0D70007F59F00006F2A22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > > > > This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling. > > You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference. > > >172 should > > have been desysopped the first time he unblocked himself. > > But _who_ do you want to decide if an admin should lose his > privileges? The community or one person (Ed Poor for example) This sounds like something that can be automated, turn the unblock command into a desysop command when an admin is blocked, so effectively he would desysop himself. > >and desysopping is not as severe as blocking > > someone,which any sysop is allowed to do. > > Not permanently, sysops are only able to temp block people. He could be reelected, unless the arcom also bans that. > > It might even be a good idea to sunset > > sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see > > if the sysop can get elected again. > > I'm not sure that's a good idea at all. I can agree with this, there is already enough of a burden on the community with all the votes already, so participation is low, and making every sysadmin go through re-election would overburden the system, and the quality of the voting decisions is already questionable. However, desysoping should not have a high threshold, because presumably, just occasionally would there need to be another reelection. Hopefully the admin him/herself would realize they are not admin material and not even run. > > 172 had been engaged in other abuses of his sysop power, and had even > > been disciplined by the arb committee (as a user not a sysop I believe), > > but desysoping him (or her) should be been an easy and trivial addition > > to the discipline at that time. It is not like sysop powers are some right. > > I agree that sysop powers are a privilege and not a right. But I do > think that the AC or the community (via a RFC) should be the ones to > make the decision. Desysoping is too minor an action and abuse of sysop powers is too serious an offense to wait for the arbcom or community all the time. Any serious mistakes can be corrected later. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 2 13:40:07 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:40:07 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030220051340.3040.4225C237000AA15500000BE022007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious, > particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles > (relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which > suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform. Desysopping does not mean he can't continue to edit articles, although it may lessen his powers to enforce his severe authorial territorialism through vendettas. -- Silverback From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 2 14:39:09 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 07:39:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation In-Reply-To: <20050302000359.66266.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050302000359.66266.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4225D00D.7050304@sprintmail.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: >Ack! No more blasted meta tages (meaning templates). A smarter system is needed >that does not require an editor to edit or in any way change the content of an >article by using said system. > > Well, mav, we can flag for Confidence without any editor intervention by simply attaching our confidence in the saving editor to the article version. Anon saves get low confidence, newbies get a little higher, etc. But any other quality or other metric is going to have to be done by humans. I personally would be delighted to see nothing more than a Confidence flag on articles so people could select for distribution or presentation based on Confidence. That solves at least the problem of burning a CD with some percentage of vandalized articles, or articles that do not represent "the best we can do at the moment". We could even show anons high-confidence articles only, and tell them when they click "Edit", "Hey, you weren't really looking at the latest version. Here's the latest and the diff. Edit it. If it's been trashed, go into History to edit and save as the latest the version you were viewing." Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." From wikipedia at decumanus.com Wed Mar 2 15:41:37 2005 From: wikipedia at decumanus.com (Matthew Trump) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 10:41:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] nofollow status In-Reply-To: <20050302045839.74F491AC1833@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050302045839.74F491AC1833@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <51094.168.103.206.47.1109778097.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> Can anyone provide an update about the situation of rel="nofollow" on the English Wikipedia following the community vote? From viajero at quilombo.nl Wed Mar 2 16:18:08 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 17:18:08 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 Message-ID: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> 172 has announced on his user page he has left. I know that this is not the first time and I also know that not everyone on this list will necessarily find this unfortunate, but I think it is a pity as his contributions have been enormous. The issue appears to be, not so much the brief de-sysoping yesterday, but rather the editorial process. Here is the text on his user page: [quote] I am an historian specializing in international political economy, which allowed me to work on a diverse range of time and place on this site. I was a Wikipedia contributor from late 2002 to February 2005, and an administrator from May 2003 to February 2005. Over the past couple of years, I was using a pseudonymous account, and the name I was using in my Wikipedia email account was not my own. Given Wikipedia's sketchy reputation in some circles, I wanted to avoid any possible negative consequences in the "real world"; and I did not want the less-than-friendly environment on Wikipedia to come back to haunt me off-line. Unfortunately, when the community knows you as 'just a number,' you don't tend to be treated so well. I will no longer contribute to Wikipedia. The project is no longer workable. There are no signs of Wikipedia developing an authoritative public review process. The absence of one fosters a total disregard for expertise in this community; whether nor not you are taken seriously depends not on the merit of your work but rather how many friends you have made with the users who dominate the mailing list, IRC, and the administrative pages. Instead, we have a dispute resolution process fetishizing increasingly rigid (and idiosyncratic) community norms and customs without reference to who's writing encyclopedic material and who's not. As a result, far too much power and status is given to people who are frankly nothing more than trolls, as long as they're good at gaming the system. The admins are increasingly obsessive of process, disregarding the public credibility of the project. Far too many seem to get off on "patrolling" conflicts between other users that they do not understand, an aspect of Wikipedia that is poisoning the atmosphere. Thus, in recent months I was spending more time dealing with users with no intention of writing encyclopedia content, who were spending many hours a day feeding off conflict between other users or were dumping sheer nonsense in as many articles as possible. I no longer have the patience to deal with this. I will return, however, if there are any changes allowing me to become a more efficacious user in the future. 172 14:44, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) [/quote] From: [[User:172]] From magnus.manske at web.de Wed Mar 2 16:15:31 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 17:15:31 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A nasty and weird site In-Reply-To: <20050302074449.DD69DE5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050302074449.DD69DE5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4225E6A3.7060809@web.de> Arno M schrieb: > However, I do feel compelled to ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo? They're the price you get for your ten-millionth edit! :-) From dpbsmith at verizon.net Wed Mar 2 16:22:25 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:22:25 -0600 (CST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sollog's Wikipediasucks site Message-ID: <27343887.1109780545256.JavaMail.root@vms070.mailsrvcs.net> Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:44:49 +0600 >From: "Arno M" >Subject: [WikiEN-l] A nasty and weird site >Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical. > > http://www.wikipediasucks.com/ >out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for >"religious hate crimes"? Bizarre! Take a look at the article on Sollog and all will become clear. He's widely regarded as... well, read the article and all will become clear. He tried to plant a self-promoting article, tried and failed to stop it from being NPOV-ed, boasted about how he was going to bring down Wikipedia, and created the wikipediasucks site in spite. I don't think it's getting much traction. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 16:44:00 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:44:00 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: <826914b20456ea02cc68a297474d06e5@sbcglobal.net> <3e2b84af28da5a1b522a08cd3e1483da@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4225ED50.6000600@thingy.apana.org.au> geni wrote: > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 14:33:06 -0600, Phil Sandifer wrote: >>Why would they all have to recuse? This had nothing to do with the Ambi >>block... > Never said it was. It was a joke It's just between us we have probably > racked up enough incerdents (both good and bad) with the arbcom > members to make a case for questioning thier nutrality. There's *supposed* to be a rule that if half the arbcom recuses, then all are unrecused and back on the case. It doesn't appear to have made it into the rules. It or something like it really really needs to be in there. Came close in the new Anthony case ... - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 16:46:22 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:46:22 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: Wikipedia reputation In-Reply-To: <20050302000359.66266.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050302000359.66266.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4225EDDE.7060901@thingy.apana.org.au> Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Tom Haws wrote: >>I notice Jamesday proposed >>"...tagging based on quality metrics with no specific print or CD >>target. Anyone else could then use those metrics to select articles for >>any arbitrary target they desire, with only those selecting for >>non-online targets being liable." His context was legal concerns about >>an Editorial committee producing a CD or Paper Wikipedia. > Ack! No more blasted meta tages (meaning templates). A smarter system is needed > that does not require an editor to edit or in any way change the content of an > article by using said system. Magnus Manske's rating system appears to be along those lines, i.e. it's a separate thing entirely to the article space. We should assume we're talking about something like that ;-) - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 2 17:02:22 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 09:02:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <20050302170222.79400.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> It's a shame that 172 has felt the need to leave, but if he is unwilling to accept consensus norms, then it's probably for the best. He has repeatedly shown a lack of interest in dealing civilly with those who had different views from his, and now he has felt that he is above the rest of us when it comes to accepting the norms of the community (3RR). RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 2 17:09:54 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:09:54 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped References: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00a801c51f4a$a89a1b80$9e7c0450@Galasien> Anthere wrote > So, I really do not hold grunge against him. Indeed, it is hard to see how Ed Poor can be held responsible for Nirvana. He does, though, seem to think he is in some kind of old-timer WP heaven, where procedures are at best tenuous. Accountability rocks. Charles From delirium at hackish.org Wed Mar 2 17:09:50 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:09:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you wish". (And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) -Mark From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 2 17:22:10 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:22:10 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? In-Reply-To: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: Recently a Wikipedia editor e-mailed me regarding concerns she had about the ArbCom process. In particular, she was looking at an ArbCom case brought up against an editor who (aside from a couple of articles) has added little in the way of actual content, copyedits, or housekeeping to the project, but who has long been noted for personal attacks, trolling, edit-warring, and who has been temp-banned more than once. As seems to be typical in these cases, the person being brought before ArbCom created a "counter arbitration" defense against one complainant in particular (a long time contributer of much valued content, though perhaps given to getting a little personal in disputes). As a matter of policy, the behaviour of those who were bringing the complaint was examined with equal intensity. As the person e-mailing me put it "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, which is silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like if I report someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all have to investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they charge one, they have to charge both." Is this a valid concern? Jay. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 2 17:40:55 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:40:55 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: > As the person e-mailing me put it > > "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, > which is silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like > if I report someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all > have to investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they > charge one, they have to charge both." > > Is this a valid concern? > I don't think so. Arbitration is part of dispute resolution. The arbitrators must examine the behavior of all parties to the dispute in order to arrive at factual findings and remedies that will stick. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 2 17:56:23 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:56:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble, especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you thought the other user "really was a moron". The two users were not treated the same. There was no question that Xed had a problem. But carefully reading the edits revealed the problems that Slrubenstein was having also. It is just a case of going through the edits one by one and watching what happened step by step. Fred > From: "JAY JG" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:22:10 -0500 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? > > Recently a Wikipedia editor e-mailed me regarding concerns she had about the > ArbCom process. In particular, she was looking at an ArbCom case brought up > against an editor who (aside from a couple of articles) has added little in > the way of actual content, copyedits, or housekeeping to the project, but > who has long been noted for personal attacks, trolling, edit-warring, and > who has been temp-banned more than once. As seems to be typical in these > cases, the person being brought before ArbCom created a "counter > arbitration" defense against one complainant in particular (a long time > contributer of much valued content, though perhaps given to getting a little > personal in disputes). As a matter of policy, the behaviour of those who > were bringing the complaint was examined with equal intensity. As the > person e-mailing me put it > > "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, which is > silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like if I report > someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all have to > investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they charge one, > they have to charge both." > > Is this a valid concern? > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 2 18:29:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:29:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble, >especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you >thought the other user "really was a moron". The two users were not treated >the same. There was no question that Xed had a problem. But carefully >reading the edits revealed the problems that Slrubenstein was having also. >It is just a case of going through the edits one by one and watching what >happened step by step. Fred, while the catalyst for the e-mail might have been a specific case, I carefully did not state which one, as I was asking whether the policy in general was a good thing, rather than looking for a defence for any specific decisions. I think this may be the symptom of a larger problem; there is a concern among some editors about bringing obvious ArbCom candidates to ArbCom, for fear that their own edit history will be put under the microscope, meticulously examined for any whiff of policy violation. If one has been making thousands of Wikipedia edits over months or years, it is almost inevitable that some edits or statements will seem questionable, and there is a belief that ArbCom will feel the need to sanction both sides to give the appearance of even-handedness. I'm not saying this is actually the case, but the belief is certainly out there, and the idea that "it's just not worth getting rid of troublemakers" has been expressed more than once. Jay. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 2 18:29:30 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:29:30 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: References: <030220050939.25559.422589C5000C7170000063D722058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <1bfe3eb050302034024a891bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4226060A.8060205@telus.net> Charles Fulton wrote: >On the other hand, a fair point is raised. 172 has abused his admin >powers as thoroughly as can be - and certainly moreso than anyone I've >ever seen in my time here. He UNBLOCKED himself repeatedly, and his >unblocking summaries ("no violation of the 3RR") and ("They did not >look at the content of the last edit, just the edit summary. Now quit >wasting my time. I have one reply to make on talk, then I will go >away") suggest to me that he regards himself above the law. > Nothing wrong with setting the facts straight in the face of 3RR zealots. >Are Featured Articles now functioning as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Cards? > There is some merit in that idea. >Theresa Knott wrote: > > >>>This deference of the privileged to the privleged is apalling. >>> >>> >>You are missing the point. It's not a question of deference. >> True that would be an advocacy for elitism. On the other hand there are others who would be happier if ignorance deferred to ignorance. >>>It might even be a good idea to sunset >>>sysop powers, say every three months (although not all sysops at once) to see >>>if the sysop can get elected again. >>> >>> >>I'm not sure that's a good idea at all. >> It's a horrible idea that would give the lunatics control of the asylum.. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 2 18:34:20 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:34:20 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <030220051334.28458.4225C0D70007F59F00006F2A22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030220051334.28458.4225C0D70007F59F00006F2A22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4226072C.6040507@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >Desysoping is too minor an action and abuse of sysop powers is too serious an offense to wait for the arbcom or community all the time. Any serious mistakes can be corrected later. > If the police had their way the kangaroos would be running the judicial system. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 2 18:40:16 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:40:16 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <030220051340.3040.4225C237000AA15500000BE022007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030220051340.3040.4225C237000AA15500000BE022007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <42260890.6050504@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >-------------- Original message -------------- > > >>There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious, >>particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles >>(relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which >>suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform. >> >> >Desysopping does not mean he can't continue to edit articles, although it may lessen his powers to enforce his severe authorial territorialism through vendettas. > What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he sought to have applied on the accused. Thus if he seeks to have someone de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc. It might put an end to all the whining. ;-) Ec From shebs at apple.com Wed Mar 2 18:52:31 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 10:52:31 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <42260B6F.2090308@apple.com> Viajero wrote: > 172 has announced on his user page he has left. I know that this is > not the first time and I also know that not everyone on this list will > necessarily find this unfortunate, but I think it is a pity as his > contributions have been enormous. Hmm, one of the farthest-gone of Wikipediholics quitting? I give it a week, maybe two. :-) > > Over the past couple of years, I was using a pseudonymous account, and > the name I was using in my Wikipedia email account was not my own. > Given Wikipedia's sketchy reputation in some circles, I wanted to > avoid any possible negative consequences in the "real world"; and I > did not want the less-than-friendly environment on Wikipedia to come > back to haunt me off-line. Unfortunately, when the community knows you > as 'just a number,' you don't tend to be treated so well. The irony is that he's left so many clues to his identity that it would probably take a PI two hours to get him on the phone; people on the net are just not as anonymous as they think. The other irony is that he would probably experience less conflict editing under his real name; on the average, WP editors are more deferential to a known professional than to a bare pseudonym. Stan From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 2 18:57:54 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 10:57:54 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped Message-ID: > Anthere wrote > > > So, I really do not hold grunge against him. > > Indeed, it is hard to see how Ed Poor can be held responsible > for Nirvana. > > He does, though, seem to think he is in some kind of > old-timer WP heaven, where procedures are at best tenuous. > Accountability rocks. > > Charles Darn it, you beat me to the punch with your "grunge" pun! :-) But don't get me wrong: I really LIKE accountability. I didn't just shoot from the hip, blow the smoke off mah trusty six-shooter and ride off into the sunset. I brought attention to the issue of Blocking Wars, and I wish that would get as much attention as the WAY the issue came up. Our goal is not to create an increasingly rigid and powerful bureaucracy, but to create a free and open encyclopedia. Everything that contributes to Wikipedia's goals should be classed as "good" and encouraged (within obvious reasonable limits). Stealing copyrighted text isn't good, because its unethical (oh, and against the law, too, I guess). Having a GodKing like Larry Sanger (or a board of GodPrinces) endorsing particular article versions isn't good. But everything that detracts from Wikipedia's goals should be classed as "bad" and discouraged. And we need something quicker than the cumbersome "dispute resolution" process. Trying to cast rules violations as a "you vs. him" dispute is a problem. Having 415 deputy sheriffs and no marshalls is a problem. I am not a loose cannon (although I admit to going off half-cocked occasionally). I have always been accountable to the community. Jeez, you guys would never have trusted me with root access to the server, or allowed me to run SQL UPDATE queries directly on the database, if I hadn't earned your trust. And don't forget, I'm the one who started the tradition of Bureaucrats and above running for office. (Another developer simply appointed himself and a few other "Bureaucrat"; I ran for election and when I won it I refused to promote myself BECAUSE WE NEED TO PROVE TO THE COMMUNITY THAT WE ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND ACCOUNTABLE TO THEM. Sorry for shouting and rambling, but it's been a rough 24 hours. Uncle Ed From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 2 19:01:01 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:01:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050302135530.031931e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Fred Bauder wrote: >No, calling other Wikipedia users "morons" will get you in trouble, >especially if you try to excuse yourself with the explanation that you >thought the other user "really was a moron". To be clear, I never claimed that my belief that the other user "really was a moron" is a defense. I stated that I knew that the fact that I believed this is not going to help me (in other words, it is not a valid defense). I stated that although I did believe this at the time, I no longer do and regret that I used this word (which some members of the ArbCom seem to think constitutes another personal attack). I have not tried to offer any defense. I have, however, offered mitigating factors -- first, that I felt provoked by a nasty attack on Wikipedia, and second, that the words I used are more mild than the words used against others and against me. Having made these two points, I then wrote that I nevertheless admit that what I said was a personal attack and that I regret this. I have also posted more explicit apologies for these and other remarks. Perhaps I was mistaken to believe that others would interpret my apology as an admission of wrongdoing, rather than a defense. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 2 19:11:27 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:11:27 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule Message-ID: Ray wrote: > What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be > to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he > sought to have applied on the accused. Thus if he seeks to have someone > de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the > person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc. > > It might put an end to all the whining. ;-) Now I don't know if Eclecticology was kind of joking around here, but if so it sounds like what we hackers call "ha, ha, only serious". I would be happy to adopt such a system and I volunteer myself as a test case. I thought a Blocking War should be stopped with temp desysopping, but the community said, "No." All right, de-sysop me for the same period of time (1.5 hours). Shucks, go whole hog and de-sysop 1.5 hours for EACH of the 4 users I de-opped. Let's see how the math works out for that: 4 x 1.5 = 6 Okay, de-sysop me for 6 hours. I can handle that. Now for a more serious example. I'm on the verge of giving William Connolley or X a one-hour time-out for violating the "No personal remarks" rule. If the arbcom reviews my block and decides I was wrong, I got blocked and/or de-sysopeed for the same period of time. Fine with me!! I'll take the chance. I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money where his mouth is". Uncle Ed <=== Just rented "Hang 'Em High" last week From kkrueger at whoi.edu Wed Mar 2 19:13:37 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:13:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 05:40:55PM -0000, Tony Sidaway wrote: > JAY JG said: > > "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, > > which is silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like > > if I report someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all > > have to investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they > > charge one, they have to charge both." > > > > Is this a valid concern? > > > I don't think so. Arbitration is part of dispute resolution. The > arbitrators must examine the behavior of all parties to the dispute in > order to arrive at factual findings and remedies that will stick. It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair or untrue accusations by the abuser. If we're concerned about abusive users "gaming the system" with regards to 3RR and other rules, it seems we should also be concerned about abusive users perverting arbitration into a way of attacking those who are trying to stop a problem. Fairness doesn't mean that everyone gets treated the same. It means that everyone has to follow the same rules -- and that people who choose to break the rules *don't* get treated the same as people who don't. -- Karl A. Krueger From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 2 19:28:43 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:28:43 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <2558.192.168.0.9.1109791723.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Karl A. Krueger said: > > It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses > because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair > or untrue accusations by the abuser. I don't buy that for one second. The whole point about an arbitration case is that the thing has reached a point where some kind of executive action is required. Unfair and untrue accusations are, by their very nature, not going to get anywhere with an evidence-based, proactive arbcom, and there are advocates and a right of appeal. From rhobite at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 19:30:36 2005 From: rhobite at gmail.com (Rhobite) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 14:30:36 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] nofollow status In-Reply-To: <51094.168.103.206.47.1109778097.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> References: <20050302045839.74F491AC1833@mail.wikimedia.org> <51094.168.103.206.47.1109778097.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 10:41:37 -0500 (EST), Matthew Trump wrote: > Can anyone provide an update about the situation of rel="nofollow" on > the English Wikipedia following the community vote? I'm wondering this too. According to the vote, the community believes that we should not add rel="nofollow" to external links. As of now, the links still include rel="nofollow". Rhobite From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 2 19:34:16 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 19:34:16 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? References: Message-ID: <00d801c51f5e$d399dc30$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jay JG wrote > If one > has been making thousands of Wikipedia edits over months or years, it is > almost inevitable that some edits or statements will seem questionable, and > there is a belief that ArbCom will feel the need to sanction both sides to > give the appearance of even-handedness. I'm not saying this is actually the > case, but the belief is certainly out there, and the idea that "it's just > not worth getting rid of troublemakers" has been expressed more than once. After an extended period where the major criticism of the ArbCom was that it was slow to rule - now not the perceived difficulty - it is naturally the case that some other major points will be brought up. Looking at this one, my reactions are: - WP has lived with some proportion of difficult users, since its inception; - 'getting rid' of troublemakers is not the only approach; - if it is really being said that honest hard-working editors are being held to high standards of behaviour, then I think that is as it should be. Perhaps there is a click of the ratchet, here. I hope it is towards a more civil place, for everyone. Charles From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 2 19:55:17 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:55:17 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <2558.192.168.0.9.1109791723.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >Karl A. Krueger said: > > > > It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses > > because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair > > or untrue accusations by the abuser. > >I don't buy that for one second. The whole point about an arbitration >case is that the thing has reached a point where some kind of executive >action is required. Unfair and untrue accusations are, by their very >nature, not going to get anywhere with an evidence-based, proactive >arbcom, and there are advocates and a right of appeal. Well, I wasn't actually discussing the issue of untrue accusations, but rather the concern about bringing an obvious policy violator before ArbCom for fear of being put under investigative microscope yourself. The difference between the system here and that in the real world is that here the person making the accusation is also automatically both the prosecuting attorney and the defendant in an inevitable counter-suit; this is a heavy burden, and a serious disincentive to "get involved". Jay. From delirium at hackish.org Wed Mar 2 20:19:41 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:19:41 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <42261FDD.6010704@hackish.org> Karl A. Krueger wrote: >It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses >because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair >or untrue accusations by the abuser. > > I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a dispute between two users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you have to examine all sides in the dispute. There's no need to look through the accusing editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense to look through both sides' posts and edits in the relevant discussions and articles. There have been a few cases where the complaintant has really turned out to be the one mostly at fault, trying to goad his/her opponent into doing one thing technically against the rules and then filing a complaint based on it (one user in particular was notorious for filing dozens of complaints within a few weeks). That said, I personally have voted against a few of the "equal treatment" measures. I tend to vote "yes" on the findings of fact that say "this user also did the following, which is bad", but then vote "no" on the "therefore this user is also banned for [x] weeks". Of course, it does vary a lot from case to case. -Mark From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 2 20:18:23 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 20:18:23 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <2558.192.168.0.9.1109791723.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <2692.192.168.0.9.1109794703.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: > The difference between the system here and that in the real world is > that here the person making the accusation is also automatically both > the prosecuting attorney and the defendant in an inevitable > counter-suit; this is a heavy burden, and a serious disincentive to > "get involved". AMA. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 2 20:20:51 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:20:51 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to "equal treatment"? In-Reply-To: <00d801c51f5e$d399dc30$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >Charles wrote: > >Looking at this one, my reactions are: > >- WP has lived with some proportion of difficult users, since its >inception; >- 'getting rid' of troublemakers is not the only approach; >- if it is really being said that honest hard-working editors are being >held >to high standards of behaviour, then I think that is as it should be. > >Perhaps there is a click of the ratchet, here. I hope it is towards a more >civil place, for everyone. Your points are well taken, but I wonder what is the best way to achieve that civility. True, some problem editors can be reformed into good editors; but the number of those kinds of successes are small. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the new editor who storms in here, and stirs up trouble for a few days. Rather, I'm talking about the kind of editor who causes persistent difficulties for months and months on end, while contributing little of value to the project. For example, I'm aware of two different editors here who currently do little but try to stir up dissension on article deletion/undeletion votes; one has been around for several months, the other, apparently for several years. These persistent behaviour patterns cause no end of wasted time for other editors, and end up spoiling the Wikipedia experience for many. There are similarly a number of other editors around who have their own special areas of "trolling" expertise, making Wikipedia an entirely unpleasant place fo the large majority of good faith editors, who generally try to avoid conflict. Eventually some of them are so goaded by the persistent troublemakers that they respond angrily or in kind; then if they ever take them to ArbCom, they end up getting spanked as well. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 2 20:45:29 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:45:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <2692.192.168.0.9.1109794703.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >JAY JG said: > > The difference between the system here and that in the real world is > > that here the person making the accusation is also automatically both > > the prosecuting attorney and the defendant in an inevitable > > counter-suit; this is a heavy burden, and a serious disincentive to > > "get involved". > >AMA. Hmm, yes. Anyway, as a different editor put it in an e-mail to me "What is needed is some instrument that treats violations of behavioral guidelines as infractions against the whole community and not as part of some dispute with another user." Jay. From slimvirgin at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 20:46:23 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 13:46:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <2692.192.168.0.9.1109794703.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <2558.192.168.0.9.1109791723.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <2692.192.168.0.9.1109794703.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4cc603b050302124643974486@mail.gmail.com> A member of the arbitration committee told an editor a few weeks ago that the equal-treatment policy of the arbitration committee had been adopted deliberately in order to discourage editors from bringing cases. Wikipedia is so slow today that I haven't yet been able to find the posts where this was said, but it was fairly unambiguous, and I'm pretty sure I'm remembering it correctly. Perhaps members of the arbitration committee could say here whether the policy of symmetrical treatment has been adopted, officially or otherwise, in order to cut down on the number of cases coming to arbitration. Sarah > JAY JG said: > > The difference between the system here and that in the real world is > > that here the person making the accusation is also automatically both > > the prosecuting attorney and the defendant in an inevitable > > counter-suit; this is a heavy burden, and a serious disincentive to > > "get involved". From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 21:03:44 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 21:03:44 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <20050302191336.GH9964@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <42262A30.9000609@thingy.apana.org.au> Karl A. Krueger wrote: > It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to report real abuses > because they did not want to be forced to defend themselves from unfair > or untrue accusations by the abuser. We try not to be stupid :-) > Fairness doesn't mean that everyone gets treated the same. It means > that everyone has to follow the same rules -- and that people who choose > to break the rules *don't* get treated the same as people who don't. You mean where the person complained of gets a substantial block for personal attacks, and the complainant is cautioned not to let themselves be provoked into responding in kind, with no actual penalty? - d. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 2 20:55:20 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:55:20 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42262838.1010600@telus.net> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >Ray wrote: > > > >>What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be >> >> >>to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he >> >> >>sought to have applied on the accused. Thus if he seeks to have someone >> >> >>de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the >>person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc. >> >> >>It might put an end to all the whining. ;-) >> >> > >Now I don't know if Eclecticology was kind of joking around here, but if >so it sounds like what we hackers call "ha, ha, only serious". > Perhaps there was only limited seriousness on that point. The urge to whine is bound to come out in other ways. >I would be happy to adopt such a system and I volunteer myself as a test >case. I thought a Blocking War should be stopped with temp desysopping, >but the community said, "No." All right, de-sysop me for the same period >of time (1.5 hours). Shucks, go whole hog and de-sysop 1.5 hours for >EACH of the 4 users I de-opped. Let's see how the math works out for >that: > > 4 x 1.5 = 6 > >Okay, de-sysop me for 6 hours. I can handle that. > For you we could even make that effective at midnight in your local time zone. >Now for a more serious example. I'm on the verge of giving William >Connolley or X a one-hour time-out for violating the "No personal >remarks" rule. If the arbcom reviews my block and decides I was wrong, I >got blocked and/or de-sysopeed for the same period of time. Fine with >me!! I'll take the chance. > The real problem is not with those seeking momentary 1-hour timeouts, but with those that are seeking punishments that are out of proportion to the situation. A remedial philosophy of criminal law would seek to achieve a balance of rights. Punishment that is rooted in revenge, or that is used to impose a POV does not accomplish this. >I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money >where his mouth is". > > Yep, but when dealing with a two-bit whore who is only putting her money where her month is, you would probably agree that she should have the same treatment as the owner of the McMadam chain. Ec From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 21:30:58 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 21:30:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b050302124643974486@mail.gmail.com> References: <2558.192.168.0.9.1109791723.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <2692.192.168.0.9.1109794703.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4cc603b050302124643974486@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42263092.4010705@thingy.apana.org.au> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > A member of the arbitration committee told an editor a few weeks ago > that the equal-treatment policy of the arbitration committee had been > adopted deliberately in order to discourage editors from bringing > cases. Wikipedia is so slow today that I haven't yet been able to find > the posts where this was said, but it was fairly unambiguous, and I'm > pretty sure I'm remembering it correctly. > Perhaps members of the arbitration committee could say here whether > the policy of symmetrical treatment has been adopted, officially or > otherwise, in order to cut down on the number of cases coming to > arbitration. There isn't such a policy, by name or effect, as far as I know. We do however try very hard to look at the entire situation and understand what on earth is actually going on. And we often disagree amongst ourselves as to what's actually going on. That's why it's a committee, not a single impeccably fairminded individual such as myself for example. It's not a seamless borg working in lockstep. - d. From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 21:35:50 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 08:35:50 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <2257.192.168.0.9.1109785255.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <550ccb820503021335447dec90@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:40:55 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > JAY JG said: > > > As the person e-mailing me put it > > > > "It looks like the arbcom is going to put them both on POV parole, > > which is silly; they have this thing about equal treatment. It's like > > if I report someone to the police for a theft, the police first of all > > have to investigate whether I've committed theft too, because if they > > charge one, they have to charge both." > > > > Is this a valid concern? > > > I don't think so. Arbitration is part of dispute resolution. The > arbitrators must examine the behavior of all parties to the dispute in > order to arrive at factual findings and remedies that will stick. Theft is an inappropriate metaphor in this case. If you were reporting copyvio, it'd be OK, but in this instance, assault is closer to the mark, where of course the cops investigate the behaviour of both. Theft has a clear seperation between wronged and wrongdoer, but in a brawl, it's sometimes hard to tell who is in the right, as any parent will tell you. -- Peter in Canberra From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 2 22:04:14 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:04:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs Message-ID: Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you. There's no "lead mechanics", no "shop floor managers", no anything. In fact, the people who are allowed to work on your car can completely disregard what you were doing with it. They could have flown in from Boola-Boola Island 2 hours ago, not know the language, can't read the manuals, and just go in and paint your car pink. And drive it. And leave it somewhere. Now, since tools are free and paint is free and you can easily go and retrieve your nice car and get it back to something resembling sanity, a lot of the people in the garage see there's no problems. But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. This is what the inherent failure of wikipedia is. It's that there's a small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the mass of triddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be that your take on things is off from the majority. Even if you can prove something, you're now in the situation that anybody can change it. And while that's all great in a happy-go-lucky flower shower sort of way, it's when you realize that the people who are going to change it could have absolutely no experience with the subject whatsoever, then you see where we are. (I plagiarized the above from Jason Scott, but I agree with every word.) Uncle Ed From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 2 22:21:53 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:21:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030220052221.8163.42263C810003841700001FE322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > >Desysoping is too minor an action and abuse of sysop powers is too serious an > offense to wait for the arbcom or community all the time. Any serious mistakes > can be corrected later. > > > If the police had their way the kangaroos would be running the judicial > system. I'm not sure what your point is, if you mean admins=police, apparently, they are running the judicial system too, and they are loath to cost anyone their "jobs", read sysop privilege. Do the admins here unite behind their own version of "The thin blue line"? -- Silverback From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 2 22:28:26 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:28:26 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Boomerang Rule In-Reply-To: <42262838.1010600@telus.net> References: <42262838.1010600@telus.net> Message-ID: <42263E0A.2070707@telus.net> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Poor, Edmund W wrote: > >> I think a lot of people would applaud a Sheriff who "puts his money >> where his mouth is". > > Yep, but when dealing with a two-bit whore who is only putting her > money where her month is, you would probably agree that she should > *not* have the same treatment as the owner of the McMadam chain. > > Ec little correction - Ec From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 22:52:24 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:52:24 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <030220052221.8163.42263C810003841700001FE322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030220052221.8163.42263C810003841700001FE322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422643A8.7020708@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > I'm not sure what your point is, if you mean admins=police, > apparently, they are running the judicial system too, and > they are loath to cost anyone their "jobs", read sysop privilege. > Do the admins here unite behind their own version of "The thin blue line"? [[WP:AN/I]] and [[WP:AN/3RR]] give me a different picture. I see quite a bit of disagreement between admins (and of course anyone can write there). - d. From richholton at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 23:32:38 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:32:38 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:04:14 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you > want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and > you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, > and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you. > There's no "lead mechanics", no "shop floor managers", no anything. In > fact, the people who are allowed to work on your car can completely > disregard what you were doing with it. They could have flown in from > Boola-Boola Island 2 hours ago, not know the language, can't read the > manuals, and just go in and paint your car pink. And drive it. And leave > it somewhere. Now, since tools are free and paint is free and you can > easily go and retrieve your nice car and get it back to something > resembling sanity, a lot of the people in the garage see there's no > problems. But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing > down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, > covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it > into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. > Except...it's not your car! -- en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From christiaan at last-straw.net Wed Mar 2 23:34:22 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 23:34:22 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9d332c3351171ca21b8b84addec669a0@last-straw.net> And at the same time this is the overwhelming beauty of the whole system. Not only do we set knowledge free so as to stop others from owning it but we also set it free so that you can pick up a set of all the tools and drive your car down to where you've bought your own garage and proceed to set up a shop with managers, and lead mechanics. Christiaan On 2 Mar 2005, at 10:04 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you > want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and > you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, > and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you. > There's no "lead mechanics", no "shop floor managers", no anything. In > fact, the people who are allowed to work on your car can completely > disregard what you were doing with it. They could have flown in from > Boola-Boola Island 2 hours ago, not know the language, can't read the > manuals, and just go in and paint your car pink. And drive it. And > leave > it somewhere. Now, since tools are free and paint is free and you can > easily go and retrieve your nice car and get it back to something > resembling sanity, a lot of the people in the garage see there's no > problems. But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're > traipsing > down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, > covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it > into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. > > This is what the inherent failure of wikipedia is. It's that there's a > small set of content generators, a massive amount of wonks and > twiddlers, and then a heaping amount of procedural whackjobs. And the > mass of triddlers and procedural whackjobs means that the content > generators stop being so and have to become content defenders. Woe be > that your take on things is off from the majority. Even if you can > prove > something, you're now in the situation that anybody can change it. And > while that's all great in a happy-go-lucky flower shower sort of way, > it's when you realize that the people who are going to change it could > have absolutely no experience with the subject whatsoever, then you see > where we are. > > (I plagiarized the above from Jason Scott, but I agree with every > word.) > > Uncle Ed From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Wed Mar 2 23:48:48 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 18:48:48 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030215483ba99fa9@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:32:38 -0600, Richard Holton wrote: > Except...it's not your car! Well, not quite. It's *was* his car, but it stopped being so the moment he brought it into the shop. >From that point on it became either the property of the shop, or the collective property of all the people in the shop (depending on how you see things). Steve From christiaan at last-straw.net Thu Mar 3 00:03:44 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 00:03:44 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace505030215483ba99fa9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> <2ea1ace505030215483ba99fa9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1771a29ddd2425cf5845556f59365a84@last-straw.net> Stephen Forrest wrote: > Richard Holton wrote: > >> Except...it's not your car! > > Well, not quite. It's *was* his car, but it stopped being so the > moment he brought it into the shop. > > From that point on it became either the property of the shop, or the > collective property of all the people in the shop (depending on how > you see things). Being a commie punk calling myself an anarchist, I prefer the idea that it becomes no one's property (GFDL licence aside), as I once argued for here: http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?board=6;action=display; threadid=5852 That's partly what setting free means right... effectively not being owned by anybody. Christiaan From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 3 00:30:57 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:30:57 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <9d332c3351171ca21b8b84addec669a0@last-straw.net> References: <9d332c3351171ca21b8b84addec669a0@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <42265AC1.6050406@telus.net> Christiaan Briggs wrote: > And at the same time this is the overwhelming beauty of the whole > system. Not only do we set knowledge free so as to stop others from > owning it but we also set it free so that you can pick up a set of all > the tools and drive your car down to where you've bought your own > garage and proceed to set up a shop with managers, and lead mechanics. Unfortunately too many people who try to apply this system mispronounce the word "lead". Ec From nought_0000 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 00:42:07 2005 From: nought_0000 at yahoo.com (zero 0000) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 16:42:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> I think the issue that Jay raised is a serious one. The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case against B, the committee looks at both sides of the dispute, then both A and B get penalties. This is a clear violation of A's right to due process. Nobody should be penalised unless a case is brought against them (by the committee if they wish), it passes the initial voting as to whether the case should be heard, then there is a period of argumentation and collection of evidence specifically in relation to that person. This is not true in the case of A, since the voting and Evidence page argumentation is primarily in relation to B. If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled for their own trials. They are not given sentences by the original court. The same principle should hold here. It is not enough to lump A and B together as defendants at the beginning, as that can still mean that A is put on trial due to the strength of the case against B. Zero. __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 00:48:33 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 01:48:33 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> Message-ID: <740c3aec0503021648423fac8a@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:09:50 -0500, Delirium wrote: > Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone > doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you > wish". > > (And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the > fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into > outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) No they can't Delirium. I have read some of them ([[Josef Stalin]], [[History of Russia]]) and I cannot attest to that "fact". Put your money were your mouth is and show us these highly propagandistic, apologetic, screeds or please STFU. I believe this is not the first time you have slandered 172 on this mailing list and I don't approve of it, especially not the part in which you pretend that your opinion is the commonly accepted one. -- mvh Bj?rn From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 00:59:27 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 00:59:27 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> References: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4226616F.30908@thingy.apana.org.au> Richard Holton wrote: > On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:04:14 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: >>Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you >>want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and >>you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, >>and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you. >>There's no "lead mechanics", no "shop floor managers", no anything. In >>fact, the people who are allowed to work on your car can completely >>disregard what you were doing with it. They could have flown in from >>Boola-Boola Island 2 hours ago, not know the language, can't read the >>manuals, and just go in and paint your car pink. And drive it. And leave >>it somewhere. Now, since tools are free and paint is free and you can >>easily go and retrieve your nice car and get it back to something >>resembling sanity, a lot of the people in the garage see there's no >>problems. But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing >>down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, >>covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it >>into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. > Except...it's not your car! That would be the key point, yes. That's what "no article ownership" means. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 01:03:55 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 01:03:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4226627B.6050907@thingy.apana.org.au> zero 0000 wrote: > If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have > committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled > for their own trials. They are not given sentences > by the original court. The same principle should > hold here. The analogy fails because this is not an Internet Democracy but an encyclopedia-writing project. Even if that is not the case, it fails because ArbCom cases are more analogous to civil trials, not criminal ones. We have a pile of janitors with mops, buckets and M-16s for the equivalent of criminal ones. - d. From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 01:10:59 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 20:10:59 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> Message-ID: <2ea1ace5050302171023318474@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:09:50 -0500, Delirium wrote: > Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone > doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you > wish". > > (And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the > fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into > outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) I know next to nothing about 172 or his editing history. Based on a cursory glance into his edits, I suspect that it would take me a nontrivial amount of time for me to find out whether the claim that he is a propagandist is true. So, as a contributor ignorant of the particular details of this situation, who will probably remain so, I find the "good riddance" attitude I'm getting from this string of emails rather disturbing. Of course, it may be that everything is on the level here and the claims about 172 are true; I would probably bet on this outcome. But since I don't think I'm capable of verifying this to my own satisfaction, I'd be more comfortable if I saw more examinations of his stated reasons for quitting, and fewer such dismissals. Steve From dpbsmith at verizon.net Thu Mar 3 01:21:52 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:21:52 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Cars, articles, magic pennies In-Reply-To: <20050303004839.E697F1AC1782@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050303004839.E697F1AC1782@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <146fb4aa73ececad1a8d9c1d07e92185@verizon.net> > From: "Poor, Edmund W" > > Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you > want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and > you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, > and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you... [snip] > But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing > down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, > covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it > into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. > (I plagiarized the above from Jason Scott, but I agree with every > word.) > Uncle Ed > From: Richard Holton > Except...it's not your car! Ah, that old problematical analogy. The magic thing about intellectual "property" is that if someone takes your car and puts polka-dots on it and covers it in chrome pussycats the result is that... now you have TWO cars. For example, if Ed Poor borrows Jason Scott's car, Ed Poor has a car and Jason Scott still has his. (In this case, I certainly remember the phrase about moving from creating content to defending content. I may be recalling incorrectly but I don't remember chrome pussycats. Is it possible that _Ed_ added chrome pussycats to _Jason's_ car? Anyone else know Malvina Reynold's "Magic Penny?" Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away, Love is something if you give it away, you end up having--more! -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ From delirium at hackish.org Thu Mar 3 01:32:36 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:32:36 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <740c3aec0503021648423fac8a@mail.gmail.com> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> <740c3aec0503021648423fac8a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42266934.2050608@hackish.org> BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote: >I believe this is not the first >time you have slandered 172 on this mailing list and I don't approve >of it, especially not the part in which you pretend that your opinion >is the commonly accepted one. > > Please cite a specific message or STFU, to use your pleasant diction. -Mark From delirium at hackish.org Thu Mar 3 01:41:47 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:41:47 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42266B5B.30508@hackish.org> zero 0000 wrote: >The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case >against B, the committee looks at both sides of >the dispute, then both A and B get penalties. > >This is a clear violation of A's right to due process. >Nobody should be penalised unless a case is brought >against them (by the committee if they wish), it passes >the initial voting as to whether the case should be >heard, then there is a period of argumentation and >collection of evidence specifically in relation to that >person. This is not true in the case of A, since the >voting and Evidence page argumentation is primarily >in relation to B. > >If the witnesses in a criminal trial are found to have >committed crimes themselves, they are sceduled >for their own trials. They are not given sentences >by the original court. The same principle should >hold here. > >It is not enough to lump A and B together as >defendants at the beginning, as that can still mean >that A is put on trial due to the strength of the >case against B. > > This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed first, such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes to arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute between two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way. The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, not to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that sanctions may be levied against either or both of the parties to a hearing. -Mark From delirium at hackish.org Thu Mar 3 01:48:22 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:48:22 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <42266B5B.30508@hackish.org> References: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <42266B5B.30508@hackish.org> Message-ID: <42266CE6.1090507@hackish.org> Delirium wrote: > This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against > specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require > that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed > first, such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes > to arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute > between two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way. > > The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, > not to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that > sanctions may be levied against either or both of the parties to a > hearing. I should clarify that the distinction in practice is admittedly blurred. Early on, arbitration cases were always labelled "X vs. Y", but these days they're more often labelled with just one person's name, which does pretty clearly imply that there's a single defendant. The actual discussions and decisions still go on under the assumption that this is arbitration between disputants though, since that was how the function of the arbitration committee was conceived. Whether this ought to be changed to some other model, perhaps more approximating court cases, is of course open to debate. -Mark From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 3 01:52:15 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 01:52:15 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> zero 0000 said: > I think the issue that Jay raised is a serious one. > > The scenario is that A brings an arbitration case > against B, the committee looks at both sides of > the dispute, then both A and B get penalties. > > This is a clear violation of A's right to due process. Well it isn't a trial, and nobody said A or B had a right to any process! But think of the arbitration committee as, perhaps, an examining magistrate, not a judge. They are investigator, prosecutor and judge all rolled into one. I think the mistake being made is to assume that there is supposed to be some kind of adversarial system with a clear winner and a clear loser as in the case of a criminal trial under the system of common law. This isn't the only way of getting at the truth and deciding how to remedy any problems that exist, and for our purposes it certainly wouldn't be a very efficient one. It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all times, for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to gossip, make a living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. Common principles of justice and the individual have no place here. This is a community, one with a purpose, and the arbitration committee is here to ensure that it functions smoothly. Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. From shebs at apple.com Thu Mar 3 04:07:10 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 20:07:10 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace5050302171023318474@mail.gmail.com> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> <2ea1ace5050302171023318474@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42268D6E.9020008@apple.com> Stephen Forrest wrote: >On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:09:50 -0500, Delirium wrote: > >>Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone >>doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you >>wish". >> >>(And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the >>fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into >>outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) >> > >I know next to nothing about 172 or his editing history. Based on a >cursory glance into his edits, I suspect that it would take me a >nontrivial amount of time for me to find out whether the claim that he >is a propagandist is true. > >So, as a contributor ignorant of the particular details of this >situation, who will probably remain so, I find the "good riddance" >attitude I'm getting from this string of emails rather disturbing. > Some of us have had long and unpleasant histories with 172. It wasn't even that many months ago on this list when I had the temerity to point out a rather suspicious omission in one of "his" articles, and he announced he was going to quit WP forever unless I made a public apology for my scurrilous accusation. He even contacted me directly, begging me to apologize, presumably so that he wouldn't lose face for backing off his ultimatum. (What person using a pseudonym worries about reputation? It was very weird.) > >Of course, it may be that everything is on the level here and the >claims about 172 are true; I would probably bet on this outcome. But >since I don't think I'm capable of verifying this to my own >satisfaction, I'd be more comfortable if I saw more examinations of >his stated reasons for quitting, and fewer such dismissals. > Sorry, but I don't really have any desire to replay all of it for you. I used up a bunch of my precious WP time trying to work with 172, finally gave up and took everything he touched off my watchlist, was much happier subsequently. Stan From redgum46 at lycos.com Thu Mar 3 06:20:30 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:20:30 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 Message-ID: <20050303062030.1E344C616D@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> "He even contacted me directly, begging me to apologize, presumably so that he wouldn't lose face for backing off his ultimatum. (What person using a pseudonym worries about reputation? It was very weird.)" I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias. -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 From redgum46 at lycos.com Thu Mar 3 06:21:02 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 12:21:02 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 Message-ID: <20050303062103.23D9EC616D@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> "He even contacted me directly, begging me to apologize, presumably so that he wouldn't lose face for backing off his ultimatum. (What person using a pseudonym worries about reputation? It was very weird.)" I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias. -- _______________________________________________ Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10 From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 3 06:42:48 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 06:42:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? Message-ID: <030320050642.21280.4226B1E8000CB7330000532022069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against > specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require > that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed first, > such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes to > arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute between > two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way. > > The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, not > to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that sanctions > may be levied against either or both of the parties to a hearing. I think you are correct about the intent when the arbitration process was set up. But, de facto, because admins also err and abuse and the arbitration committee is the only check on their power, it has had to act on cases that are more violations than disputes. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 3 07:56:15 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:56:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030320050756.15625.4226C31E000CB90600003D0922007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > > I'm not sure what your point is, if you mean admins=police, > > apparently, they are running the judicial system too, and > > they are loath to cost anyone their "jobs", read sysop privilege. > > Do the admins here unite behind their own version of "The thin blue line"? > > > [[WP:AN/I]] and [[WP:AN/3RR]] give me a different picture. I see > quite a bit of disagreement between admins (and of course anyone > can write there). Agreed, I overgeneralized. I meant to refer to a general sense among the admins that sysop privileges are not to be revoked lightly. Furthermore, when admins err, I have seen apologias to the effect that they are just human and are so busy and contributing so much that errors should be expected to occur every so often. They are trying their best and should be allowed an error every so often. I can agree with this if one is referring to errors of interpretation or of overlooking certain facts. But it is a different matter when in pique or anger, the admin makes personal use of sysop powers. This shows a lack of the proper discipline and temperament to be an admin, and not simple error. It is possible for such a person to learn discipline with time, but they should not be allowed to learn it on the job. Such a person should be desysoped. When they feel they are ready, they can reapply, but if they reapply for adminship too soon they are probably the still the wrong temperament. Adminship is a burden and a public trust. Admins are to be servants not masters of the community. Forgive me, I am a community activist who has worked to reduce police abuse, so I am particularly sensitive and yes, even outraged (as a matter of principle) at those who have the hubris to think they have the perogative to abuse the public trust. I realize that matters here are not quite so weighty. But then "losing" an adminship, is also not quite as serious as losing one's job. -- Silverback From wikipedia at earthlink.net Thu Mar 3 08:08:47 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 00:08:47 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <20050302183829.C57FB1AC192F@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050302183829.C57FB1AC192F@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <4226C60F.2010205@earthlink.net> David Gerard wrote: > There's *supposed* to be a rule that if half the arbcom recuses, then all > are unrecused and back on the case. It doesn't appear to have made it > into > the rules. It or something like it really really needs to be in there. The rule wasn't included in that form because I raised objections, and still would. The image of properly recused arbitrators suddenly un-recusing themselves can look really really bad to people skeptical about our commitment to fairness (about as bad as, say, a properly blocked admin deciding to unblock himself). "Something like it", as in an alternative solution to deal with this scenario, would be much better. My suggestion was for the matter to bypass the Arbitration Committee and go straight to the Board, or else for Jimbo or the Board to appoint emergency arbitrators to substitute for those who are recused. I think the idea of "pro tempore" arbitrators for these rare cases is adequate to handle the problem. Wikipedia is big enough that nobody can get their oar in on every dispute, a principle that applies to the arbitrators as well and means that almost certainly at least a couple sitting arbitrators will not need to recuse themselves. Also, it wouldn't be necessary to reconstitute a full committee of twelve; I'd be satisfied if emergency appointments brought the number of arbitrators hearing the case back up to seven or so. So at most Jimbo would need to come up with four or five people who have good sense at how to handle these things. I don't think this would be terribly difficult for him. We have several experienced former arbitrators whom I at least would happily trust to deal with a case in an emergency. And I could name a number of other people who might be qualified, depending on the particular case that presents itself. This would also be a helpful way to get in some practical observation of people who may be candidates for election to the Arbitration Committee in the future. --Michael Snow From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 3 08:49:30 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 08:49:30 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? Message-ID: <030320050849.21874.4226CF9A000464490000557222007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > This isn't the scenario here though---there are no cases against > specific people, only disputes *between* multiple people. We require > that earlier steps of the dispute-resolution process be followed first, > such as mediation. If these are unsuccessful, the matter goes to > arbitration. The arbitration is thus arbitration of the dispute between > two people, and is charged with resolving it in some way. > > The proper analogy, as the name implies, is to arbitration hearings, not > to court cases. It is standard practice in arbitration that sanctions > may be levied against either or both of the parties to a hearing. I think I can speak for Neutrality. His post on the request for arbitration page implies a case against a specific person at least as far as recusal goes: " I'd only recuse if you were the respondent rather than the petitioner." -- Silverback From zoney.ie at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 10:52:54 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:52:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <4226616F.30908@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> <4226616F.30908@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4418c60e0503030252483279c2@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 00:59:27 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > Richard Holton wrote: > > On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:04:14 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > >>Think of Wikipedia as a massive garage where you can build any car you > >>want to. Great tools are provided, a lot of shop manuals are there, and > >>you get your own lift and away you go. Fantastic. But every one else, > >>and I mean everyone else in the garage can work on your car with you. > >>There's no "lead mechanics", no "shop floor managers", no anything. In > >>fact, the people who are allowed to work on your car can completely > >>disregard what you were doing with it. They could have flown in from > >>Boola-Boola Island 2 hours ago, not know the language, can't read the > >>manuals, and just go in and paint your car pink. And drive it. And leave > >>it somewhere. Now, since tools are free and paint is free and you can > >>easily go and retrieve your nice car and get it back to something > >>resembling sanity, a lot of the people in the garage see there's no > >>problems. But in fact, the fifth, or the hundredth time you're traipsing > >>down the lane to find your messed-up, polka-dotted, > >>covered-in-chrome-pussycats car, you're kind of inclined to drive it > >>into the lake and leave it upside down, wheels spinning. > > > Except...it's not your car! > > That would be the key point, yes. That's what "no article ownership" means. > > > - d. Well, if it's your original contribution, you are quite free to go put it up somewhere else as well, with (c) MyName 2005. All the more so if you put a modified version of your own work somewhere else (you and only you can do this and not release it under GFDL, anyone else using your work from Wikipedia must release the modified version as GFDL). Of course, the version you've uploaded to Wikipedia is available there under the GFDL, so there's little point to the above. But you retain copyright to your own work (you've simply offered "right to copy" and "right to modify" to everyone else also under the GFDL). Incidentally, the (c) MyName 2005 isn't even necessary. Copyright is automatic. Notices simply serve to remind people who has copyright. So it's more complicated. It's like it's your custom-designed car, but you specifically have allowed anyone to use it, make an exact or modified replica (providing they also allow the same for their version), paint it pink, drive it whereever, etc. But you reserve the right to roll out a new or duplicate version of your car, anywhere else in the world, and not make those allowances. I've probably lost a few people. Analogies can only be taken so far! Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 13:49:38 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 13:49:38 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all times, > for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to gossip, make a > living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. Common principles > of justice and the individual have no place here. Not quite *no* place - volunteers must feel the processes are fair. The AC may say "we do this, this and this," but if people don't feel that's enough, they will feel less like participating in the project. Which would be bad. > This is a community, > one with a purpose, and the arbitration committee is here to ensure that > it functions smoothly. Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the > arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own > actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. That I'll certainly second. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 3 13:52:21 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 13:52:21 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <4226C60F.2010205@earthlink.net> References: <20050302183829.C57FB1AC192F@mail.wikimedia.org> <4226C60F.2010205@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <42271695.2010105@thingy.apana.org.au> Michael Snow wrote: > I think the idea of "pro tempore" arbitrators for these rare cases is > adequate to handle the problem. Wikipedia is big enough that nobody can > get their oar in on every dispute, a principle that applies to the > arbitrators as well and means that almost certainly at least a couple > sitting arbitrators will not need to recuse themselves. Also, it > wouldn't be necessary to reconstitute a full committee of twelve; I'd be > satisfied if emergency appointments brought the number of arbitrators > hearing the case back up to seven or so. > So at most Jimbo would need to come up with four or five people who have > good sense at how to handle these things. I don't think this would be > terribly difficult for him. We have several experienced former > arbitrators whom I at least would happily trust to deal with a case in > an emergency. And I could name a number of other people who might be > qualified, depending on the particular case that presents itself. This > would also be a helpful way to get in some practical observation of > people who may be candidates for election to the Arbitration Committee > in the future. Oooh, that's a good idea. I like that one. - d. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 3 13:49:34 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:49:34 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <15899.194.72.110.12.1109857774.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > >> It also must be borne in mind that we are all accountable, at all >> times, for all of our actions on Wikipedia. We're not here to >> gossip, make a living, entertain ourselves, argue or save the world. >> Common principles of justice and the individual have no place here. > > > Not quite *no* place - volunteers must feel the processes are fair. The > AC may say "we do this, this and this," but if people don't feel that's > enough, they will feel less like participating in the project. Which > would be bad. Yes, you're right. I plead a late night and too-hasty proofing. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 3 13:57:22 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:57:22 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <42271695.2010105@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050302183829.C57FB1AC192F@mail.wikimedia.org> <4226C60F.2010205@earthlink.net> <42271695.2010105@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <28796.194.72.110.12.1109858242.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > Michael Snow wrote: >> So at most Jimbo would need to come up with four or five people who >> have good sense at how to handle these things. I don't think this >> would be terribly difficult for him. We have several experienced >> former >> arbitrators whom I at least would happily trust to deal with a case in >> an emergency. And I could name a number of other people who might be >> qualified, depending on the particular case that presents itself. This >> would also be a helpful way to get in some practical observation of >> people who may be candidates for election to the Arbitration Committee >> in the future. > > > Oooh, that's a good idea. I like that one. > There are the former arbitrators, and those whom the arbitrators would co-opt because of their particular skills, as Michael suggests. Possibly those who have already declared their interest by standing in the Arbcom election may also be a useful pool. This is just a wild idea, but how about other Wikipedias? I don't know how well developed the de.wikipedia or fr.wikipedia dispute resolution is, but it may be that potential arbitrators coud be co-opted from those Wikis if they are willing and their skill with English is up to it. At least they'd be less likely to have reason to recuse. It would also be a chance to spread expertise from en.wikipedia to other Wikis. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 18:24:26 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:24:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <42271695.2010105@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <20050303182427.5459.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > Michael Snow wrote: > > > I think the idea of "pro tempore" arbitrators for these rare cases is > > adequate to handle the problem. Wikipedia is big enough that nobody can > > get their oar in on every dispute, a principle that applies to the > > arbitrators as well and means that almost certainly at least a couple > > sitting arbitrators will not need to recuse themselves. Also, it > > wouldn't be necessary to reconstitute a full committee of twelve; I'd be > > satisfied if emergency appointments brought the number of arbitrators > > hearing the case back up to seven or so. > > So at most Jimbo would need to come up with four or five people who have > > good sense at how to handle these things. I don't think this would be > > terribly difficult for him. We have several experienced former > > arbitrators whom I at least would happily trust to deal with a case in > > an emergency. And I could name a number of other people who might be > > qualified, depending on the particular case that presents itself. This > > would also be a helpful way to get in some practical observation of > > people who may be candidates for election to the Arbitration Committee > > in the future. > > > Oooh, that's a good idea. I like that one. Make is so! -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From shebs at apple.com Thu Mar 3 18:04:40 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:04:40 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <20050303062030.1E344C616D@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050303062030.1E344C616D@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <422751B8.4020107@apple.com> Arno M wrote: >"He even contacted me directly, begging me to apologize, presumably so that >he wouldn't lose face for backing off his ultimatum. (What person >using a pseudonym worries about reputation? It was very weird.)" > >I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on >wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias. > It is an alias; as his page confirms, "the name I was using in my Wikipedia email account was not my own". Stan From daniwo59 at aol.com Thu Mar 3 19:25:04 2005 From: daniwo59 at aol.com (daniwo59 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:25:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <27CD4A16.3107B948.0094DB50@aol.com> In that case, I would like to nominate JamesF. A former arbitrator, he has proven himself highly capable of dealing with some of the really complex issues. Danny From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 3 19:33:16 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:33:16 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Chrome Pussycats, Twiddlers & Whackjobs In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace505030215483ba99fa9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4a37983b050302153241a0a35c@mail.gmail.com> <2ea1ace505030215483ba99fa9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4227667C.6070001@apotheon.com> Stephen Forrest wrote: > On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:32:38 -0600, Richard Holton wrote: > > >>Except...it's not your car! > > > Well, not quite. It's *was* his car, but it stopped being so the > moment he brought it into the shop. If you love something, set it free. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From james at jdforrester.org Thu Mar 3 19:54:06 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 19:54:06 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <27CD4A16.3107B948.0094DB50@aol.com> Message-ID: <200503031953.j23JrEX0024173@mail-relay-1.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Thursday, March 03, 2005 7:25 PM, Danny wrote: [Re. pro-tem Arbitrators for cases wherein more than half the Committee's members have recused themselves] > In that case, I would like to nominate JamesF. A former > arbitrator, he has proven himself highly capable of dealing > with some of the really complex issues. > > Danny Thank you very much Danny; I would be honoured to help with the Committee's work in such a way, if required, though of course I would prefer that I was not needed, espcially as such a large number of Arbitrators having been so moved by actions and events as to need to recuse themselves would almost certainly mean that said actions had been widely disruptive to the Project. 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 sean at epoptic.org Thu Mar 3 21:27:56 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:27:56 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <422751B8.4020107@apple.com> (message from Stan Shebs on Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:04:40 -0800) References: <20050303062030.1E344C616D@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> <422751B8.4020107@apple.com> Message-ID: <200503032127.j23LRueX000908@orwen.epoptic.com> > >I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on > >wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias. > > > It is an alias; as his page confirms, "the name I was using in my > Wikipedia email account was not my own". > > Stan I hope it truly wasn't. Googling for "Abe Sokolov" yields interesting results, including http://us.z.webhosting.yahoo.com/gb/view?member=songunpoliticsstudygroup From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 21:23:32 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:23:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitrator recusals (was 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <27CD4A16.3107B948.0094DB50@aol.com> Message-ID: <20050303212333.58244.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> --- daniwo59 at aol.com wrote: > In that case, I would like to nominate JamesF. A former arbitrator, he has > proven himself highly capable of dealing with some of the really complex > issues. I second that nomination most violently. I also draft Danny. :) --mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Mar 3 21:43:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:43:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the >arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own >actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting involved. Jay. From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 3 21:50:08 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:50:08 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> References: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Anthere wrote: > I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before > stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or > remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All > this is rather a mistake from us. > > Anthere For the record, I don't hold any ummm... "grunge" :) against Uncle Ed. It's possible that 172 did the wrong thing. I just wanted to know what process was being followed! TBSDY From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 3 22:11:24 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:11:24 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] An awfully big adventure (was ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'?) In-Reply-To: References: <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <1180.192.168.0.9.1109887884.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: >>From: "Tony Sidaway" >> >>Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the >>arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his >>own actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. > > Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out > looking completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination > that sometimes happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with > the fear that ArbCom will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so > that it appears "fair". Again, I'm not saying this is actually > happening, but that there is a perception that this is happening, > which discourages people from getting involved. Of course the would-be petitioner could always get someone relatively spotless to bring the complaint. But then I think that Arbcom would suddenly realise that it has to expand its attentions to all involved in a Wikipedia fuck-up, not just those who put their names to a complaint on WP:RFAR. Which I think would be reasonable. Arbitration is supposed to be a way of keeping Wikipedia functioning well, so of course it isn't going to accept the preconceptions of one or another party to a behavior dispute. Look, we're just talking about editing privileges on a Wiki. Should I be told by English Wikipedia's arbitrators to wipe my nose and stop spitting on the floor, it would not reflect adversely on my career. Nor would it subtract points from my driver's license, and it would not really bother me in the least. Suppose I bring a case and the worst happens: I'm banned for a year or more. Banned from en.wikipedia? Well my French is passable, my Spanish too, and I need to brush up on my German and my Portuguese. There's Simple English, Anglo Saxon and Latin. If English Arbcom has jurisdiction over these Wikis, it's news to me. To paraphrase Peter Pan, for any competent English Wikipedian, being banned would be an awfully big adventure. This is not a monoglot project. And then I could always get on with the things I *should* be doing instead of Wikipedying. ;) From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Mar 3 22:30:55 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 15:30:55 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It is being involved which will teach you how to avoid the common mistakes which disputive Wikipedia editors make, such as making personal attacks rather than addressing user behavior, and discussing the issues rather than focusing on how to express and include divergent opinions in articles on controversial subjects. If you are not going to make personal attacks anyway being on personal attack parole doesn't amount to much. Fred > From: "JAY JG" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:43:39 -0500 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > >> From: "Tony Sidaway" >> >> Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the >> arbitration committee because he may then be held accountable for his own >> actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. > > Missing the point indeed; the point being that few people come out looking > completely spotless under the kind of forensic examination that sometimes > happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined with the fear that ArbCom > will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that it appears "fair". > Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, but that there is a > perception that this is happening, which discourages people from getting > involved. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 3 22:55:39 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:55:39 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way Message-ID: The April 2005 edition of Software Development Magazine has an article Rick Wayne wrote about wiki software, and MediaWiki has BY FAR the nicest screen shots. You'll recognize the yellow flower and the puzzle-world right away. It's in the April 2005 edition, which just arrived in my snail mailbox today at work. (The online version lags a few days behind, but I'll send in the URL once it's up. And, no, this is not an April Fool's joke; I never joke around about the *really* important stuff!) Here's the caption for the Sample Wikipedia Page: "The Wikipedia is the canonical example of what you can do with MediaWiki; here's the entry on data structures, with the navigation bar at the left and the toolbar on the top." (P. 32) Wayne also mentions Wiki Woes: "Vandals. Unless you're trying for the widest possible user community, it's best to hide your wiki behind some sort of access control. Otherwise, the maladjusted may take advantage of the Edit This Page button until you're ready to chuck the whole thing. . . ." (P. 33) Who knows? Maybe we'll get a flurry of contributions to our computer-programming articles. Uncle Ed (still alive and kickin') From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 22:59:25 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:59:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <42261FDD.6010704@hackish.org> Message-ID: <20050303225925.37704.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Delirium wrote: > Karl A. Krueger wrote: > > >It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to > report real abuses > >because they did not want to be forced to defend > themselves from unfair > >or untrue accusations by the abuser. > > > > > I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a > dispute between two > users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you > have to examine all > sides in the dispute. There's no need to look > through the accusing > editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense > to look through > both sides' posts and edits in the relevant > discussions and articles. The last time (and it will be the last time) I brought a case before the arbcom, Fred Bauder thought it appropriate to bring in situations in which I had dealings with other people who were not even involved in the situation at hand. His refusal to recuse himself showed his lack of impartiality. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 3 23:27:02 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:27:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050303232702.44859.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> --- JAY JG wrote: > >From: "Tony Sidaway" > > > > >Someone who is scared to take a complaint to the > >arbitration committee because he may then be held > accountable for his own > >actions is, it seems to me, missing the point. > > Missing the point indeed; the point being that few > people come out looking > completely spotless under the kind of forensic > examination that sometimes > happens in the inevitable counter-suits, combined > with the fear that ArbCom > will feel it needs to sanction both parties, so that > it appears "fair". > Again, I'm not saying this is actually happening, > but that there is a > perception that this is happening, which discourages > people from getting > involved. > > Jay. Yes, it has happened. Twice to me. It's not worth the hassle. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Mar 4 02:45:58 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:45:58 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050303225925.37704.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the scope of the arbitration. Fred > From: Rick > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:59:25 -0800 (PST) > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > > --- Delirium wrote: > >> Karl A. Krueger wrote: >> >>> It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to >> report real abuses >>> because they did not want to be forced to defend >> themselves from unfair >>> or untrue accusations by the abuser. >>> >>> >> I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a >> dispute between two >> users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you >> have to examine all >> sides in the dispute. There's no need to look >> through the accusing >> editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense >> to look through >> both sides' posts and edits in the relevant >> discussions and articles. > > The last time (and it will be the last time) I brought > a case before the arbcom, Fred Bauder thought it > appropriate to bring in situations in which I had > dealings with other people who were not even involved > in the situation at hand. His refusal to recuse > himself showed his lack of impartiality. > > RickK > > > > > > __________________________________ > Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! > Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web > http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Fri Mar 4 03:16:38 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:16:38 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA, if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think, for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include issues not brought up in the initial request. on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: > The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or > against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the > scope of the arbitration. > > Fred > >> From: Rick >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:59:25 -0800 (PST) >> To: English Wikipedia >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? >> >> >> --- Delirium wrote: >> >>> Karl A. Krueger wrote: >>> >>>> It would be unfortunate if people became afraid to >>> report real abuses >>>> because they did not want to be forced to defend >>> themselves from unfair >>>> or untrue accusations by the abuser. >>>> >>>> >>> I agree it's a concern, but to really investigate a >>> dispute between two >>> users, such as an alleged flame war or edit war, you >>> have to examine all >>> sides in the dispute. There's no need to look >>> through the accusing >>> editor's entire edit history, but it does make sense >>> to look through >>> both sides' posts and edits in the relevant >>> discussions and articles. >> >> The last time (and it will be the last time) I brought >> a case before the arbcom, Fred Bauder thought it >> appropriate to bring in situations in which I had >> dealings with other people who were not even involved >> in the situation at hand. His refusal to recuse >> himself showed his lack of impartiality. >> >> RickK >> >> >> >> >> >> __________________________________ >> Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! >> Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web >> http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 03:28:35 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr Pete (Skyring) From wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 4 03:46:05 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:46:05 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <20050303221132.BE3391AC0467@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050303221132.BE3391AC0467@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <4227D9FD.3010709@earthlink.net> Sean Barrett wrote: >>>I will observe that 172 wasn't anonymous, unless the name that he used on >>>wikien-l , Abe Sokolov, was an alias. >>> >>> >>It is an alias; as his page confirms, "the name I was using in my >>Wikipedia email account was not my own". >> >>Stan >> >> >I hope it truly wasn't. Googling for "Abe Sokolov" yields interesting >results, including http://us.z.webhosting.yahoo.com/gb/view?member=songunpoliticsstudygroup > > Regardless of what other stuff he may have posted under that name, if it's really not his name, it doesn't do any good to his argument for professional expertise, since there *is* a reasonable match to that name possessing approximately the sort of credentials 172 claimed to have. --Michael Snow From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Mar 4 03:47:01 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 20:47:01 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think that is generally true, however I think we are right to look at the general pattern of the user's behavior. For example if one person is complaining about personal attacks we ought to take into consideration whether the user is making a lot of personal attacks against a lot of users. Another area that I think can be taken into consideration is actions that are taken during arbitration either towards the arbitrators or that affect the arbitration, deleting evidence or moving it all around. Fred > From: AndyL > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:16:38 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a > countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a > grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for > Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA, > if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the > arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the > arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think, > for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include > issues not brought up in the initial request. > > on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: > >> The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or >> against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the >> scope of the arbitration. >> >> Fred From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 03:56:21 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:56:21 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, you went and reported him. Sarah On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100, Skyring wrote: > I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in > 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the > trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been > blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr > > Pete (Skyring) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From geniice at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 04:12:54 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 04:12:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:56:21 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, > that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said > that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on > your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, > even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, > you went and reported him. > > Sarah I've removed the block Skyring had not reverted more than 3 times in 24 hours. -- geni From abesokolov at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 04:44:36 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 04:44:36 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Message-ID: Quote of the day: "It is no defense to the 3RR that the information being reverted is false." -User:BM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr Runner up: "I agree that Adam Carr was reverting a completely nonsensical edit (Australia is not yet a republic), but he still broke the 3RR." -User:Noel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time, their behavior is shaped according to a whole web of relations based on the fetishization and ritualization of the 3RR and other policies, making them lose sight of the goal of writing an encyclopedia. I concede that Wikipedia is no longer the small community it once was, but rather an increasingly complex and cumbersome organization comprising thousands of user, meaning that attention to procedure is crucial if the project is to be manageable. The problem is not the bureaucratization of Wikipedia in and of itself but rather how Wikipedia is being bureaucratized. If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it must develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make nonsensical edits, not those who are reverting them. If it continues to follow its present path, the only people who'll have the patience to deal with these games will be cultists, LaRouchies, Holocaust deniers, and other random cranks. Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable. -172 BTW, I have asked that my adminship be revoked in unrelated correspondences. I have no intention of returning, regardless of this message. _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 04:58:23 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:58:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> I'm not sure what you mean by saying you waited overnight, because you made your four edits, in my view four reverts, within about four hours, so far as I can see. The important point here is that you're trying to introduce POV into the article by claiming, I believe, that Australia is a republic and that the Queen is not the head of state, which is factually incorrect. You may be right (I don't know) that Australia is in some sense a thinly veiled republic, but the veil is everything, no matter how thin. This is an interesting example of content-quality over procedure. Adam Carr was trying to preserve accuracy and now he's blocked. The person who has been trying to insert an inaccuracy for days, and who also (arguably) reverted four times, is not blocked. Peter, you may be right about there being an argument in favor of saying that Australia is, in effect, a republic. But if you want to introduce an issue like that into an article, you have to be very careful not to violate the no-original-research rule, which says that editors shouldn't come up any new analysis or synthesis of facts. In other words, if you want to say Australia is a republic, you have to find reputable sources who have actually said that precise thing, and not just sources who have said things which, put together in a certain way in a certain light, could be interpreted as implying that. The former is okay; the latter is original research. I don't know, but I suspect, that Adam perceived you to be doing the latter. Sarah On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:28:45 +1100, Skyring wrote: > > But I didn't want to report Adam. If that had been my objective, then > I could have reported him the moment he made his fourth revert. > Instead I continued to discuss the issue with him in the face of > mounting abuse and when he withdrew from the discussion, I waited > overnight, all next morning and didn't report him until after lunch. > > Ironically whilst I was cutting and pasting timestamps and stuff he > rejoined the discussion, albeit in a rather negative and dishonest > fashion, but I didn't notice this until after. > > I much prefer debating to edit wars, but when one party won't respond > in a reasonable fashion, it's difficult. > > What's the next step - seek arbitration over one letter? > -- > Peter in Canberra I would count your four edits as reverts. You changed convention to contention at 00:44 (calling it a spelling correction, when you probably knew it was a contentious change as you'd already been edit-warring over that issue, even if not that exact word); then again at 02:52; 03:55; and 04:49. By counting the reverts in the way you've done, you're basically admitting to system gaming, which is frowned on. If you report someone for 3RR, it's best to have clean hands in the matter yourself, or it can backfire. Sarah > From geniice at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:06:05 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 05:06:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: So in this case the correct thing for Adam to would be to contact you. A problem I'm seeing a lot right now is that edit wars are taking too long to come to the attention of the wider community. If the first the widder comunity know is when the 3RR report comes in we have a problem. -- geni From abesokolov at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:06:51 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 05:06:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 Message-ID: The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that. (Given the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I probably wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the U.S., let alone a Communist!) I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove that. Of course, if one were to post similar comments under the names of Sean Barret and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that they were not the ones making them either... It's quite distressing that users are searching for dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to server their political or personal agendas on Wikipedia. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Fri Mar 4 06:14:24 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:14:24 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4227FCC0.7020600@shaw.ca> Abe Sokolov wrote: > Quote of the day: > > "It is no defense to the 3RR that the information being reverted is > false." > -User:BM > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr > > > Runner up: > > "I agree that Adam Carr was reverting a completely nonsensical edit > (Australia is not yet a republic), but he still broke the 3RR." > > -User:Noel > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Adam_Carr > > > Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of > groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to > Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time, > their behavior is shaped according to a whole web of relations based > on the fetishization and ritualization of the 3RR and other policies, > making them lose sight of the goal of writing an encyclopedia. Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation would be considered "reasonable." That's because they're not being made in isolation, they're being made as part of a revert war. Making nonsensical edits is a bad thing. But engaging in revert-warring is _also_ a bad thing. There are other ways to deal with editors that are repeatedly adding nonsense to an article than revert-warring with him, ways which I think are better for Wikipedia's functioning. > If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it > must develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make > nonsensical edits, not those who are reverting them. If it continues > to follow its present path, the only people who'll have the patience > to deal with these games will be cultists, LaRouchies, Holocaust > deniers, and other random cranks. And also people who are able to use the other approaches to dealing with those people than just robotically reverting them over and over again. Let's not try to combat one bad behavior with another bad behavior, it doesn't gain anything. From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:19:14 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:19:14 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense out of articles. Within four hours: Skyring inserted a falsehood Adam reverted: Adam's #1 revert Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #1 revert Adam reverted: Adam's #2 revert Skyring re-inserted it:" Skyring's #2 revert Adam reverted: Adam's #3 revert Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #3 revert Adam reverted: Adam's #4 revert. Skyring calls the cops. Given this intepretation of 3RR, there's no way Adam could have kept the material out, except by calling other editors to help him, which he should have done, but it's a bit silly to have to do that over a content dispute that is straighforwardly factual, as it is in this case. But if we're going to concentrate on process and ignore quality, then shouldn't neither or both editors be blocked in this case? Sarah From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:37:35 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:37:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030321096db3024c@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030321096db3024c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b0503032137318c8125@mail.gmail.com> Peter, this probably isn't the place to discuss the factual details, but in brief you are doing original research. Here is the Governor General's page http://www.gg.gov.au/html/fset_role.html There's nothing republican about this description. We had a similar situation a few weeks ago when an editor kept deleting that Israel is a parliamentary democracy, because that editor believes that Israel is not democratic enough, and was able to quote other sources making the same point. But that's beside the point: Israel is recognized by reputable sources as a parliamentary democracy, so that's the term Wikipedia uses; similarly, the Queen is recognized as the Australian head of state by most reputable sources, so that's what Wikipedia goes with. That doesn't mean the debate shouldn't be characterized in the Wikipedia article, so long as it is a real debate in that country, which I'm sure it is in Australia. But it has to be done in a careful, scholarly way with reference to good sources, sticking closely to what they say, and not what you feel they imply. And the dispute has to be described, not engaged in. Check [[Wikipedia:No original research]]. Sarah On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:09:45 +1100, Skyring wrote: > On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:58:23 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com > wrote: > > I'm not sure what you mean by saying you waited overnight, because you > > made your four edits, in my view four reverts, within about four > > hours, so far as I can see. > > That's true. I then gave Adam another twelve hours and more before > taking action. > > >The important point here is that you're > > trying to introduce POV into the article by claiming, I believe, that > > Australia is a republic and that the Queen is not the head of state, > > which is factually incorrect. You may be right (I don't know) that > > Australia is in some sense a thinly veiled republic, but the veil is > > everything, no matter how thin. > > But that's only your opinion. There is NO definitive answer as to who > is Australia's head of state. It's not defined in the constitution, > and the High Court has not answered the question. > > > > This is an interesting example of content-quality over procedure. Adam > > Carr was trying to preserve accuracy and now he's blocked. The person > > who has been trying to insert an inaccuracy for days, and who also > > (arguably) reverted four times, is not blocked. > > Please read the discussion. If you feel you have something to > contribute and can provide checkable sources, then I urge you to do > so. > > > Peter, you may be right about there being an argument in favor of > > saying that Australia is, in effect, a republic. But if you want to > > introduce an issue like that into an article, you have to be very > > careful not to violate the no-original-research rule, which says that > > editors shouldn't come up any new analysis or synthesis of facts. In > > other words, if you want to say Australia is a republic, you have to > > find reputable sources who have actually said that precise thing, and > > not just sources who have said things which, put together in a certain > > way in a certain light, could be interpreted as implying that. The > > former is okay; the latter is original research. I don't know, but I > > suspect, that Adam perceived you to be doing the latter. > > I've provided sources going back to Federation. I've quoted the > Wikipedia definition of republic, I've quoted the Macquarie, I've > pointed out that even the Oxford English Dictionary makes us a > republic. People are starting to complain about the "reams of text'. > > Adam's position seems to be that a republic is a non-monarchy and > because we have a powerless monarch in a symbolic role, we cannot be a > republic, despite the overwhelmingly republican nature of our > constitutional arrangements, whereby sovereignty resides in the people > and power is exercised by elected or appointed officials, rather than > hereditary positions. > > -- > Peter in Canberra > From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:42:26 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:42:26 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820503032142403e647b@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:19:14 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable > game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense > out of articles. Within four hours: > > Skyring inserted a falsehood > Adam reverted: Adam's #1 revert > Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #1 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #2 revert > Skyring re-inserted it:" Skyring's #2 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #3 revert > Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #3 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #4 revert. > Skyring calls the cops. As noted above, this is not the case. My insertion was a matter of fact - namely because the term head of state is not defined in the constitution it is a matter of contention rather than convention. As I have demonstrated. Adam's four reverts took place within a matter of hours, but during that time we were discussing the issue. Adam became increasingly abusive when asked to provide checkable sources, I waited twelve hours and seeing no resumption of the discussion I reported him. All this can be checked, and that's the beauty of Wikipedia. -- Peter in Canberra From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 05:51:25 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:51:25 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503032137318c8125@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030321096db3024c@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032137318c8125@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050303215172118b62@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:37:35 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > Peter, this probably isn't the place to discuss the factual details, > but in brief you are doing original research. Here is the Governor > General's page http://www.gg.gov.au/html/fset_role.html There's > nothing republican about this description. > > We had a similar situation a few weeks ago when an editor kept > deleting that Israel is a parliamentary democracy, because that editor > believes that Israel is not democratic enough, and was able to quote > other sources making the same point. But that's beside the point: > Israel is recognized by reputable sources as a parliamentary > democracy, so that's the term Wikipedia uses; similarly, the Queen is > recognized as the Australian head of state by most reputable sources, But that's the point, Sarah. She isn't. You might as well say that she's the Queen of England. Lots of people would put money on this, but they would be wrong. I don't mind if incorrect popular opinion is mentioned so long as it is clearly labelled as such. -- Peter in Canberra From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Fri Mar 4 07:03:29 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:03:29 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42280841.8030408@shaw.ca> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: >Given this intepretation of 3RR, there's no way Adam could have kept >the material out, except by calling other editors to help him, which >he should have done, but it's a bit silly to have to do that over a >content dispute that is straighforwardly factual, as it is in this >case. > Put another way, "there's no way Adam could have kept the material out, except for the way that doesn't break the rules and result in a 24-hour ban." I don't think it's silly to bring in more people when there's a dispute, how else can one determine which side of the dispute is correct (if any)? >But if we're going to concentrate on process and ignore quality, then >shouldn't neither or both editors be blocked in this case? > > One broke the letter of the 3RR and the other broke the spririt of it, but it's a lot trickier trying to sanction someone for breaking the spirit of a rule since that's open to much wider interpretation. The letter of the rule is fairly simple and straightforward, don't see a problem with strictly enforcing it. Inserting factually incorrect material is bad for Wikipedia, but IMO so is revert-warring. From abesokolov at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 06:16:11 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 06:16:11 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Message-ID: Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen at shaw.ca wrote: Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation would be considered "reasonable." That's actually my point. For Wikipedia to be managable, procedure must be followed and policies must be enforced. Thus, the statements that I'd quoted were **unfortunately** reasonable. The problem is the nature of the procedure making this approach reasonable. IMO needs radical change, along the lines of Larry Sanger's suggestions. The way things are now, certain trolls flourish while professional historians like Jtdril (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtdirl#3RR_block) and Adam Carr get blocked. Some bold structural changes would serve to correct this problem. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From delirium at hackish.org Fri Mar 4 06:47:40 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 01:47:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4228048C.6040502@hackish.org> Abe Sokolov wrote: > Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the possibility of > groupthink? I still believe that most active users sign up to > Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. But over time, > their behavior is shaped according to a whole web of relations based > on the fetishization and ritualization of the 3RR and other policies, > making them lose sight of the goal of writing an encyclopedia. The 3RR is purposely designed as a trade-off. On the plus side, edit-warriors inserting nonsense cannot do so more than three times per day. On the minus side, users reverting nonsensical edits cannot revert them more than three times in a day. If we assume that there are more "good editors" than "bad editors", then it's a good tradeoff, because there will always be other people around to revert the nonsense editors. Policies like banning repeated edit-warriors through an Arbitration Committee case are intended to keep the number of "bad editors" down so this remains the case. (A useful analogy might be to the moral theory of rule-based utilitarianism.) -Mark From sean at epoptic.org Fri Mar 4 06:47:27 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:47:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4228047F.50401@epoptic.com> Abe Sokolov stated for the record: > The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a > careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that. > (Given the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I > probably wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the U.S., > let alone a Communist!) > > I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove > that. Of course, if one were to post similar comments under the names of > Sean Barret and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that they > were not the ones making them either... It's quite distressing that > users are searching for dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to server > their political or personal agendas on Wikipedia. > > -172 Four responses: I Google lots of people's names, both those I despise and those I respect. The hope that I expressed -- that those were not in fact your views -- was sincere. When you Google for dirt on me, your efforts will be more effective if you take the trouble to spell my name correctly. (To aid your digging: I am not a professor, an athlete, or a "dysfunctional programmer." I am an author, with at least one book in print, but most of the books sold under my name are not written by me.) For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing list closely. -- Sean Barrett sean at epoptic.com From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 06:59:57 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 12:59:57 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? Message-ID: <20050304065957.2CFDB3384C@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> And , of course, and speaking more generally, if Party A was in the wrong, the 3RR rule in effect can be use to silence dissent to a wrong version. ----- Original Message ----- From: slimvirgin at gmail.com To: geni Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:19:14 -0700 > > If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable > game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense > out of articles. Within four hours: > > Skyring inserted a falsehood > Adam reverted: Adam's #1 revert > Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #1 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #2 revert > Skyring re-inserted it:" Skyring's #2 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #3 revert > Skyring re-inserted it: Skyring's #3 revert > Adam reverted: Adam's #4 revert. > Skyring calls the cops. > > Given this intepretation of 3RR, there's no way Adam could have kept > the material out, except by calling other editors to help him, which > he should have done, but it's a bit silly to have to do that over a > content dispute that is straighforwardly factual, as it is in this > case. > > But if we're going to concentrate on process and ignore quality, then > shouldn't neither or both editors be blocked in this case? > > Sarah > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 4 07:13:29 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:13:29 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <20050304053739.24CAF1AC1927@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050304053739.24CAF1AC1927@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42280A99.5080301@earthlink.net> Abe Sokolov (or somebody using that name) wrote: > The comments unearthed by Sean Barret do not represent my views, and a > careful examination of my long editing history will demonstrate that. > (Given the economic approaches in which I was inculcated for years, I > probably wouldn't even be considered a social democrat outside the > U.S., let alone a Communist!) > > I did not post them, but I suppose that I wouldn't be able to prove > that. Of course, if one were to post similar comments under the names > of Sean Barret and Michael Snow, they wouldn't be able to prove that > they were not the ones making them either... It's quite distressing > that users are searching for dirt on people off Wikipedia in order to > server their political or personal agendas on Wikipedia. Since this seems partially directed at me, I will point out that I have not been searching for dirt on anybody. In case it wasn't clear from my previous post, I was searching for *confirmation* of the professional credentials 172 has periodically alluded to. This is something that would serve to _support_ his claim to expertise in certain areas. It should not diminish his reputation unless he has overstated his qualifications, and I've seen no real indication of that. Statements that 172 may or may not have posted in various forums, which may or may not have been facetious, matter little to me. On the other hand, if 172 wants to deny any significance to the name he has chosen and give us no personal information, then we have no evidence to back up his claims to expertise and might as well disregard them. As was already noted, the divergence between trying to remain anonymous and trying to appeal to one's credentials as an expert makes this an impossible position to maintain. In my observation, people do pay attention to the fact that some users have particular professional credentials, and sensible users have shown some deference toward that expertise. The deference is not complete, of course, and unfortunately during disagreements some people are aggressively disrespectful of their opponent's credentials, so an expert will not necessarily be satisfied with the situation. But if you want any kind of deference, whether or not you want to go all the way to the model Larry Sanger advocates, being willing to allow evidence of your credentials is a pretty basic requirement. --Michael Snow From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 07:10:55 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:10:55 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses Message-ID: <20050304071055.C93053384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> On the minus, well, in addition to what I've already written if there are several persons in the wrong about an article and one person in the right, then the one in the minority is severely disadvantaged by the 3RR ruling. ----- Original Message ----- From: Delirium To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 01:47:40 -0500 > > Abe Sokolov wrote: > > > Think of the warning signs that would alert one to the > > possibility of groupthink? I still believe that most active users > > sign up to Wikipedia with the goal of writing an encyclopedia. > > But over time, their behavior is shaped according to a whole web > > of relations based on the fetishization and ritualization of the > > 3RR and other policies, making them lose sight of the goal of > > writing an encyclopedia. > > The 3RR is purposely designed as a trade-off. On the plus side, > edit-warriors inserting nonsense cannot do so more than three times > per day. On the minus side, users reverting nonsensical edits > cannot revert them more than three times in a day. If we assume > that there are more "good editors" than "bad editors", then it's a > good tradeoff, because there will always be other people around to > revert the nonsense editors. Policies like banning repeated > edit-warriors through an Arbitration Committee case are intended to > keep the number of "bad editors" down so this remains the case. > > (A useful analogy might be to the moral theory of rule-based utilitarianism.) > > -Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 4 07:22:48 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:22:48 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <20050304071102.C63EE1AC195A@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050304071102.C63EE1AC195A@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42280CC8.4090603@earthlink.net> Abe Sokolov wrote: > Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen at shaw.ca wrote: > > Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR > even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation > would be considered "reasonable." > > That's actually my point. For Wikipedia to be managable, procedure > must be followed and policies must be enforced. Thus, the statements > that I'd quoted were **unfortunately** reasonable. The problem is the > nature of the procedure making this approach reasonable. > > IMO needs radical change, along the lines of Larry Sanger's > suggestions. The way things are now, certain trolls flourish while > professional historians like Jtdril > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtdirl#3RR_block) and Adam > Carr get blocked. Some bold structural changes would serve to correct > this problem. Some bold individual changes by certain people in their personal editing practices would also serve to correct this problem. --Michael Snow From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 07:23:20 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:23:20 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <20050304072320.5A6B13384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though the matter is complicated by the G-G representing her. On another note, are you Peter Ellis? Just wondering... Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: Skyring To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 16:51:25 +1100 > > On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 22:37:35 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com > wrote: > > Peter, this probably isn't the place to discuss the factual details, > > but in brief you are doing original research. Here is the Governor > > General's page http://www.gg.gov.au/html/fset_role.html There's > > nothing republican about this description. > > > > We had a similar situation a few weeks ago when an editor kept > > deleting that Israel is a parliamentary democracy, because that editor > > believes that Israel is not democratic enough, and was able to quote > > other sources making the same point. But that's beside the point: > > Israel is recognized by reputable sources as a parliamentary > > democracy, so that's the term Wikipedia uses; similarly, the Queen is > > recognized as the Australian head of state by most reputable sources, > > But that's the point, Sarah. She isn't. You might as well say that > she's the Queen of England. Lots of people would put money on this, > but they would be wrong. > > I don't mind if incorrect popular opinion is mentioned so long as it > is clearly labelled as such. > > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From johnleemk at gawab.com Fri Mar 4 08:00:29 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:00:29 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses In-Reply-To: <20050304071055.C93053384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050304071055.C93053384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4228159D.5070003@gawab.com> Arno M wrote: >On the minus, well, in addition to what I've already written >if there are several persons in the wrong about an article and one >person in the right, then the one in the minority is severely disadvantaged >by the 3RR ruling. > > > Wikipedia operates on the theory that the good people always outnumber the bad. If the data is factually incorrect, call in outside help. The belief that just because you're right/extremely knowledgeable you can revert wantonly has created a lot of problems in the past. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From actionforum at comcast.net Fri Mar 4 08:03:08 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:03:08 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though the matter is > complicated by the G-G representing her. But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic? I thought most constitutional monarchies were republics. The salient point is whether the monarch or the constitution is supreme. If the monarch cannot suspend or amend the constitution, then what you have is the rule of law, a "republic". -- Silverback From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 08:23:46 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:23:46 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <20050304082346.30313C610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten. The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate, involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours, can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2. Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not. The wikipedia's articles are NOT meant to be an outlet for political hopes and fallacies such as yours and Peter's. Nor is the wikien-l. Do us all a favour, please take them elsewhere. I won't be corresponding further on this issue. ----- Original Message ----- From: actionforum at comcast.net To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:03:08 +0000 > > ------------- Original message -------------- > > Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though > > the matter is complicated by the G-G representing her. > > But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic? I > thought most constitutional monarchies were republics. The salient > point is whether the monarch or the constitution is supreme. If > the monarch cannot suspend or amend the constitution, then what you > have is the rule of law, a "republic". > > -- Silverback > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 08:26:59 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:26:59 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:03:08 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > ------------- Original message -------------- > > Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though the matter is > > complicated by the G-G representing her. > > But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic? I thought most constitutional monarchies were republics. The salient point is whether the monarch or the constitution is supreme. If the monarch cannot suspend or amend the constitution, then what you have is the rule of law, a "republic". Spot on. The Australian people drew up their Constituion through a People's Convention with popularly elected delegates, and the resultant constitution was approved by the people in each of the six colonies. The constitution may ONLY by changed by a majority of the voters in a majority of the six States. Neither the Queen, nor the Governor-General, nor Parliament, nor the Government may amend a single letter of the Constitution without the express approval of the people. The Governor-General's powers are given to him in the Constitution by the people, and the Queen is all but powerless. She cannot issue instructions nor may she exercise any of the Governor-General's constitutional powers. -- Peter in Canberra From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 08:27:15 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:27:15 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses Message-ID: <20050304082715.C49AFC610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> What you wrote sounds fine, but it has not worked out all the time. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Lee" To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:00:29 +0800 > > Arno M wrote: > > > On the minus, well, in addition to what I've already written > > if there are several persons in the wrong about an article and > > one person in the right, then the one in the minority is severely > > disadvantaged > > by the 3RR ruling. > > > > > > > Wikipedia operates on the theory that the good people always > outnumber the bad. If the data is factually incorrect, call in > outside help. The belief that just because you're right/extremely > knowledgeable you can revert wantonly has created a lot of problems > in the past. > > John Lee > ([[User:Johnleemk]]) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From actionforum at comcast.net Fri Mar 4 09:13:38 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:13:38 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <030420050913.14274.422826C200074E79000037C222007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten. > > The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate, > involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours, > can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2. > > Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not. Hmm, yes the above statement was like those in the archive, mere assertion, without an attempt to reason. I see no reason to change "constitutional monarchy" to "republic", in fact constitutional monarchy is more specific because of the figurehead monarch, certainly the change to republic is not something to fight a revert war over. Unless one likes that sort of thing. > The wikipedia's articles are NOT meant to be an outlet for political > hopes and fallacies such as yours and Peter's. Nor is the wikien-l. What is the hope or fallacy? The change to a republic was made when Austrailia assumed its current form of constitutional monarchy. Or are you claiming "republic" means something different in Australian english, perhaps that could be explained in the article? -- Silverback From jack-lutz at comcast.net Fri Mar 4 09:16:37 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (Jack Lutz) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:16:37 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II References: <030420050913.14274.422826C200074E79000037C222007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <001d01c5209a$decb3940$6b01a8c0@one> Surely the Australian government has written a thing or two about whether it is a constitutional monarchy or republic? From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Fri Mar 4 07:19:44 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 23:19:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4228047F.50401@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Sean Barrett wrote: > Abe Sokolov stated for the record: > [snip] > For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing > list closely. > The same thought occured to me. And his posts only make Stan Sheb's account of a unbelievable correspondence all the more believable. Geoff From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 4 09:25:27 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 09:25:27 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes References: Message-ID: <001801c5209c$1b72c2e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Abe Sokolov wrote > I concede that Wikipedia is no longer the small community it once was, but > rather an increasingly complex and cumbersome organization comprising > thousands of user, meaning that attention to procedure is crucial if the > project is to be manageable. The problem is not the bureaucratization of > Wikipedia in and of itself but rather how Wikipedia is being bureaucratized. Don't see it myself. I think I could edit WP for a couple of weeks before meeting any signs of central control or 'bureaucracy'. > If Wikipedia is serious about its goal of creating an encyclopedia, it must > develop a conflict resolution process that bans users who make nonsensical > edits, not those who are reverting them. I think WP is serious. Nonsense postings are pushed to the margins, as far as I can see (forgive me if I'm not much interested in Larouche issues, which I think are barely relevant outside the USA). > Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) > should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable. I actually thought Larry had it wrong, basically. Not that deferring to those who know what they are talking about is wrong for WP - it is obviously the right approach for example for me, a generalist, to take in many cases - but that there was some way deference could be plumbed in to the wiki. Charles From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 4 09:31:58 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 09:31:58 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 References: <4228047F.50401@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <003401c5209d$043dcb00$9e7c0450@Galasien> > For someone who won't be returning, you sure are watching the mailing > list closely. > Sean Barrett Whatever the current frictions, I hope we can remember that Wikipedia is built on assumptions of collegiality amongst Wikipedians. I think this should extend as least as far as keeping away from the intrusive and the highly personalised, in discussion. Charles From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 09:33:51 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:33:51 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <001d01c5209a$decb3940$6b01a8c0@one> References: <030420050913.14274.422826C200074E79000037C222007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <001d01c5209a$decb3940$6b01a8c0@one> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030401332855a02d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:16:37 -0600, Jack Lutz wrote: > Surely the Australian government has written a thing or two about whether it > is a constitutional monarchy or republic? The two terms are not exclusive. Australia has a republican form of government where sovereignty resides in the people and executive power is given to and exercised by elected and appointed officers, Howver, the Queen has a highly visible symbolic role and has some remnant functions, chief of which is the formal appointment of the Governor-General. The government directory calls the Governor-General the head of state some years, other times says the Queen is the head of state. It's impossible to find a definitive answer. -- Peter in Canberra From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 09:36:42 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:36:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <20050304082346.30313C610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050304082346.30313C610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050304013611ccbcef@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:23:46 +0600, Arno M wrote: > Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten. > > The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate, > involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours, > can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2. Some dodgy reasoning and a lot of shouting. No definitive source given. > > Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not. Australia is a republic using just about every definition I've ever seen. Including Wikipedia's. -- Peter in Canberra From actionforum at comcast.net Fri Mar 4 09:50:16 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:50:16 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Message-ID: <030420050950.9028.42282F57000E80690000234422070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > > Larry Sanger's advice (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25) > > should be taken seriously while the project is still salvageable. > > I actually thought Larry had it wrong, basically. Not that deferring to > those who know what they are talking about is wrong for WP - it is obviously > the right approach for example for me, a generalist, to take in many cases - > but that there was some way deference could be plumbed in to the wiki. I too think Larry had it wrong. While the wiki culture is anti-elitist, the encyclopedia rules balance (perhaps overbalance) that with elitist rules such a "no original research", as if experts and authorities know more than we do, or if someone else has said it, then it is more important. And while wikipedia may suffer some from lack of respect from teachers, I suspect it is actually more useful than encyclopedias to the students. The best talk pages and articles present critical thinking on different sides of issues, and perhaps represent non-establishment or lead edge thinking better than traditional encyclopedias. The fear that wikipedia may not be correct, may train students to question "authority" and to verify sources. -- Silverback From redgum46 at lycos.com Fri Mar 4 09:54:26 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:54:26 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II and 3R Message-ID: <20050304095426.49CC4E5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> Skyring/Peter: I will put in a postscipt after all. I have now established a link between this republic matter and the 3R debate being discussed here. You and another user recently got caught out in this matter on the Government of Australia article, and got your wrists slapped because of the 3R violation rule, and you've now resorted to discussing this whole republic fiction here. I'll reword and repeat the bit you did not quote me on before: wikien-l is not the outlet for pushing POVs like yours. I'll add that I see little hope in this 3R discussion for your assertions. The only positive point you've made here as regards 3R is that you've illustrated how unsatisfactory the 3R rule can be when it comes to settling disputes. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: Skyring To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:26:59 +1100 > > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:03:08 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net > wrote: > > ------------- Original message -------------- > > > Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , > > though the matter is > > > complicated by the G-G representing her. > > > > But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic? I > > thought most constitutional monarchies were republics. The > > salient point is whether the monarch or the constitution is > > supreme. If the monarch cannot suspend or amend the > > constitution, then what you have is the rule of law, a "republic". > > Spot on. The Australian people drew up their Constituion through a > People's Convention with popularly elected delegates, and the > resultant constitution was approved by the people in each of the six > colonies. The constitution may ONLY by changed by a majority of the > voters in a majority of the six States. > > Neither the Queen, nor the Governor-General, nor Parliament, nor the > Government may amend a single letter of the Constitution without the > express approval of the people. > > The Governor-General's powers are given to him in the Constitution by > the people, and the Queen is all but powerless. She cannot issue > instructions nor may she exercise any of the Governor-General's > constitutional powers. > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From zoney.ie at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 11:13:15 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:13:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses In-Reply-To: <20050304082715.C49AFC610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050304082715.C49AFC610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4418c60e0503040313144a29e9@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:27:15 +0600, Arno M wrote: > What you wrote sounds fine, but it has not worked out all the time. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John Lee" > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses > Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:00:29 +0800 > > > > > Arno M wrote: > > > > > On the minus, well, in addition to what I've already written > > > if there are several persons in the wrong about an article and > > > one person in the right, then the one in the minority is severely > > > disadvantaged > > > by the 3RR ruling. > > > > > > > > > > > Wikipedia operates on the theory that the good people always > > outnumber the bad. If the data is factually incorrect, call in > > outside help. The belief that just because you're right/extremely > > knowledgeable you can revert wantonly has created a lot of problems > > in the past. > > > > John Lee > > ([[User:Johnleemk]]) > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > What I worry about is that so many Wikipedia conventions assume that the majority of Wikipedia editors will be right (although in reality we are talking about what the majority of *more active* editors think). There is no guarantee to suggest that a random group of Wikipedia editors are going to write about an article in an unbiased way - more importantly, the majority Wikipedia editor consensus could be behind them, even while the majority worldview is not. All the 3RR does in *some* circumstances is re-enforce Wikipedia's majority bias. Even if it is a useful enforcement tool in many other cases. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Fri Mar 4 11:41:59 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (ffdfsd dsfdsfsdf) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:41:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) Message-ID: <20050304114159.92612.qmail@web61307.mail.yahoo.com> I am writing out of desparation at the abuse I have suffered over the last few days. First, I was blocked by Wile E. Hiershe (or something like that), then, Netaholic appears to have shown Wile the blocking policy, and persuaded him that I had not done anything to deserve blocking, then Michael Snow also stepped in to try to prevent my being lynched. It seems that Snowspinner has now, as part of a separate abuse, blocked me (claiming, in a bizzare side comment that I am a new user - I have been editing since October). He seems to think that collaborative editing is a blocking offense, and that editing a page that another user has already edited is against the rules. I am baffled and disturbed that any attempt to check edits by other users is considered 'harrassment'. Please please help and kindly join me in requesting that this harrassment stop. I am aware that many wikipedians have predjudice about users who have different beliefs about how wikis should work to them, but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki, and beleive passionately that we should be building the best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible. Thank you, The Recycling Troll __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From daniwo59 at aol.com Fri Mar 4 11:56:31 2005 From: daniwo59 at aol.com (daniwo59 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 06:56:31 EST Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: There is a serious problem. As the number of Wikipedia rules spiral, we are seeing people figure out how to play the rules for their own personal edification. Meanwhile, three old-time users--172, AdamCarr, and Mirv, who have thousands of valuable edits to their name (regardless of what anyone might think of any of them personally)--have either been blocked or left the project in the past 24 hours. Frankly, I never supported the 3RR, either the first time it was implemented, or this, the second time. I certainly oppose the idea that it takes precedence, or is even on an equal footing, with the goal of creating an _accurate_, NPOV, open-source encyclopedia. Comments equating it with that are misguided. 3RR was put in place, not as an objective in itself, but as a means to an end, that end being the creation of an accurate corpus of human knowledge. And yet, while people are willing to block for violating the 3RR, how many people are willing to block for pushing POV or adding inaccurate information consistently? That is a problem. So I reiterate: 3RR is not a goal of Wikipedia. In an ideal world, it would not even be necessary. It is merely a means to an end. The problem begins when focus solely on 3RR, disregarding our real goals. People are gaming these rules. While I would like to believe that most people have the good of Wikipedia at heart, the fact is that it is downright impossible, given the size of Wikipedia, to follow all the arguments, follow all the reverts, and step in when necessary. It once was, but that is no longer the case. Nor is it legitimate to expect people who do not have IRC to get it and go there when they face a problem. This is not an IRC project. I do not know the solution to this problem, but I think that it should be stated. Personally, I hope that Jimbo appoints a group of trusted users to examine the problem and come up with some solutions. Danny From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 4 11:58:49 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:58:49 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) References: <20050304114159.92612.qmail@web61307.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001501c520b1$883804c0$9e7c0450@Galasien> > I am aware that many > wikipedians have predjudice about users who have > different beliefs about how wikis should work to them, > but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki, and > beleive passionately that we should be building the > best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible. > Thank you, > The Recycling Troll You have certain entitlements in this matter. Your edits don't particularly engage my sympathy, your name not at all. Charles From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 4 18:00:00 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 10:00:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> --- Charles Matthews wrote: > I think WP is serious. Nonsense postings are pushed > to the margins, as far > as I can see (forgive me if I'm not much interested > in Larouche issues, > which I think are barely relevant outside the USA). Trust me, they're no more relevant inside the USA. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 18:26:42 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:26:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: > >If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable >game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense >out of articles. > I've argued against this interpretation for precisely this reason; it is biased toward the inserter of the information, who can always win. Thus I can go to a little watched article (say [[Rashba (rabbi)]]) and insert the statment "He had 4 sons and 1 daughter, and was noted for his handsome appearance. He choked on a soup bone and died while visiting Rome in 1310." Now this is complete nonsense, I've just made it up. But if the one person who happens to know this is nonsense reverts it, and an edit war develops, in the end the second person will get banned for 24 hours for removing the information, because it is not obvious vandalism. Jay. From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 17:35:15 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 12:35:15 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030401332855a02d@mail.gmail.com> References: <030420050913.14274.422826C200074E79000037C222007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <001d01c5209a$decb3940$6b01a8c0@one> <550ccb8205030401332855a02d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ea1ace5050304093554e55f8b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:33:51 +1100, Skyring wrote: > The two terms are not exclusive. Australia has a republican form of > government where sovereignty resides in the people and executive power > is given to and exercised by elected and appointed officers, Howver, > the Queen has a highly visible symbolic role and has some remnant > functions, chief of which is the formal appointment of the > Governor-General. I think that describing Australia in its present state as a 'republic' would be highly confusing. Australia and Canada (with which I'm more familiar) are constitutional monarchies. They are not republics, at least not under any definition of the term which would be commonly accepted here in Canada. The movement in Canada to remove the queen and install a citizen as head of state is called 'republicanism' (see e.g. [[Canadian republicanism]]). I don't imagine things are too much different in Australia. All that said, I think this sort of technical discussion should probably not be happening on the list. Leave such arguments over semantics for talk pages. Steve From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 17:39:44 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 12:39:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research (was 3RR applied to both parties?) In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: > >Peter, you may be right about there being an argument in favor of >saying that Australia is, in effect, a republic. But if you want to >introduce an issue like that into an article, you have to be very >careful not to violate the no-original-research rule, which says that >editors shouldn't come up any new analysis or synthesis of facts. In >other words, if you want to say Australia is a republic, you have to >find reputable sources who have actually said that precise thing, and >not just sources who have said things which, put together in a certain >way in a certain light, could be interpreted as implying that.The >former is okay; the latter is original research. > I find this to be this single most difficult concept to get across to editors, some of them long time Wikipedia contributors. The inevitable response is "this isn't original research, these are simple facts." Even if they are indeed "simple facts" (and that is often not the case), putting "simple facts" together to build a case, in order to refute a quoted argument or position you see in some article which you don't agree with, is "original research." Repeating the mantra "find some reputable cited source which makes this argument, don't present it on your own" rarely helps. Jay. From daniwo59 at aol.com Fri Mar 4 14:50:40 2005 From: daniwo59 at aol.com (daniwo59 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:50:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject) Message-ID: <5EE002CE.4F95AFA0.0094DB50@aol.com> I was forwarded this by a colleague at work. While the Google bit isn't accurate, it is nice to see how our information is being used. APPLES, WIKIPEDIA, AND THE WEB In January, IRC Afterschool at the International High School at Prospect Heights coordinator John Kowalski began teaching an elective computer class for 25 students from over 15 different countries. "It didn't take long for the students to start applying their newfound search skills - in no time, they were finding music from each of their home countries. And it didn't take long after that for them to learn to play it at a very soft volume, so as not to drive their teacher crazy," laughed Mr. Kowalski. Between now and June, these students will use laptops to do everything from search the web to create spreadsheets to use html language. "So far, the classroom activities have involved learning specialized ways of retrieving information from the web - like Google's Wikipedia feature," Mr. Kowalski said. "We will soon study tools for presenting that information, using visual display tools like Powerpoint, Excel, and the web." The International School @ Prospect Heights opened in September 2004 to serve recent immigrants who are both new to the U.S. and to learning English. IRC New York's afterschool program is currently the only afterschool program offered at the high school. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 4 19:04:08 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:04:08 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research (was 3RR applied to both parties?) References: Message-ID: <002601c520ec$f294dce0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jay JG wrote > The inevitable > response is "this isn't original research, these are simple facts." Even if > they are indeed "simple facts" (and that is often not the case), putting > "simple facts" together to build a case, in order to refute a quoted > argument or position you see in some article which you don't agree with, is > "original research." Can't really agree with that. Banning deductive logic from articles isn't a good idea. As I have said here before, that seems to me to be an inflation of the original research policy, meant to bar crank theories, to an unreasonable extension of it. Charles From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 18:12:42 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 18:12:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy Message-ID: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#How_to_make_VFD_of_manageable_size One way to make VFD of manageable size is to enforce step 3 of the procedure for nomination, which is: "3. Under the section, describe, in accordance with our deletion policy, why the page should be deleted and clearly write what action you think should be taken for the nominated article to assist others in determining consensus. Don't forget to sign and datestamp (using ~~~~)." An awful lot of nominations are bogus - listing reasons that are nowhere to be found in [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy]]. Therefore, I propose: Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in Wikipedia:Deletion policy may be summarily removed from the page. This alone would only be enforcing existing policy and would reduce the size of VFD considerably. (It could also be applied to votes, but that would be making new policy, not reinforcing existing policy.) I urge you to go to the above page and add your thoughts. Should this be enforced, or is the deletion policy merely decorative? - d. From kkrueger at whoi.edu Fri Mar 4 16:46:09 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:46:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: References: <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320027cd99031@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030320142b4d962d@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030320286ac08e1f@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b0503032058e6cdf5a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050304164609.GB28456@whoi.edu> On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 05:06:05AM +0000, geni wrote: > So in this case the correct thing for Adam to would be to contact you. > A problem I'm seeing a lot right now is that edit wars are taking too > long to come to the attention of the wider community. If the first the > widder comunity know is when the 3RR report comes in we have a > problem. This is part of why it would be valuable for the software to detect reverts and to maintain automatically a list of recently-reverted articles, or articles that have a high "revert density". It would help the wider community detect revert conflicts -before- they get to the point of either (a) drawn-out edit wars or (b) 3RR bureaucracy. -- Karl A. Krueger From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 4 19:16:11 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:16:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: <20050304191611.3A2281CE304@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> Strongly agree with Danny. I took a look at the Star Chamber ArbCom page and saw the latest effort against 172. Guess you never get tenure around here. Meanwhile, groups of users take command of certain pages and trash Wikipedia's possibility of being a reliable encyclopedia for all but the least controversial topics. I can understand 172's frustration, even as I am at opposite ends of a lot of his politics. Take an article like the Attacks of 9/11. I put in content based on any up-close and personal familiarity with the Laws of Land Warfare--i.e., these were war crimes. With citations. Engaging and answering critics' questions on why this is true. Leave it alone for a few months and it's all gone. But everyone's favorite conspiracy theory is in there. Any blame the Twin Towers on Karl Rove yet? My major point is that we're building a great bureaucracy to attack the out-of-favor Wikipedian, and to edify the Amateur Torquemadas; but I haven't seen us get one inch closer to building some kind of enforceable editorial judgment. Quite the contrary. Cecropia ----- Original Message ----- From: daniwo59 at aol.com To: wikiEN-l at wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 06:56:31 EST > > There is a serious problem. As the number of Wikipedia rules spiral, we are > seeing people figure out how to play the rules for their own personal > edification. Meanwhile, three old-time users--172, AdamCarr, and > Mirv, who have > thousands of valuable edits to their name (regardless of what > anyone might think > of any of them personally)--have either been blocked or left the project in > the past 24 hours. > > Frankly, I never supported the 3RR, either the first time it was > implemented, or this, the second time. I certainly oppose the idea > that it takes > precedence, or is even on an equal footing, with the goal of > creating an _accurate_, > NPOV, open-source encyclopedia. Comments equating it with that are > misguided. 3RR was put in place, not as an objective in itself, but > as a means to an > end, that end being the creation of an accurate corpus of human > knowledge. And > yet, while people are willing to block for violating the 3RR, how many > people are willing to block for pushing POV or adding inaccurate information > consistently? That is a problem. > > So I reiterate: 3RR is not a goal of Wikipedia. In an ideal world, it would > not even be necessary. It is merely a means to an end. > > The problem begins when focus solely on 3RR, disregarding our real goals. > > People are gaming these rules. While I would like to believe that most > people have the good of Wikipedia at heart, the fact is that it is downright > impossible, given the size of Wikipedia, to follow all the > arguments, follow all > the reverts, and step in when necessary. It once was, but that is > no longer the > case. Nor is it legitimate to expect people who do not have IRC to get it > and go there when they face a problem. This is not an IRC project. > > I do not know the solution to this problem, but I think that it should be > stated. Personally, I hope that Jimbo appoints a group of trusted users to > examine the problem and come up with some solutions. > > Danny > _______________________________________________ > 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 shebs at apple.com Fri Mar 4 19:21:00 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 11:21:00 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4228B51C.3040809@apple.com> daniwo59 at aol.com wrote: >There is a serious problem. As the number of Wikipedia rules spiral, we are >seeing people figure out how to play the rules for their own personal >edification. Meanwhile, three old-time users--172, AdamCarr, and Mirv, who have >thousands of valuable edits to their name (regardless of what anyone might think >of any of them personally)--have either been blocked or left the project in >the past 24 hours. > I don't know about Mirv, but I'm not surprised about the other two; their attitude has always been that they should be able to do whatever they think is right, and to hell with anyone who dares to disagree. The 3RR is a really simple and obvious rule. I think it's eminently reasonable to expect a PhD to figure out that if a second revert hasn't solved a problem, a third one won't either, nor would a fourth, fifth, or 37th. The fact that they revert anyway shows that it's more important to them to get their way than anything else. They can only be "gamed" because they don't even respect other editors enough to stop the reflexive reverting and ask for help. This whole blocking for rule violation process should be like speeding; if I get caught going over 65 or whatever, then my rational reaction is to take the punishment or plead extenuating circumstances, and then to get on with my life - not to argue that the concept of laws is mistaken, that speed limits shouldn't exist because they interfere with the overall goals of society, that they should exist for everybody except me because I'm the only competent driver on the road, or to sell my car. Stan From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 17:26:38 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:26:38 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Suitable topics for the family-friendly version of Wikipedia Message-ID: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> Don't forget to make sure all Biblical topics are suitably screened. I can just imagine the furore at Ezekiel 23:19-21. (go look it up, I'm not giving spoilers here.) And here's an actual Bell Canada advertisement. These are the sort of minds the project will need to be suitable for: http://www.torontopics.com/dark/HPIM0418.JPG Closeup: http://www.livejournal.com/users/lillim/752633.html I'm sure this fills you all with enthusiasm to get categorising! I can tell you, it sure does me. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 19:40:02 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:40:02 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: References: <4cc603b05030321192ff006e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Now this is complete nonsense, I've just made it up. But if the one person > who happens to know this is nonsense reverts it, and an edit war develops, > in the end the second person will get banned for 24 hours for removing the > information, because it is not obvious vandalism. > > Jay. Because that person would be thinking like an edit warroir. You ask for outside help. How hard is that? -- geni From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Fri Mar 4 14:56:49 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 09:56:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Don't be an imbecile: name-calling is NOT okay Message-ID: I'd like to point out, in an ironically self-contradictory (hypocritical?) way, that name-calling is not okay. There's a policy page which says: * Don't label or give names to people or their edits. Terms like "racist" or "fascist" (or even "moron") enrage people and make them defensive. When this happens, it becomes hard to have a productive discussion. Recall that the [[moron]] article says: * Originally a scientific term, coined by psychologist Herbert Goddard, and used to describe a person with a genetically determined mental age between 8 and 12 on the Binet scale. The word moron, along with "imbecile", "retard" and "feebleminded" (among others) was once a valid descriptor in the psychological community, though these words have all now passed into common slang use, exclusively in a detrimental context. And that: * The three traditional terms denoting varying degrees of mental deficiency long predate psychiatry. They were originally used in English as simple forms of abuse, and this is still the main usage. Their now obsolete use as psychiatric technical definitions is of purely historical interest. (see [[Mental_deficiency#Traditional_terms]]) The key points here are: 1. Terms like "moron" enrage people and make them defensive. 2. ... are all now used exclusively in a detrimental context. 3. Their use in English as simple forms of abuse is still the main usage. So you'd really have to be an idiot to call someone a moron. (oops! ;-) Uncle Ed From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Fri Mar 4 12:52:01 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 04:52:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <001501c520b1$883804c0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <20050304125202.61049.qmail@web61306.mail.yahoo.com> Can someone please advise me what appeal process there is? Thank you, The Recycling Troll --- Charles Matthews wrote: > > I am aware that many > > wikipedians have predjudice about users who have > > different beliefs about how wikis should work to > them, > > but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki, > and > > beleive passionately that we should be building > the > > best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible. > > Thank you, > > The Recycling Troll > > You have certain entitlements in this matter. Your > edits don't particularly > engage my sympathy, your name not at all. > > Charles > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From theresaknott at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 14:09:40 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:09:40 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050304114159.92612.qmail@web61307.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050304114159.92612.qmail@web61307.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030406092bb5f3b7@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 03:41:59 -0800 (PST), ffdfsd dsfdsfsdf wrote: > It seems that Snowspinner has now, as part of a > separate abuse, blocked me (claiming, in a bizzare > side comment that I am a new user - I have been > editing since October). He seems to think that > collaborative editing is a blocking offense, and that > editing a page that another user has already edited is > against the rules. Let's say it how it is shall we? Collaborative editing? You were stalking Rick. You were trying o upset him, to provoke him even, and now you claim to be being abused? It's a 24 hour block not the end of the world. If you feel you want to "collaborate" with someone, feel free to stalk me. Theresa Theresa From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 13:02:26 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:02:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. - d. From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Fri Mar 4 12:45:13 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (ffdfsd dsfdsfsdf) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 04:45:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <001501c520b1$883804c0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <20050304124513.58627.qmail@web61306.mail.yahoo.com> Which of my edits are problematic? Most are small corrections or wikifications. I do not believe any are cause for concern, and in any event do not beleive that the blocking policy has been followed. Surely whether someone is blocked depends on more than whether someone else feels 'sympathy' for them?! The Recycling Troll --- Charles Matthews wrote: > > I am aware that many > > wikipedians have predjudice about users who have > > different beliefs about how wikis should work to > them, > > but I have not done anything to disrupt this wiki, > and > > beleive passionately that we should be building > the > > best neutral and accurate encyclopedia possible. > > Thank you, > > The Recycling Troll > > You have certain entitlements in this matter. Your > edits don't particularly > engage my sympathy, your name not at all. > > Charles > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From rubenste at ohiou.edu Fri Mar 4 19:49:13 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:49:13 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] original research Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050304142725.03196a48@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Charles Matthews wrote, >Can't really agree with that. Banning deductive logic from articles isn't a >good idea. As I have said here before, that seems to me to be an inflation >of the original research policy, meant to bar crank theories, to an >unreasonable extension of it. I don't think this is Jay's point. The problem is not deductive logic itself, but to what use it is put. If it is used to construct a new interpretation or synthesis, then it is original research. But let's face it -- the issue is not only the meaning of the rule, but its enforcement. These two are inevitably tied together because the people who interpret the rules (the community) are the same as the people who enforce them -- unless it goes to mediation. There has been a fair amount of discussion about possible problems in the mediation/arbitration process. I don't want to get into that. I just want to remind people that the first, and I think most important, line of enforcement is the community of editors. Moreover, I want to suggest that strict rules, although good guidelines, are not the only things that should be enforced. I believe that the community has standards and values that have not been written down, and should not be written down, but which we need to keep in mind whenever talking about the enforcement of an official policy. These informal standards shouldn't be written down -- and maybe not even put into words -- because doing so will eventually require more and more official agents of enforcement -- I think this is what some people sense when they raise concerns about creeping legalism; certainly it threatens the anarchic nature of the community which is not (just) an end in itself but, as a matter of faith, the unique quality of Wikipedia that we believe will lead to great articles. Here is how I see these unofficial, unarticulated standards being enforced: through the presence or absence of controversy over an article. In many (NOT ALL) cases, an editor can make a change or add something without stirring up any controversy. I think that this is what Charles is talking about -- there are cases where people can use their own logic to develop articles. Whether it is "original research" or not is a moot point as long as no one complains about it -- and not one will complain about it if it makes sense to everyone. If it doesn't make sense to one or a few people, there is need for discussion and people often can work out some compromise. In other cases, many people will complain (this is when an article becomes controversial) and it is only at this point that I think policies like "no original research" need to be enforced in the strictest terms. Please do not misconstrue what I am saying. I am not saying that "no original research" should be enforced only in extreme cases. I am saying that in most cases, where there is no controversy, the community of editors should be guided by the policy but should have a lot of room to interpret it, and flexibility in how to apply it. I think we should give editors -- not just individuals, but the community of editors -- a lot of leeway for deciding when we need to start enforcing strict rules uncompromisingly. I think we can wait and see whether a given edit provokes strong resistance and controversy before going to the policy and arguing over how strictly to enforce it. And believe me, I am as committed to NOR as anyone else here. My point is procedural and not substantive. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 20:56:39 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:56:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: daniwo59 at aol.com > > >Frankly, I never supported the 3RR, either the first time it was >implemented, or this, the second time. I certainly oppose the idea that it >takes >precedence, or is even on an equal footing, with the goal of creating an >_accurate_, >NPOV, open-source encyclopedia. Comments equating it with that are >misguided. 3RR was put in place, not as an objective in itself, but as a >means to an >end, that end being the creation of an accurate corpus of human knowledge. >And >yet, while people are willing to block for violating the 3RR, how many >people are willing to block for pushing POV or adding inaccurate >information >consistently? That is a problem. > >So I reiterate: 3RR is not a goal of Wikipedia. In an ideal world, it would >not even be necessary. It is merely a means to an end. > True. However, I've seen instances where editors have reverted pages 14 times in half a day, against the will of a half dozen editors, with no sanction then or now. Enforcement of the 3RR has put an end to that kind of nonsense. POV pushing has always been a problem, but I've seen no indication that 3RR enforcement has made the POV pushing problem any worse than it was before, and it has demonstrably helped ameliorate egregious edit-warring problems. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:01:29 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:01:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Original research (was 3RR applied to both parties?) In-Reply-To: <002601c520ec$f294dce0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" >Jay JG wrote > > > The inevitable > > response is "this isn't original research, these are simple facts." >Even >if > > they are indeed "simple facts" (and that is often not the case), putting > > "simple facts" together to build a case, in order to refute a quoted > > argument or position you see in some article which you don't agree with, >is > > "original research." > >Can't really agree with that. Banning deductive logic from articles isn't >a >good idea. As I have said here before, that seems to me to be an inflation >of the original research policy, meant to bar crank theories, to an >unreasonable extension of it. Yep, that's the more nuanced version of the argument. However, the cranks themselves are full of simple "deductive logic" arguments that they feel need to be added to articles, in order to balance the "bias" they see in some cited opinion. And in any event "deductive logic" and "building a case" are not quite the same thing. Jay. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 4 21:02:05 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 21:02:05 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] original research References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050304142725.03196a48@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <004401c520fd$6d4106c0$9e7c0450@Galasien> steven l. rubenstein wrote > I think we should give editors -- > not just individuals, but the community of editors -- a lot of leeway for > deciding when we need to start enforcing strict rules uncompromisingly. I'm generally in agreement with this, and the rest of Steven's post. It may make me seem contrarian, but when it is argued that certain reasonable policies should be applied to the letter, to sort out edit wars in the 'right' direction, I begin to be worried about them; and the extended discussion Steven gave makes me feel I am perhaps not alone in this. In the point provoking this, it must be the use of fallacy rather than logic that is really at fault. Anyway, we appear to have an ongoing situation where some policies which are founded in principle don't have support for pedantic enforcement; and some policy - 3RR at least - is quite arbitrary but its pedantic enforcement has quite general support. Moreover there is a persistent 'semi-detached' tendency, of active editors who are respected for their work, and who find this all the wrong way round. Where it seems to get tricky is when it is argued that change in this situation - which is perhaps quite a stable one, in fact - could deal with perceived major issues. Well, I remain sceptical about that. Charles From morven at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:11:58 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 13:11:58 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42f90dc00503041311a658650@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:56:39 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > True. However, I've seen instances where editors have reverted pages 14 > times in half a day, against the will of a half dozen editors, with no > sanction then or now. Enforcement of the 3RR has put an end to that kind of > nonsense. POV pushing has always been a problem, but I've seen no > indication that 3RR enforcement has made the POV pushing problem any worse > than it was before, and it has demonstrably helped ameliorate egregious > edit-warring problems. The 3RR is an recognition of the belief among (I suspect) a good majority of Wikipedians that revert-warring is wrong and counterproductive. There are those whose position seems to be "Yes, I revert war, but I'm a revert warrior for GOOD causes, so doesn't that make it right?" I'd disagree; revert wars don't solve anything, and they're simply conflict by attrition, and they make it harder for anyone else to contribute to the article in question. I'd say the above position is the "Wik disease" - stemming from a belief that one is indispensable to Wikipedia, that it will all fall apart without constant war. -Matt From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:14:14 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 08:14:14 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <550ccb82050304131417ca4ece@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:02:26 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't > being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading > and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as > vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. Perhaps you should read the discussion page. There is a gulf between public perception and reality here, obviously. Much like people incorrectly believing that Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of England. -- Peter in Canberra From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:15:05 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:15:05 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: geni > >Because that person would be thinking like an edit warroir. You ask >for outside help. How hard is that? Easy to ask; often hard to get. People are busy, they don't know anything about the topic, they don't want to get drawn into "edit wars" (particularly if they aren't your buddy or don't know you). Often an RfC will end with zero or one or two people commenting on a Talk: page, and then leaving. Even if they all agree with one editor, they are rarely interested in getting involved in any other way, precisely because they are "good" editors who don't want to edit war. Either you just give up, and leave the soup bone nonsense in (respecting process over content), or you end up edit warring (respecting content over process). Most of the "process" idealists here seem to be repeating the mantra "just follow the process and everything will work out". On the other hand the "content" idealists seem to withdraw from editing after many months of frustration. Jay. From delirium at hackish.org Fri Mar 4 21:21:43 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:21:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses In-Reply-To: <4418c60e0503040313144a29e9@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050304082715.C49AFC610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> <4418c60e0503040313144a29e9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4228D167.1060505@hackish.org> Zoney wrote: >All the 3RR does in *some* circumstances is re-enforce Wikipedia's >majority bias. Even if it is a useful enforcement tool in many other >cases. > > It also, perhaps more importantly, contains damage by making revert wars by necessity very short. Prior to the 3RR, we'd sometimes have revert wars going on for hundreds of reverts. -Mark From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:19:25 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:19:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: David Gerard > >In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't >being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading >and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as >vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. Tsk tsk, David. Respect the process. You must leave the erroneous information in, and attempt to reason with the inserter on the Talk: page. People who revert are simply thinking like an "edit warrior". I'm sure the postings on this list, including those from the person promoting the "Australia is a republic" idea itself, have made it quite clear that a few well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that "Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting his contributions in no time at all. Jay. From theresaknott at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:23:03 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 21:23:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050304132328926580@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:15:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > >From: geni > > > >Because that person would be thinking like an edit warroir. You ask > >for outside help. How hard is that? > > Easy to ask; often hard to get. I have to say that this has never been my experience. Maybe it's the kind of page I edit,, i dunno but what I do know is that I've never knowingly broken the 3RR and have always managed to find other solutions to POV pushers. In my experience many people are perfectly willing to deal with a POV pushers. Theresa > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:25:16 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 08:25:16 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <550ccb82050304132519dfb72e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:19:25 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > >From: David Gerard > > > >In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't > >being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading > >and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as > >vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. > > Tsk tsk, David. Respect the process. You must leave the erroneous > information in, and attempt to reason with the inserter on the Talk: page. > People who revert are simply thinking like an "edit warrior". I'm sure the > postings on this list, including those from the person promoting the > "Australia is a republic" idea itself, have made it quite clear that a few > well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that > "Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting > his contributions in no time at all. This is precisely the case. I can be swayed by facts and checkable sources. Abuse and hand-waving just doesn't do it for me. -- Peter in Canberra From theresaknott at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:25:14 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 21:25:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050304132554caa399@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:19:25 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > >From: David Gerard > > > >In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't > >being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading > >and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as > >vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. > > Tsk tsk, David. Respect the process. You must leave the erroneous > information in, and attempt to reason with the inserter on the Talk: page. > People who revert are simply thinking like an "edit warrior". I'm sure the > postings on this list, including those from the person promoting the > "Australia is a republic" idea itself, have made it quite clear that a few > well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that > "Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting > his contributions in no time at all. > > Jay. Actuakky what David was saying is if it's vandalism, just protecy the page already, or block the vandal. Problem solved. There is _never_ any need for a legit user to break the 3RR Theresa > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dpbsmith at verizon.net Fri Mar 4 21:28:30 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:28:30 -0600 (CST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR--what's the problem? Message-ID: <20693725.1109971710405.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> >From: daniwo59 at aol.com >Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system The problem begins when focus solely on 3RR, disregarding our real goals. > >People are gaming these rules. While I would like to believe that most   >people have the good of Wikipedia at heart, the fact is that it is downright   >impossible, given the size of Wikipedia, to follow all the arguments, follow all   >the reverts, and step in when necessary. I don't get it. I truly don't get it. I'm not an old-timer, but I've been on Wikipedia for mumble months and have made mumble thousand edits, and not once have I ever come close to encountering the 3RR. It seems to me that the 3RR is sort of like driving 74 mph on a rutted dirt road, where the posted speed limit is 65, and most people drive 15. And then complaining when you get ticketed, because you think the cop should have allowed an extra 10 mph. (For people who don't live in U. S., Myanmar, or Liberia: read 120, 105, 25, and 16 kph respectively). I mean, why should the 3RR inconvenience _anyone_ with _any_ sense? And if for some currently-incomprehensible-to-me reason someone does get caught by it, what's so darn terrible about taking 24 hours off from Wikipedia? (Please do not take this as a challenge to see whether it's possible to goad me into make three reverts...) From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:30:54 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:30:54 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR--what's the problem? In-Reply-To: <20693725.1109971710405.JavaMail.root@vms069.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: >From: "dpbsmith at verizon.net" > >I don't get it. I truly don't get it. I'm not an old-timer, but I've been >on >Wikipedia for mumble months and have made mumble thousand edits, and not >once >have I ever come close to encountering the 3RR. I suspect you might not be editing in the more heated areas of Wikipedia. I could be wrong, of course. Jay. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 4 21:56:55 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:56:55 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR--what's the problem? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4228D9A7.70800@sprintmail.com> Do [[Human]], [[Mormonism and Christianity]], and [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] count? Heat is relative. And from my experience, it only takes the presence of one cool head to set the tone. I can't understand why, even in the presence of the biggest POV pusher, the group wouldn't hold peace-making to be more important than reverting the article to it's "pristine" condition. What good is ever accomplished by turning a POV pusher into an outright enemy? I would prefer to show him how to negotiate. I may leave a few articles in a state of disarray longer than some editors, but I think the long term result is worth it. Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." JAY JG wrote: >> From: "dpbsmith at verizon.net" >> >> I don't get it. I truly don't get it. I'm not an old-timer, but I've >> been on >> Wikipedia for mumble months and have made mumble thousand edits, and >> not once >> have I ever come close to encountering the 3RR. > > > I suspect you might not be editing in the more heated areas of > Wikipedia. I could be wrong, of course. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 4 22:01:48 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:01:48 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050304132519dfb72e@mail.gmail.com> References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb82050304132519dfb72e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4228DACC.8070305@sprintmail.com> Skyring wrote: >> a few >>well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that >>"Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting >>his contributions in no time at all. >> >> > >This is precisely the case. I can be swayed by facts and checkable >sources. Abuse and hand-waving just doesn't do it for me. > > Assuming good faith really does work miracles. I love the quote at [[Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers]] "Remember Hanlon's Razor . Behavior that may appear malicious to experienced Wikipedians is more likely due to ignorance of our expectations and rules. Even if you're *100% sure* that someone is a /worthless, no-good, low-down scum-sucking *Internet troll */, vandal, or worse, /comfort yourself as if they're not./ By being forgiving, instructive, and respectful, you come away with much more dignity, and you reflect well on our project." Tom Haws From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 22:17:51 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 22:17:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050304131417ca4ece@mail.gmail.com> References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb82050304131417ca4ece@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4228DE8F.5060109@thingy.apana.org.au> Skyring wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:02:26 +0000, David Gerard wrote: >>In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't >>being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading >>and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as >>vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. > Perhaps you should read the discussion page. There is a gulf between > public perception and reality here, obviously. Much like people > incorrectly believing that Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of England. Ah, this makes it clear - it's [[original research]], then. - d. From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Fri Mar 4 23:03:31 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:03:31 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suitable topics for the family-friendly version of Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: David Gerard wrote: > Don't forget to make sure all Biblical topics are suitably screened. > I can just imagine the furore at Ezekiel 23:19-21. > > (go look it up, I'm not giving spoilers here.) > > And here's an actual Bell Canada advertisement. These are the sort > of minds the project will need to be suitable for: > > http://www.torontopics.com/dark/HPIM0418.JPG > > Closeup: http://www.livejournal.com/users/lillim/752633.html > > I'm sure this fills you all with enthusiasm to get categorising! > I can tell you, it sure does me. > > > - d. Ermm, it seems to me like the livejournalers (I only read the first few, admitedly) didn't actually understand the subtlety (such as it is) of Bell Canada's advert? From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Fri Mar 4 23:05:39 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:05:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: David Gerard wrote: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#How_to_make_VFD_of_manageable_size > > > One way to make VFD of manageable size is to enforce step 3 of the > procedure > for nomination, which is: "3. Under the section, describe, in accordance > with our deletion policy, why the page should be deleted and clearly write > what action you think should be taken for the nominated article to assist > others in determining consensus. Don't forget to sign and datestamp (using > ~~~~)." > > An awful lot of nominations are bogus - listing reasons that are > nowhere to be found in [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy]]. > > Therefore, I propose: > > Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in Wikipedia:Deletion policy > may > be summarily removed from the page. > > This alone would only be enforcing existing policy and would reduce the > size of VFD considerably. > > (It could also be applied to votes, but that would be making new policy, > not reinforcing existing policy.) > > I urge you to go to the above page and add your thoughts. Should this be > enforced, or is the deletion policy merely decorative? > > > - d. I love this approach. Hell, if policy and precedence says that a certain type of article should be deleted (or, conversely, kept) then why do we need to go over the unnecessary palaver of vfd over and over? Pete From theresaknott at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 23:12:42 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 23:12:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suitable topics for the family-friendly version of Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0503041512b5f1003@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:03:31 +0000, Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > David Gerard wrote: > Ermm, it seems to me like the livejournalers (I only read the first few, > admitedly) didn't actually understand the subtlety (such as it is) of > Bell Canada's advert? Well. it's late, and i'm feeling tired and stupid, so please spell it out for me because I didn't understand the subtlety myself. Theresa From morven at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 23:41:25 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 15:41:25 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:05:39 +0000, Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > I love this approach. > Hell, if policy and precedence says that a certain type of article > should be deleted (or, conversely, kept) then why do we need to go over > the unnecessary palaver of vfd over and over? a) Because the community preference seems to wish for deliberation, rather than unilateral action, over such a weighty decision as deletion, except in very specific situations. b) Because there is disagreement about many types of articles' suitability for Wikipedia. -Matt From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 4 23:52:46 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:52:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4228F4CE.6000209@thingy.apana.org.au> Matt Brown wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:05:39 +0000, Pete/Pcb21 > wrote: >>I love this approach. >>Hell, if policy and precedence says that a certain type of article >>should be deleted (or, conversely, kept) then why do we need to go over >>the unnecessary palaver of vfd over and over? > a) Because the community preference seems to wish for deliberation, > rather than unilateral action, over such a weighty decision as > deletion, except in very specific situations. > b) Because there is disagreement about many types of articles' > suitability for Wikipedia. So is the so-called deletion policy purely decorative, and in fact something that should itself be deleted to avoid confusion? 'Cos what I'm saying is to just enforce the policy that's already there, and is referred to both at beginning and end of VFD as being a thing to follow, in the hope of making VFD somewhat smaller so that it may be more humanly manageable. I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so. - d. From usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Sat Mar 5 00:37:46 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:37:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Persistent page-move vandal using many accounts; next steps? In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4228FF5A.2010804@tonal.clara.co.uk> The en: Wikipedia is currently being pestered by a persistent page-move vandal that has used many names, including (today) [[User:Socksucker]], [[User:Wikipedia is Fun]], and [[User:A freaking sick vandal!]]. Judging by the user's MO, they are likely the same person as Willy on Wheels and the "penguin shit" vandal. They are persistent and devious, and clearly very familiar with the Wikipedia software. They perform their vandalism in rapid bursts by using a tabbed browser, so that they can quickly dumped a batch of fresh vandalism before they can be blocked and their "work" unpicked; and they are working hard at making that as difficult as possible for admins to do. Once they are blocked, they simply create a new account, and repeat the process, which implies some level of IP agility. Their goal appears to be to cause as much inconvenience as possible, and consume as much admin time as possible. I think it might be time for some bureaucrats/developers to use their privileged access try to identify the origin of these attacks, to see if this problem can be resolved by technical or other means. What does the community think? -- Neil From usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Sat Mar 5 00:55:05 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:55:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Persistent page-move vandal using many accounts; next steps? In-Reply-To: <4228FF5A.2010804@tonal.clara.co.uk> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> <4228FF5A.2010804@tonal.clara.co.uk> Message-ID: <42290369.1090605@tonal.clara.co.uk> Neil Harris wrote: > The en: Wikipedia is currently being pestered by a persistent > page-move vandal that has used many names, including (today) > [[User:Socksucker]], [[User:Wikipedia is Fun]], and [[User:A freaking > sick vandal!]]. Judging by the user's MO, they are likely the same > person as Willy on Wheels and the "penguin shit" vandal. > > They are persistent and devious, and clearly very familiar with the > Wikipedia software. They perform their vandalism in rapid bursts by > using a tabbed browser, so that they can quickly dumped a batch of > fresh vandalism before they can be blocked and their "work" unpicked; > and they are working hard at making that as difficult as possible for > admins to do. Once they are blocked, they simply create a new > account, and repeat the process, which implies some level of IP agility. > See also the following link to a Slashdot posting from "1337 Apple Zealot ", signed "Willy on Wheels!", describing an MO which is consistent with the observed pattern of edits from all of these vandal accounts: http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135333&cid=11292880 -- Neil From morven at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 01:08:49 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:08:49 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <4228F4CE.6000209@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> <4228F4CE.6000209@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42f90dc005030417081a914c8f@mail.gmail.com> David Gerard wrote: > So is the so-called deletion policy purely decorative, and in fact > something that should itself be deleted to avoid confusion? > > 'Cos what I'm saying is to just enforce the policy that's already > there, and is referred to both at beginning and end of VFD as being > a thing to follow, in the hope of making VFD somewhat smaller so > that it may be more humanly manageable. > > I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing > a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so. To clarify, I was responding to Pete/Pcb21's suggestion that was, basically, "Why use VFD at all, we should just decide what should be speedy deleted and use that." I am much in favor of your suggestion that nominations at VfD that do not reference a reason listed in the deletion policy should be removed forthwith. -Matt (User:Morven) From redgum46 at lycos.com Sat Mar 5 01:19:26 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:19:26 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses Message-ID: <20050305011926.8756B3384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> Not always. Check out the edit history of the Sollog article, particularly around Dec 27 2004, where a mother of all edit wars took place in spite of, and possibly even because of, the 3RR rule. This now seems to have consequently bought about that Sollog site that I mentioned earlier. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: Delirium To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:21:43 -0500 > > Zoney wrote: > > > All the 3RR does in *some* circumstances is re-enforce Wikipedia's > > majority bias. Even if it is a useful enforcement tool in many other > > cases. > > > > > It also, perhaps more importantly, contains damage by making revert > wars by necessity very short. Prior to the 3RR, we'd sometimes > have revert wars going on for hundreds of reverts. > > -Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From redgum46 at lycos.com Sat Mar 5 01:27:12 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:27:12 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? Message-ID: <20050305012712.EAD8A3384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> That's my point, too, and one I made earlier, albeit none too clearly. If someone puts in a biased, incorrect or dubious statement, he/she can then actually abuse the 3RR rule to make sure it stays in if anyone tries to correct it. This abuse includes threatening to invoke the 3RR rule. I went through this kind of thing last year. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: "JAY JG" To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:26:42 -0500 > > > From: > > > > If Geni's interpretation of 3RR is correct, then we have an unwinnable > > game of tic tac toe going on against editors trying to keep nonsense > > out of articles. > > > > I've argued against this interpretation for precisely this reason; > it is biased toward the inserter of the information, who can always > win. Thus I can go to a little watched article (say [[Rashba > (rabbi)]]) and insert the statment > > "He had 4 sons and 1 daughter, and was noted for his handsome > appearance. He choked on a soup bone and died while visiting Rome > in 1310." > > Now this is complete nonsense, I've just made it up. But if the > one person who happens to know this is nonsense reverts it, and an > edit war develops, in the end the second person will get banned for > 24 hours for removing the information, because it is not obvious > vandalism. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From redgum46 at lycos.com Sat Mar 5 01:29:34 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:29:34 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: <20050305012934.C01D43384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com> Except that, like Daeron before you, you haven't been swayed by facts and checkable sources on this particular matter. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: Skyring To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 08:25:16 +1100 > > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:19:25 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > > >From: David Gerard > > > > > >In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't > > >being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading > > >and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as > > >vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. > > > > Tsk tsk, David. Respect the process. You must leave the erroneous > > information in, and attempt to reason with the inserter on the Talk: page. > > People who revert are simply thinking like an "edit warrior". I'm sure the > > postings on this list, including those from the person promoting the > > "Australia is a republic" idea itself, have made it quite clear that a few > > well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that > > "Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting > > his contributions in no time at all. > > This is precisely the case. I can be swayed by facts and checkable > sources. Abuse and hand-waving just doesn't do it for me. > > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 5 03:12:43 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 03:12:43 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: <030520050312.2888.422923AB00077DA500000B4822069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- >I'm sure the > postings on this list, including those from the person promoting the > "Australia is a republic" idea itself, have made it quite clear that a few > well-chosen words in Talk: will have the person promoting the idea that > "Australia is a republic" repudiating his views and voluntarily reverting > his contributions in no time at all. No, you just point out that he is right, and that "constitutional monarchy" means republic and a little bit more, and if he wants to point that very thing out a little later in the article than the introduction, that is OK. -- Silverback From wikimb at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 03:16:40 2005 From: wikimb at gmail.com (Michael Becker) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 22:16:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <42287F34.6060702@gmail.com> References: <42287F34.6060702@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42292498.20502@gmail.com> Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second. The 3RR is an easy rule to follow so there is no reason not to. If "professional historians like Jtdril and adam Carr" would just learn to follow the rules, they would not get blocked. There is no reason that anyone ever has to break the 3RR, if it is a valid reversion, the community will come to the rescue. There certainly is nothing stopping them from seeking help from others to avoid breaking the 3RR. The fact of the matter is this group of "professionals" feels for some reason that it should get special treatment when it comes to breaking the rules. They must eventually realize that in an internet community like Wikipedia it doesn't matter who they are if they can't follow the community standards for interaction. On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 06:16:11 +0000, Abe Sokolov wrote: > Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen at shaw.ca wrote: > > Actually, IMO at least it seems perfectly reasonable to enforce the 3RR > even against people who are making reverts that when made in isolation > would be considered "reasonable." > > That's actually my point. For Wikipedia to be managable, procedure must be > followed and policies must be enforced. Thus, the statements that I'd quoted > were **unfortunately** reasonable. The problem is the nature of the > procedure making this approach reasonable. > > IMO needs radical change, along the lines of Larry Sanger's suggestions. The > way things are now, certain trolls flourish while professional historians > like Jtdril (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jtdirl#3RR_block) and > Adam Carr get blocked. Some bold structural changes would serve to correct > this problem. > > -172 > > _________________________________________________________________ > 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 > -- Michael Becker From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 5 03:26:06 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 03:26:06 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy Message-ID: <030520050326.27665.422926CE00039AB700006C1122007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing > a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so. What's hard, it that applying policy to to a factual situation is "original research". If we can't apply definitions of words, or count for ourselves, perhaps we get out of the habit of reasoning. - Silverback From richholton at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 03:34:25 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 21:34:25 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <42292498.20502@gmail.com> References: <42287F34.6060702@gmail.com> <42292498.20502@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4a37983b0503041934ae675fc@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 22:16:40 -0500, Michael Becker wrote: > Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second. I wonder if how many people would agree with this sentiment. I have read statements by some "important people" that would at least cast some doubt as to which is foremost: the community or the encyclopedia. I have always seen Wikipedia as an effort to create a free multi-lingual unbiased encyclopedia that is as available as possible to everyone everywhere. That's one of the reasons that a print version is an important part of the whole project -- because many people will not be able to access it via computer. The Wiki community is a means to that end. A wonderfully (and somewhat surprisingly) successful means, but only a means. I cannot imagine any other means that is likely to achieve the end. So, as I see it, the encyclopedia comes first, the community second. But the community is essential to the encyclopedia. -Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 5 03:42:23 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 03:42:23 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: <030520050342.4511.42292A9F0001FBD80000119F22058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't > being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading > and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as > vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. Well, perhaps because you need to do more than point out the ceremonial role of the monarch to make your case, that appears to be all those with some aversion to a straight forward application of the word "republic" have done. I suspect there is something we are missing to this controversy, perhaps the words "republic" and "constitutional monarchy", have been hijacked as labels for political constituencies in those countries, much like "life" and "choice" in the USA. If, the controversy is real, then it should be noted, although not necessarily in the introduction. But the other side should get their say. This ususually works out, although sometimes some weasal words are also needed in the intro. This is what makes wikipedia more useful than "respected" encyclopedias, even the intro might give you a clue that the establishment status quo is being questioned. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 5 03:53:14 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 03:53:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system Message-ID: <030520050353.18751.42292D2A0001D3F70000493F22058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Strongly agree with Danny. > > I took a look at the Star Chamber ArbCom page and saw the latest effort > against 172. Guess you never get tenure around here. I disagree there is elitism here and 172 did have tenure, after all he had recently been sanctioned by the arbcom, a couple years ago he had been "temporarily" desysoped, and yet he retained his sysop powers to abuse again. Some people don't have the proper temperament or discipline to be entrusted with sysop powers. Perhaps if he had not been tempted by power, he would still be here contributing. There should be zero tolerance for personal abuse of sysop powers (as opposed to mere mistakes of fact or interpretation), instead of tenure. I am pressing for such a policy. -- Silverback From stacey.nj at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 04:24:14 2005 From: stacey.nj at gmail.com (Stacey Greenstein) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 23:24:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> Daniel, Here are my answers. Do you mind if I forward this to the Wiki email list? Stacey On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:36:05 -0800, Daniel Terdiman wrote: > Great. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. > > Here's the questions, then. Please answer them with as much information > as you can. The more detail the better. And, as I mentioned, if you > could get those answers back to me tonight, it would be a huge help. > > Thanks again, > Daniel > > - During the last 30 days, you've been one of the most active > Wikipedians, editing more than 1800 articles. Can you tell me what has > driven you to be so active recently? Well, it isn't quite so true that I've done 1800 in the past month. That sounds like the number of edits I did back in December, which was the last time those stats were updated. My company closes down the site I work at for the week between Christmas and New Year's, so I had quite a bit of extra time on my hands. With that time I made a big push to translate many of the German language articles on Primates to English (via various online translation tools). I've only done 700 or so edits in the past 30 days, according to my "user contributions" list. I suppose knowing that the 1800 number was wrong says more about me than the fact that I editted 1800 during some 30 day period. Any of these numbers are misleading, though, as they only say that I made some kind of edit; it doesn't differentiate whether the edit was a significant contribution, a minor correction in an article I have on my watch list, or a reversion of vandalism. A significant portion of my edits are either adding or (more typically) removing a "category" tag, or making some other minor edit that is general not very significant to the article itself. "Category" tags are a relatively recent feture to MediaWiki. Some users have gone way overboard with their use, while a number of us have a more moderate approach, structuring the categories into subcategories, eliminating the need to have several dozen categories on a single article. > - You're also one of the most active overall, and I guess I'm curious > you think what being so involved in editing Wikipedia articles says > about you. For one thing, I care a great deal about the Wikipedia project itself. In many ways it represents the best of the possibilities in the post-hacker-manifesto world. I'd guess that a number of Wikipedians grew up after or came of age around the time of the hacker manifesto, and the concept of "freedom to do as we please" has finally begun its maturation to "responsible to do what we need". That responsibility means doing what we can, given ones interests and energy. For me, that means being active in the creation and management of some kinds of articles, and being responsible for various other aspects of the general improvement of the entire project. > - What's it like to be fairly close to the top of the list of most > prolific Wikipedians? I'm rather proud of my placement in the list. I'd actually thought I was much further down the list, both in overall and the monthly statistics. However, I know some of the folks I expected to be above me in the listings have moved on to more beaureaucratic roles, something very needed as Wikipedia grows. > - Your profile says you like to fix things, such as out of order books > in bookstores or articles in Wikipedia that need fixing. Where does > that come from? How long has that been an attribute of your > personality? In part it's out of frustration trying to find a book (or whatever) that I'm looking for. I worked in a library when I was in high school, and then again to help pay for college, so I'm sure that has had an influence on my books-out-of-order frustrations. But also, I can't understand why people would take a book off the shelf to see if they like it, and then put it back in the wrong place. It seems simple enough to me to put it back in the right place. > - You also have a fairly broad cross-section of interests, at least as > revealed by your profile. What would you say are the two or three > topics you most frequently are working on in Wikipedia? As far as new article creation and growth, I'd have to say my interests lie primarily in primates and cephalopods. I've spent a good deal of time researching primates and cephalopods for Wikipedia, including buying a number of books that are geared more towards college degree programs than as encyclopedia source material. I've also recently gotten involved in working on NYC subway related articles. > - Clearly, Wikipedia has given you a forum for helping to ensure that > things are the way you would like them to be. But what would you do if > Wikipedia went away? I'd find other hobbies that I enjoy. And Wikipedia isn't the only hobby I have now anyway. I enjoy hiking through the many parks and forests near where I live, I enjoy going into the city for museums and shows, and I have an active religious life, too. > On Mar 4, 2005, at 5:20 PM, Stacey Greenstein wrote: > > > Yes, I can do that. > > > > > > On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 17:07:19 -0800, Daniel Terdiman > > wrote: > >> Hi...If I sent you some email questions, would you have time to answer > >> them this evening? Only because my story is due Monday. > >> > >> Thanks, > >> Daniel > >> On Mar 4, 2005, at 5:05 PM, Stacey Greenstein wrote: > >> > >>> Very cool! Unfortunately your email to me was delayed and I've just > >>> now received it. I'll be out of town tomorrow so I won't be around > >>> for > >>> an interview, but I'd love to chat with you sometime next week. > >>> > >>> Stacey Greenstein > >>> AIM: UtherSRG > >>> Yahoo: stacey_hare > >>> > >>> > >>> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 19:49:41 GMT, WiredGuy > >>> wrote: > >>>> Hi, there... > >>>> > >>>> My name is Daniel Terdiman. I'm a reporter with Wired News > >>>> (wired.com). > >>>> > >>>> I'm doing a story that will present a series of small profiles of > >>>> Wikipedia's top posters. So, I thought it would be interesting to > >>>> talk to you for the story. > >>>> > >>>> I wonder if you might have any time to talk or answer some email > >>>> questions sometime today or tomorrow? > >>>> > >>>> Thanks a lot. > >>>> > >>>> Daniel Terdiman > >>>> Wired News > >>>> daniel.terdiman at earthlink.net > >>>> 415.647.7166 > >>>> AIM: Daniel Terdiman > >>>> > >>> > >> > >> > > > > From wikimb at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 05:02:18 2005 From: wikimb at gmail.com (Michael Becker) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 00:02:18 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Message-ID: <42293D5A.908@gmail.com> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 21:34:25 -0600, Richard Holton wrote: > But the community is essential to the encyclopedia. Right this was my main point with that statement. This project would not exist without the community period. To keep the community heathly, rules have been impossed, such as the 3RR. Those who can not follow the community rules, don't really belong here. Those who break wikiettique, who offend others and scare off innocent contributors are often no better than the trolls they claim they are fighting. IMO, it should not matter one bit who they are in real life, or what qualifications they say/think they have for writing an encyclopedia. These people who blatently and repeatedly break our rules should NEVER be administrators. It also is questionable weather they should be allowed to edit wikipedia at all, or if we should ban them like the other trolls (which are often banned for less). -- Michael Becker From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 5 07:52:58 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:52:58 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace5050304093554e55f8b@mail.gmail.com> References: <030420050913.14274.422826C200074E79000037C222007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <001d01c5209a$decb3940$6b01a8c0@one> <550ccb8205030401332855a02d@mail.gmail.com> <2ea1ace5050304093554e55f8b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4229655A.5040001@telus.net> Stephen Forrest wrote: >On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 20:33:51 +1100, Skyring wrote: > > >>The two terms are not exclusive. Australia has a republican form of >>government where sovereignty resides in the people and executive power >>is given to and exercised by elected and appointed officers, Howver, >>the Queen has a highly visible symbolic role and has some remnant >>functions, chief of which is the formal appointment of the >>Governor-General. >> >> >I think that describing Australia in its present state as a 'republic' >would be highly confusing. > It's a bit like the difference between "de facto" and "de jure". Law and the way things are done are often quite different. >Australia and Canada (with which I'm more familiar) are constitutional >monarchies. They are not republics, at least not under any definition >of the term which would be commonly accepted here in Canada. The >movement in Canada to remove the queen and install a citizen as head >of state is called 'republicanism' (see e.g. [[Canadian >republicanism]]). I don't imagine things are too much different in >Australia. > Canada, unlike Australia, India and South Africa, has not taken taken steps to become a republic. Not being a republic does help to distinguish us from the Yanks even if it does mean putting up with the vestiges of a mediaeval European form of govenment. Even in Quebec where they have even less use for the Queen than the rest of us, I can't see any groundswell of republicanism. And Lizzie is not about to step in and make a fuss about it. Occasionally, some republican individuals will grumble about the apparance that Canada is not independent, and the old crones having afternoon high tea at the Empress Hotel will feel properly offended, but for most of us the fact that we have a "Queen of Canada" is perfectly ignorable, and the statement comes with an appropriate giggle. >All that said, I think this sort of technical discussion should >probably not be happening on the list. > I prefer to treat the subject as an expression of humour rather than a technical discussion. Ec From skyring at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 08:16:30 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:16:30 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 23:24:14 -0500, Stacey Greenstein wrote: > Daniel, Here are my answers. Do you mind if I forward this to the Wiki > email list? > > Stacey I'll bet he LOVED you. Great responses, and let's hope the article attracts more editors like you. -- Pete, wishing that a gold star or something could be awarded. From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sat Mar 5 09:26:12 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 09:26:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suitable topics for the family-friendly version of Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb0503041512b5f1003@mail.gmail.com> References: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb0503041512b5f1003@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Theresa Knott wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:03:31 +0000, Pete/Pcb21 > wrote: > >>David Gerard wrote: > > >>Ermm, it seems to me like the livejournalers (I only read the first few, >>admitedly) didn't actually understand the subtlety (such as it is) of >>Bell Canada's advert? > > > Well. it's late, and i'm feeling tired and stupid, so please spell it > out for me because I didn't understand the subtlety myself. > > Theresa Isn't Bell Canada saying that censoring a medical poster of the human body would be a ridiculous extreme? From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sat Mar 5 09:29:55 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 09:29:55 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet><986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com><986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com><986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> I have been interviewed, also. I look forward to the article, if only because my answers to related questions were very different. It'll be interesting to see what he makes of it all. Charles From mintywalker at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 10:21:39 2005 From: mintywalker at gmail.com (Minty) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:21:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: it's not this is it? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html authored by a daniel, but different surname. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sat Mar 5 10:38:18 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:38:18 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet><986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com><986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com><986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com><550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com><001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <000801c5216f$7321ab40$9e7c0450@Galasien> > authored by a daniel, but different surname. No - Daniel Terdiman has written a few web articles on WP already. Charles From andrew.lih at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 11:34:31 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:34:31 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: <000801c5216f$7321ab40$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417053a6f3ba2@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <000801c5216f$7321ab40$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050305033477e84a7e@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:38:18 -0000, Charles Matthews wrote: > > No - Daniel Terdiman has written a few web articles on WP already. Right. Daniel Terdiman is a Wired News reporter, not of Wired Magazine. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From dpbsmith at verizon.net Sat Mar 5 12:38:29 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:38:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The 3RR made Ennis do it? In-Reply-To: <20050305035321.E0CE01AC1876@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050305035321.E0CE01AC1876@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <0841161adc6352fc947caf18bde1a269@verizon.net> > From: "Arno M" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] 3RR: Pluses vs Minuses > > Check out the edit history of the Sollog article, particularly > around Dec 27 2004, where a mother of all edit wars took place in spite > of, and possibly even because of, the 3RR rule. > > This now seems to have consequently bought about that Sollog site that > I mentioned earlier. > Arno You can't be serious. The edit war, Mr. Ennis' (SOLLOG)'s fury, and the wikipediasucks site were caused by a belief on the part of Mr. Ennis (SOLLOG) that he could use Wikipedia as a free publicity vehicle, and that he should be allowed to control the content of a Wikipedia article. The intensity of the edit war simply reflects the combativeness of Mr. Ennis. _Any_ reasonably neutral article, achieved by _whatever_ means, would have infuriated him. As the long-time operator of a number of websites, he retaliated in a natural way. Do you really believe that we could have achieved a reasonably neutral article without the use of blocks? What indicates to you that his anger was provoked by the procedures and process by which he was blocked, rather than by the blocks themselves? -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ From christiaan at last-straw.net Sat Mar 5 14:43:10 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 14:43:10 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR applied to both parties? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050302213556.E2C7D1AC02DC@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050303004207.23413.qmail@web53302.mail.yahoo.com> <3734.192.168.0.9.1109814735.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422715F2.7030200@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030319287f244316@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030319562b73b5a9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <237febb10e50f98ba6e1b493f5618435@last-straw.net> Adam Carr was being abusive and clearly violated the 3RR rule. He is, from my experience, one of the most abusive editors I have come across on Wikipedia. Skyring was consistent in offering sources and logic for his edits, and in refraining from retaliating to Adam's provocative abuse. It doesn't matter in the slightest that Adam purports not to like seeing "people blocked for 3RR, even when he disagrees with them." Apart from the fact that he was trying to cover his own ass this is not the preference of the Wikipedia community. Skyring was correct to report him and to imply that doing so was some kind of backstab is to intimidate. Christiaan On 4 Mar 2005, at 3:56 am, wrote: > You were also reverting, that's why, and Adam did warn you, I believe, > that you had violated, or were about to violate, 3RR. He also said > that he wouldn't report it, and if you did get blocked, he'd object on > your behalf, because he doesn't like to see people blocked for 3RR, > even when he disagrees with them. Shortly after he said that to you, > you went and reported him. > > Sarah > > > On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:28:35 +1100, Skyring wrote: >> I'm puzzled. I made a 3RR report when the other guy made 4 reverts in >> 24 hours. He'd stopped talking and had become abusive so I pulled the >> trigger, having refrained from undoing his 4th revert. Yet I've been >> blocked for a 3RR breach. How is this so? >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/ >> 3RR#User:Adam_Carr >> >> Pete (Skyring) From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 5 15:10:33 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:10:33 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005030417081a914c8f@mail.gmail.com> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> <4228F4CE.6000209@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030417081a914c8f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3049.192.168.0.9.1110035433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Matt Brown said: > > I am much in favor of your suggestion that nominations at VfD that do > not reference a reason listed in the deletion policy should be removed > forthwith. Doesn't seem too unreasonable. However I conceive of deletion policy as being more than just the words in the policy document. In practise there are occasions when there is consensus to delete but nobody can agree what item of deletion policy applies. This isn't a mistake--people can genuinely hold different opinions on whether a given item qualifies. I see VfD, in this conception, as a kind of ad hoc court system. A beauty contest, if you like. It's not ideal, but items that don't easily fit into the written deletion policy are generally harder to get consensus to delete, so it does work reasonably well most of the time. I think the flexibility is good. From brian1954 at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 15:44:31 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:44:31 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <3049.192.168.0.9.1110035433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <4228A51A.5090409@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030415414d253ee9@mail.gmail.com> <4228F4CE.6000209@thingy.apana.org.au> <42f90dc005030417081a914c8f@mail.gmail.com> <3049.192.168.0.9.1110035433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <547b297e050305074431aa695e@mail.gmail.com> I agree with Tony. Some of the categories within the deletion policy, such as "no potential to become encyclopedic" or "idiosyncratic non-topic" are quite generic, and while "What Wikipedia is not" spells out further where consensus has been reached concerning types of articles that are not "encyclopedic", etc, policy will never exhaustively ennumerate all the categories of non-encyclopedic articles that might be added to the encylopedia and which there will be a consensus to delete. It is a good thing that the policies include generic, umbrella, grounds for deletion and that the precise significance of these is decided on a case-by-case basis through consensus. For example, if I add an article about Engine #1 of my local town's volunteer fire department, it would be verifiable (etc), since the engine is mentioned on the town's web site. One will not find in the deletion policy, or in "What Wikipedia is not" that articles about specific fire engines are ruled out. However, there would most likely be a consensus that such an article would not be a suitable subject for an encyclopedia article, and that it would at most merit a mention in the article about the town. (Unless it was an unusually famous fire engine for some reason.) It should not require consensus for an amendment to the policies listing before the article can be listed on VfD and consensus expressed to remove it. On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:10:33 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > Matt Brown said: > > > > I am much in favor of your suggestion that nominations at VfD that do > > not reference a reason listed in the deletion policy should be removed > > forthwith. > > Doesn't seem too unreasonable. However I conceive of deletion policy as > being more than just the words in the policy document. In practise there > are occasions when there is consensus to delete but nobody can agree what > item of deletion policy applies. This isn't a mistake--people can > genuinely hold different opinions on whether a given item qualifies. I > see VfD, in this conception, as a kind of ad hoc court system. A beauty > contest, if you like. It's not ideal, but items that don't easily fit into > the written deletion policy are generally harder to get consensus to > delete, so it does work reasonably well most of the time. > I think the flexibility is good. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dgerard at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 15:55:55 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 15:55:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <030520050326.27665.422926CE00039AB700006C1122007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030520050326.27665.422926CE00039AB700006C1122007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4229D68B.7040501@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing >>a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so. > What's hard, it that applying policy to to a factual situation is "original > research". If we can't apply definitions of words, or count for ourselves, > perhaps we get out of the habit of reasoning. Er, I can make no sense of your response in terms of the discussion. Could you please clarify? Where TF does 'original research' come into VFD policy? - d. From abesokolov at hotmail.com Sat Mar 5 20:27:29 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 20:27:29 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Stange fetishes Message-ID: Michael Becker wikimb at gmail.com wrote: "Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second." I'm certain that Michael has the means mixed up with the ends. Just consider the role of the person who established Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. Was his goal to create a social club? Based on what I know about him, I doubt it. I've only interacted with him by email a handful of times; but apart from finding out that he's a nice guy, which has always been my impression, from what I've been stumbling across in the media, I've also been learning that he's both a good businessman and a probing scholar. Such an individual, I suspect, is interested in making an investment in building Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, not a social club. Note the thousands of dollars he has poured into the project, and all the time he has invested, which likely translates into an investment worth many **millions** of dollars, considering the opportunity costs-- all the profitable ventures that he could have been engaged in instead of investing so much time and energy in Wikipedia. If he'd wanted to start a social club, he probably would've made his investments much more wisely. Instead of starting Wikipedia, he could have (say) patronized some sort of recreational, musical, or sports group. That would have required the investment of far fewer resources, and probably would've paid off far more in terms of building connections and positive media coverage related to his work in other areas. He probably did not chose to build a social club because he has another, more lofty end in mind: revolutionizing the distribution of knowledge online through an open source, free project. For those who believe that Wikipedia ought to be a social club first and an encyclopedia second, perhaps they should find other outlets for socialization that are actually fun (and good for making connections). Seeing how young Wikipedia's contributors tend to be http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_by_age, perhaps many of them should join fraternities... Don't take this as condescension, just a friendly suggestion of something to consider. After all, girls and drinking would've interested me far more than editing encyclopedia articles when I was their age. BTW, I don't mean to pigeonhold all young editors. Some are indeed very well suited for the project, such Ben (Neutrality), Charles (Mirv), and Jiang (his real name I don't know or recall)-- among the most, if not the most, extremely knowledgeable and prolific young writers working for the site. (They are far weightier thinkers than I was at their age; and they will likely have gone much further than I have when they are my age.) I urge the readers of the mailing list not to lose sight of the fact that their goal is to write an encyclopedia, not wining plaudits and status in the eyes of fellow users for their role in Wikipedia's social hierarchy... Wikipedia has thousands of important articles left as stubs or left in disarray. The users who've actually donated countless hours out of their own time to correct this problem, such as Steve Rubenstein, Jtdirl, and Adam Carr (all of whom have violated the 3RR at least once) are correcting this problem. They are far more important to the project than the users who hardly ever edit the main namespace but rather preach/rant about 3RR violations on IRC/mailing list or write 'newspaper' articles about arbcom cases. Like the entrepreneur or the worker in the marketplace, they are the productive elements of Wikipedia. The productive elements are not self-proclaimed guardians of the rules, who are as productive as (say) rent-seeking lords in pre-capitalist Europe or these days rent-seeking corrupt bureaucrats in governments everywhere. (BTW, this isn't to say that some users who make policy don't strike a proper balance between editing and policy discussions. Mav, Ambi, Neutrality, Danny, Raul, Ray, among others, certainly do. Hence they are the ones capable of making good policies.) While I no longer have an interest in writing for Wikipedia, I will remain an active reader with a strong curiosity in following the growth and development of the project. I sincerely hope that it is a success, hence the motive behind this plea. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 5 21:06:32 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 13:06:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050305210632.58621.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Michael Becker wrote: > Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second. This is 100% exactly wrong. Our wiki/openness and community aspects are means to an end (creating the largest and best encyclopedia in the world), *NOT* ends in themselves or even our primary purpose. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From lauri.love at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 21:12:41 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:12:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: If I may throw my two fundamental units of an arbitrary currency into the discussion. On rules vs. good ideas: The problem with rules, and hence the resitance of many wikipedian's to their enaction, is that they are inflexible, absolute, cannot be written with all circumstances in mind, and very often outgrow their intended purpose and assume a life of their own. A good idea, however, can be changed, it can develop and it needn't be applied concretely regardless of context. The recognition of this problem in Wiki communities is evident with the original "Ignore all rules" dictum, and is perhaps best expressed in Chuck Yeager's aphorism "Rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own". For people to be positive contributors to the wikipedia, beyond a very small scope, they must be willing and able to moderate their own behaviour, to understand wikiquette and its implications, to be able to assess their and others' actions objectively and rationally, and to put themselves into a neutral mindset when disputes arise. Rules erode this responsibility. If there are rules that are used without contextual interpretation to dictate what behaviour is acceptable, and what isn't, people will not put so much consideration into enforcing their own codes and principles of editing. That is not to say that rules and virtues cannot co-exist, but only that for a large number of people, the presence of the former seems to invalidate the need for the latter. A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in the face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's editing/dispute-resolution procedures. So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly. Anyhow, just bouncing ideas about. Yours in liberty, -nsh From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 5 21:22:27 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:22:27 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: References: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3639.192.168.0.9.1110057747.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> nsh said: > > A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a > very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in the > face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page > thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's > editing/dispute-resolution procedures. > > So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration > for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and > a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not > view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly. Those two paragraphs seem to be mutually contradictory. Surely if three reverts is a sign that there is something wrong (a sentiment with which I strongly agree) we don't want to just regard 3RR as "a good idea, an inspiration." It should be taken as what it is: a sign that we're doing something seriously wrong. We shouldn't, therefore, be too surprised if someone comes along and gives us 24 hours off the task of editing, during which we can reconsider our editing style. From lauri.love at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 21:43:09 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:43:09 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <3639.192.168.0.9.1110057747.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> <3639.192.168.0.9.1110057747.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:22:27 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > nsh said: > > > > A good wikipedian, whose name I forget, explained to 3RR to me in a > > very useful way, explaining that it is best to be seen as a slap in the > > face because if one has to resort to reverting the same page > > thrice in one day, there is something wrong with one's > > editing/dispute-resolution procedures. > > > > So why don't we start viewing the 3RR as a good idea, an inspiration > > for finding better ways to overcome dispute and achieve consensus, and > > a tool to let people know when they need to introspect. But let us not > > view is as a commandment, set in stone, to be applied rigidly. > > Those two paragraphs seem to be mutually contradictory. Surely if three > reverts is a sign that there is something wrong (a sentiment with which I > strongly agree) we don't want to just regard 3RR as "a good idea, an > inspiration." It should be taken as what it is: a sign that we're doing > something seriously wrong. > We shouldn't, therefore, be too surprised if someone comes along and gives > us 24 hours off the task of editing, during which we can reconsider our > editing style. My phrasing rarely leaves nothing to be desired :-) I do agree that in many cases a temporary block is necessary to help provoke the introspection that I mentioned, however this does not mean that it is always needed, or more importantly that the block achieves anything in or of itself. It ought always be accompanied with an explaination that there are better ways to solve disputes, preferably with some pointers as to how the person in question could go about learning or practising these improved methods. My only fear is that all too often those 24 hours will not be spent trying to improve one's understanding of Wikipedia and the Wiki way, but in the development of fuming resentment which aids no-one and nothing. Is this entirely the fault of the person implimenting the block? No. But neither would it be entriely the fault of the person who is blocked if they are not afforded an opportunity to understand why such action has been taken away from them or if such action is taken prematurely. Hope this clarifies my nsh-waffle. Yours, &c -nsh From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 5 21:57:04 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: References: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> <3639.192.168.0.9.1110057747.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <3774.192.168.0.9.1110059824.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> nsh said: > > My phrasing rarely leaves nothing to be desired :-) I do agree that in > many cases a temporary block is necessary to help provoke the > introspection that I mentioned, however this does not mean that it is > always needed, or more importantly that the block achieves anything in > or of itself. It ought always be accompanied with an explaination that > there are better ways to solve disputes, preferably with some pointers > as to how the person in question could go about learning or practising > these improved methods. I think we're in agreement, really. > > My only fear is that all too often those 24 hours will not be spent > trying to improve one's understanding of Wikipedia and the Wiki way, > but in the development of fuming resentment which aids no-one and > nothing. Is this entirely the fault of the person implimenting the > block? No. But neither would it be entriely the fault of the person who > is blocked if they are not afforded an opportunity to understand why > such action has been taken away from them or if such action is taken > prematurely. > It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome. It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]]. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 5 21:58:39 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:58:39 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia In-Reply-To: <9a878c4405030513461a25fcdd@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050304011519.B5DAE1AC1893@mail.wikimedia.org> <50977.168.103.206.47.1110050869.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> <3433.192.168.0.9.1110054461.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <9a878c4405030513461a25fcdd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3777.192.168.0.9.1110059919.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Tomer Chachamu said: > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway > wrote: >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) >> > Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes) >> >> This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action. > > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should > be removed. Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs. From christiaan at last-straw.net Sat Mar 5 22:03:57 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:03:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Orphan Works (copyright) Message-ID: <4fae555f92b3915bcf53e88173146f56@last-straw.net> A website I'm sure you will all be interested in: http://www.orphanworks.org/ Pass it on, BEFORE the 25th of March! ?Christiaan From lauri.love at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 22:07:43 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:07:43 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes In-Reply-To: <3774.192.168.0.9.1110059824.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050304180001.91344.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> <3639.192.168.0.9.1110057747.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <3774.192.168.0.9.1110059824.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome. > It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]]. Indeed. There is so much to be achieved through dialectic and consensus, and nothing at all to be achieved through violence. And though it may debase the meaning of violence to apply it digitally, a revert was _is_ analogous a physical controntation when words have failed. Let us import knowledge from the real world, not stupidity. :-) -nsh From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 5 22:20:01 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 14:20:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Why do all of my SAVEs result in ERROR messages? Message-ID: <20050305222001.12618.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> It was happening last night when I went to bed, and it's still happening this afternoon. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 5 22:24:31 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 14:24:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] (no subject) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050305222431.28709.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> "Google's Wikipedia feature"? RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Sat Mar 5 22:35:10 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:35:10 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper. I think the ArbComm has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority? Andy on 3/3/05 10:47 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: > I think that is generally true, however I think we are right to look at the > general pattern of the user's behavior. For example if one person is > complaining about personal attacks we ought to take into consideration > whether the user is making a lot of personal attacks against a lot of users. > Another area that I think can be taken into consideration is actions that > are taken during arbitration either towards the arbitrators or that affect > the arbitration, deleting evidence or moving it all around. > > Fred > >> From: AndyL >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:16:38 -0500 >> To: English Wikipedia >> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? >> >> My feeling is that it is not the place of the Arbcomm to effectively file a >> countersuit. If the respondent to a complaint, or anyone else, has a >> grievance against the complainant than let them file their own Request for >> Arbitration. The "terms of reference" if you like should be set in the RFA, >> if the arbitrators don't like them then they shouldn't sign on to the >> arbitration and if not enough arbitrators agree with the terms the >> arbitration will not get off the ground. It is quite inappropriate, I think, >> for the arbitrators to unilaterally expand the terms of reference to include >> issues not brought up in the initial request. >> >> on 3/3/05 9:45 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: >> >>> The reason I didn't recuse myself is because I am not prejudiced for or >>> against you. I may have errored by examining issues that were outside the >>> scope of the arbitration. >>> >>> Fred > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From lauri.love at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 22:37:14 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:37:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <4229D68B.7040501@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <030520050326.27665.422926CE00039AB700006C1122007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <4229D68B.7040501@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: A consideration of the proposal and my understanding of its (counter-)arguments: I believe that the idea behind having nominations for deletion specify what principle of deletion policy they invoke is not that the process of deletion may become automatic, but rather that all articles are held to the same standard, regardless of how many people care about them, their nature, or who gives the most sparkling advocacy. If nominations were to cite a consensus approved principle for exclusion, then the standards for Wikipedia inclusion would develop through the deletion policy in a way that is more visible, more just (that is, in not favouring the popular over the minority) and more accepted. It is always best that the people who frequent VfD (and many no longer do, because of its failings or the tension of its atmosphere) decide but facts, which can be objectively agreed to, rather than have them set precidents based on opinions or beliefs as to what material ought or oughtn't be in Wikipedia. While perhaps this will only steer the dispute at to what constitutes encyclopedic to another venue, it will ensure that precident is only set in a transparent manner and with consensus. Yours in Liberty, -nsh From rhobite at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 22:38:49 2005 From: rhobite at gmail.com (Rhobite) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 17:38:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia In-Reply-To: <3777.192.168.0.9.1110059919.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050304011519.B5DAE1AC1893@mail.wikimedia.org> <50977.168.103.206.47.1110050869.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> <3433.192.168.0.9.1110054461.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <9a878c4405030513461a25fcdd@mail.gmail.com> <3777.192.168.0.9.1110059919.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:58:39 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > Tomer Chachamu said: > > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway > > wrote: > >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) > >> > Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes) > >> > >> This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action. > > > > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority > > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should > > be removed. > > Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we > continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs. How is that fair? Consensus works when one choice is safe or conservative, such as keeping an article on VfD. This is a simple yes/no decision, so consensus doesn't apply here. Neither choice should be unfairly weighted in the voting. The community feels that external links should not have ref="nofollow". If a higher burden is required, it should be placed on those who approve of nofollow links, since it's a recent change. Don't place the burden on people who just want to go back to the way it's worked for years. From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Sat Mar 5 22:42:09 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:42:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Has 172 been "resysopped" in the absence of either an arbcomm or some other community decision to "desyssop" him? Andy on 3/1/05 11:59 PM, Anthere at anthere9 at yahoo.com wrote: > > > csherlock at ljh.com.au a ?crit: >> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >> >>> I de-sysoped 172, as he seems to have managed to start Wikipedia's first >>> Blocking War. The problem is, I haphazardly blocked 3 other admins too, >>> and one of them's mad at me. >>> >>> I wish Snowspinner had e-mailed me or met me in talk first; he's put in >>> a RFA instead. Well, I can't say I didn't deserve it. >>> It all has to do with the 3RR, sock-puppets and global warming. Any two >>> of which is enough to push people's buttons in Our Town. >>> >>> Or is it Peyton Place? >>> >>> Ed Poor >> >> >> Out of interest, was their an RFC filed on this administrator before >> this action was carried out? Shouldn't there be a more transparent and >> formal process in place when it comes to desysoping admins? >> >> TBSDY > > There is a clear process to desysop people; It is (ahum) on > *technically* possible to developers and stewards. > > Developers can do it in case of urgency. > But normally it is done by stewards. > The current stewards are > > * Andre Engels (en, nl, de, fr, nds, ...) > * Angela (en) > * Anthere (fr, en) > * ArnoLagrange (fr, eo, en, es, it, de, ...) > * Daniel Mayer (en, es) > * Fantasy (en, de, it, fr, es) > * Karl Wick (en, es) > * Looxix (fr, en, nl) > > Stewards can set or remove status from anyone, on any projects. The > transparency is ensured through the bureaucrat log on meta. Requests for > status are also made on meta, publicly : > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions > > Stewards are not supposed to desysoped anyone just because they feel > like it; They do it after community agreement, and there is a sorta rule > that a steward avoid doing so in his own language project (for example, > Fantazy avoids desysoping people on german, and Mav would avoids on > en... when it is a community decision, not a personal request...). > > We desysoped a couple of people in the past year. Some on en, a serious > lot on de, very recently on ja. And a good bunch of tired wikipedians in > need of a break. > > In short, except for urgency, no desysoping should take place on the > english wikipedia without first arbcom decision. > > Ed was able to do it essentially because he still had the developer > flag. But he was not really supposed to do so. > > The flag is now removed - not as a punishment - as it is not me to judge > whether there was indeed urgency. > But as a technical clean-up, as Ed is now not a developer any more. > > I might add that Uncle Ed had held that role for a long time before > stewards were elected : running sql queries to make people sysop or > remove this status. So, I really do not hold grunge against him. All > this is rather a mistake from us. > > Anthere > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From christiaan at last-straw.net Sat Mar 5 22:46:58 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:46:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Orphan Works (copyright) Message-ID: <21112d5612aa6b9fa44f43d02ca3d7ea@last-straw.net> A website I'm sure you will all be interested in: http://www.orphanworks.org/ Pass it on, BEFORE the 25th of March! ?Christiaan From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 5 22:50:22 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 22:50:22 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <20050304011519.B5DAE1AC1893@mail.wikimedia.org> <50977.168.103.206.47.1110050869.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> <3433.192.168.0.9.1110054461.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <9a878c4405030513461a25fcdd@mail.gmail.com> <3777.192.168.0.9.1110059919.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <3958.192.168.0.9.1110063022.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Rhobite said: > Consensus works when one choice is safe or > conservative, such as keeping an article on VfD. As far as I am aware conservativism is not the sole basis on which we currently make decisions on en.Wikipedia. All editing decisions are decided by consensus, for instance, whether to keep or change, where obviously the most conservative choice would be to change. I'm swayed by David's argument, however. Apparently the software was not always configured in this way, but was recently changed unilaterally by the developers. The vote should have been cast as a ratification of this change, in which case the ratification clearly failed and the change should be reversed. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 5 22:54:32 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 14:54:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050305225432.34052.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> > Actuakky what David was saying is if it's vandalism, > just protecy the > page already, or block the vandal. Problem solved. > > There is _never_ any need for a legit user to break > the 3RR > > Theresa Well, I hope that the person who has been reverting isn't the person who does the protecting. That's not acceptable under policy. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From dgerard at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 22:58:47 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 22:58:47 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <030520050326.27665.422926CE00039AB700006C1122007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <4229D68B.7040501@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422A39A7.3000206@thingy.apana.org.au> Lauri Love (nsh) wrote: > While perhaps this will only steer the dispute at to what constitutes > encyclopedic to another venue, it will ensure that precident is only > set in a transparent manner and with consensus. And that would be a marvellous change. It's not like we're about to run out of paper. (I should note here that although most of my VFD votes are to keep stuff, almost all of what ends up there is indeed the rankest and most deletable rubbish imaginable.) - d. From theresaknott at gmail.com Sat Mar 5 23:10:35 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:10:35 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 172 de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: <4225484D.2000703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0503051510b5c8831@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:42:09 -0500, AndyL wrote: > Has 172 been "resysopped" in the absence of either an arbcomm or some other > community decision to "desyssop" him? Yep Ed did it himself. Theresa From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 5 23:28:02 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:28:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Matt Brown wrote: > David Gerard wrote: > > So is the so-called deletion policy purely > decorative, and in fact > > something that should itself be deleted to avoid > confusion? > > > > 'Cos what I'm saying is to just enforce the policy > that's already > > there, and is referred to both at beginning and > end of VFD as being > > a thing to follow, in the hope of making VFD > somewhat smaller so > > that it may be more humanly manageable. > > > > I really don't see what's so hard about actually > putting a reason bearing > > a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD > explicitly says to do so. > > To clarify, I was responding to Pete/Pcb21's > suggestion that was, > basically, "Why use VFD at all, we should just > decide what should be > speedy deleted and use that." > > I am much in favor of your suggestion that > nominations at VfD that do > not reference a reason listed in the deletion policy > should be removed > forthwith. > > -Matt (User:Morven) But that's not what's being proposed here. What's being proposed is, if anybody coming into the discussion thinks that the reason for the listing isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD page. Why not just let it run its course, and vote Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd lose the vote. ~~~~ __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From wikipedia at decumanus.com Sat Mar 5 23:54:07 2005 From: wikipedia at decumanus.com (Matthew Trump) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 18:54:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia In-Reply-To: <20050305223717.71E2F1AC194F@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050305223717.71E2F1AC194F@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <52329.168.103.206.47.1110066847.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: > Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I completely agree with you. Consensus is entirely needed on such important policy issues. That is exactly why nofollow should be removed, following the debate and vote that was held. Implementing nofollow was a big change in how wikipedia interacts with the outside world and it was implemented in January without any debate whatsoever, let alone consensus. The debate and vote on en.wikipedia over this essentially endorsed the status quo prior to the unilateral change. The vote was the first time the community had been asked regarding the new implementation. In the future, such software features "delay action" may be possible, to allow editors to remove spamlinks. The issue at hand, however, is how to proceed in the meantime. There was clearly no consensus to change the policy of wikipedia that had existed for four years prior to the unilateral change. On the contrary, the implementation of "no follow" was supported by only a minority of users (39%) who voted. From lauri.love at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 00:09:47 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 00:09:47 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:28:02 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > But that's not what's being proposed here. What's > being proposed is, if anybody coming into the > discussion thinks that the reason for the listing > isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD > page. Why not just let it run its course, and vote > Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd > lose the vote. ~~~~ I don't think that whether we have an article on a subject or not should be decided by popularity contestmere majority/plurality voting. Should there not be visible and comprehensible principles that decide what is encyclopedic and what isn't? I don't think anyone (at least with any support) is proposing that people everyone should get a VfD veto, which is what your post implied, but rather that we don't let adding to the VfD page be something that can be done on a whim. If popularity was any measure, we'd have a million articles on celebrity trivia (_not a bad thing in itself_) and no articles in obscure areas of mathematics, or history. -nsh From geniice at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 00:20:34 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 00:20:34 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I don't think that whether we have an article on a subject or not > should be decided by popularity contestmere majority/plurality > voting. Should there not be visible and comprehensible principles that > decide what is encyclopedic and what isn't? I don't think anyone (at > least with any support) is proposing that people everyone should get a > VfD veto, which is what your post implied, but rather that we don't > let adding to the VfD page be something that can be done on a whim. If > popularity was any measure, we'd have a million articles on celebrity > trivia (_not a bad thing in itself_) and no articles in obscure areas > of mathematics, or history. > > -nsh What do you mean if? -- geni From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sun Mar 6 00:32:18 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:32:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Rick wrote: > But that's not what's being proposed here. What's > being proposed is, if anybody coming into the > discussion thinks that the reason for the listing > isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD > page. Why not just let it run its course, and vote > Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd > lose the vote. ~~~~ No, it's because they bored of having to re-establish long, long, long standing policy over and over and over again because of the way VfD currently works. Imagine you had to explain yourself everytime you used the revert button to undo edits against established policy. Pete From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 00:34:12 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:34:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306003412.66023.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Lauri Love (nsh)" wrote: > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:28:02 -0800 (PST), Rick > wrote: > > But that's not what's being proposed here. What's > > being proposed is, if anybody coming into the > > discussion thinks that the reason for the listing > > isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the > VfD > > page. Why not just let it run its course, and > vote > > Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid > they'd > > lose the vote. ~~~~ > > I don't think that whether we have an article on a > subject or not > should be decided by popularity contestmere > majority/plurality > voting. Should there not be visible and > comprehensible principles that > decide what is encyclopedic and what isn't? I don't > think anyone (at > least with any support) is proposing that people > everyone should get a > VfD veto, which is what your post implied, but > rather that we don't > let adding to the VfD page be something that can be > done on a whim. If > popularity was any measure, we'd have a million > articles on celebrity > trivia (_not a bad thing in itself_) and no articles > in obscure areas > of mathematics, or history. > > -nsh The proposal is that anybody can come along and remove a VfD listing if they disagree with the lister's reasons for listing. We have lots of people (SimonP for instance, who began all of this) who think that "non-encylopedic" or "non-notable" are not acceptable reasons for listing articles. But yet many, many, many of the articles on VfD are listed for those very reasons, and many, many, many of them pass consensus vote. This is an end-run by SimonP and the people who hold the opinions he holds, to set their, and only their, approval on VfD. I believe it was SimonP himself (forgive me if I'm wrong) who, in his position as sysop, was making personal opinions on whether or not articles which HAD consensus to be deleted, should remain in the encyclopedia solely because HE did not believe that the reason for listing was valid, even though there were sufficient votes for removing the article. Instead, he was deleting the completed votes without deleting the articles in question. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 00:36:31 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:36:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306003632.50955.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > Rick wrote: > > > But that's not what's being proposed here. What's > > being proposed is, if anybody coming into the > > discussion thinks that the reason for the listing > > isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the > VfD > > page. Why not just let it run its course, and > vote > > Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid > they'd > > lose the vote. ~~~~ > > No, it's because they bored of having to > re-establish long, long, long > standing policy over and over and over again because > of the way VfD > currently works. Imagine you had to explain yourself > everytime you used > the revert button to undo edits against established > policy. > > Pete ANYBODY who is reverting VfD edits should be blocked from editing. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 00:42:12 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:42:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050305232802.54417.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A51E4.3050708@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: > But that's not what's being proposed here. What's > being proposed is, if anybody coming into the > discussion thinks that the reason for the listing > isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD > page. Why not just let it run its course, and vote > Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd > lose the vote. ~~~~ No, I'm proposing it (not a strawman "radical inclusionist") because there's a shitload of nominations that have had *no listed rationale*. They're on the order of "I've never heard of it so it's not notable" - measuring the content of Wikipedia by their ignorance. They're nominations that, per the policy *shouldn't be there at all*, and make VFD unfeasibly long. Also, VFD isn't actually "votes" - it's an attempt to establish consensus. Pretty obviously, anyone deleting a nomination in the bogus manner you describe will be reverted in damn short order. I expect you will likely be the one doing so. - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 00:40:24 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:40:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306004024.89223.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > Pretty obviously, anyone deleting a nomination in > the bogus > manner you describe will be reverted in damn short > order. > I expect you will likely be the one doing so. > > > - d. Are you saying that I would be the one likely to revert somebody who deleted a VfD listing? Damn straight. And listing the editor on RfC. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 00:44:45 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:44:45 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306003412.66023.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306003412.66023.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A527D.40407@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: > This is an end-run by SimonP and the people who > hold the opinions he holds, to set their, and only > their, approval on VfD. I proposed this, and I have no idea who the hell this SimonP is. If you're going to condemn the proposer of this, please refer to something I've actually done or said. > I believe it was SimonP himself (forgive me if I'm > wrong) who, in his position as sysop, was making > personal opinions on whether or not articles which HAD > consensus to be deleted, should remain in the > encyclopedia solely because HE did not believe that > the reason for listing was valid, even though there > were sufficient votes for removing the article. > Instead, he was deleting the completed votes without > deleting the articles in question. Which is why the nominations that shouldn't have been there in the first place shouldn't have been run through the page. Is the [[Wikipedia:Deletion policy]] actually of any importance, or is it purely decorative? - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 00:50:02 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 00:50:02 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306004024.89223.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306004024.89223.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A53BA.1090409@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: > --- David Gerard wrote: >>Pretty obviously, anyone deleting a nomination in >>the bogus >>manner you describe will be reverted in damn short >>order. >>I expect you will likely be the one doing so. > Are you saying that I would be the one likely to > revert somebody who deleted a VfD listing? Damn > straight. And listing the editor on RfC. Precisely. If I spotted such a removal, I'd be doing the same thing. (I still don't see what's so damned hard about having to give a listed reason with one's nomination, JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF VFD. Can you please explain to me why that's even there if it's too hard?) - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 00:53:43 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:53:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306005343.3635.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > > (I still don't see what's so damned hard about > having to give a listed reason with one's > nomination, > JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF > VFD. > Can you please explain to me why that's even there > if > it's too hard?) > > > - d. But that's not what this proposal is asking for. It's asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason for listing. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 01:11:12 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 01:11:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306005343.3635.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306005343.3635.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A58B0.1010008@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: > --- David Gerard wrote: >>(I still don't see what's so damned hard about >>having to give a listed reason with one's >>nomination, >>JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF >>VFD. >>Can you please explain to me why that's even there >>if >>it's too hard?) > But that's not what this proposal is asking for. It's > asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the > person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason > for listing. OK, that is a possible loophole. How would you phrase it? - d. From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sun Mar 6 01:37:25 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 17:37:25 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306010717.E823C1AC199D@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050306010717.E823C1AC199D@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <422A5ED5.6070103@earthlink.net> David Gerard wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> But that's not what's being proposed here. What's >> being proposed is, if anybody coming into the >> discussion thinks that the reason for the listing >> isn't acceptable, they can just delete it from the VfD >> page. Why not just let it run its course, and vote >> Keep? Because radical inclusionists are afraid they'd >> lose the vote. ~~~~ > > No, I'm proposing it (not a strawman "radical inclusionist") > because there's a shitload of nominations that have had *no > listed rationale*. They're on the order of "I've never heard > of it so it's not notable" - measuring the content of > Wikipedia by their ignorance. They're nominations that, per > the policy *shouldn't be there at all*, and make VFD > unfeasibly long. If this is the problem, it seems to me that a good way to deal with the problem is to correct only the problem at hand. Somehow this discussion has morphed into a debate that seems to some people like it's a major overhaul of VfD practice, which is guaranteed to fire up another round of the classic inclusionist/deletionist flamewar. Quite simply, if articles are nominated for deletion with no justification at all, I think it's fine to remove them with no further inquiry. If the justification is shoddy, I would recommend asking for better reasons first, and then removing the listing later if they're not forthcoming. This shifts the responsibility for justifying deletion back where it belongs, and gives less appearance of short-circuiting the process. For people using "not notable" or "not encyclopedic" as bare-bones justifications, I would suggest that they retrain themselves to elaborate a little bit more. By themselves, these are meaningless shorthand for "should be deleted" - we know that already, that's why you came to the page. Point out that you put in a little bit of effort to be confident that it doesn't belong. "I've never heard of it and couldn't find any evidence that anyone else has, either" will go a lot farther than "I've never heard of it so it must not be notable". --Michael Snow From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sun Mar 6 03:12:23 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 19:12:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306005343.3635.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306005343.3635.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A7517.2090908@shaw.ca> Rick wrote: >But that's not what this proposal is asking for. It's >asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the >person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason >for listing. > > No, it's not. Take a look at the original proposal itself, posted 3/4/2005 10:12 AM: "Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in Wikipedia:Deletion policy may be summarily removed from the page." Only VfD listings that don't provide any reason reason for their existence would be covered by this, not VfD listings with reasons provided that someone happens to disagree with. This seems more of a change in formatting rules than it is a change in how the process of VfD itself works. From abesokolov at hotmail.com Sun Mar 6 02:42:57 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: Michael Snow wikipedia at earthlink.net : "On the other hand, if 172 wants to deny any significance to the name he has chosen and give us no personal information, then we have no evidence to back up his claims to expertise and might as well disregard them." I agree wholeheartedly. This is case with every other editor who choses to contribute to Wikipedia anonymously. In case it wasn't clear earlier, I'd never asked to be afforded any special status based on my work outside Wikipedia. I made this clear a few months ago. After I'd initiated the Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards page, I used that new forum to propose a system for editorial arbitration. I then declared that as an anonymous editor, I would be unqualified to serve on such a pannel. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Forum_for_Encyclopedic_Standards_%28archive2%29#Editorial_arbitration Some users, such as Adam Carr, took note of this observation: "I commend [172's] acknowledgement that he, as an anonymous editor, should not be a member of such a group.") I'd like to use the above claification as a chance to illustrate my salient point concerning expertise. My frustration was never that I'd failed to receive sufficient deference from 'non-experts'; the root of the problem was never my treatment. The problem is that there are mechanisms for enforcing some policies but not others. Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not to edit anonymously. (Such a review board would "kill two birds with one stone": making Wikipedia more "expert"-friendly and solidifying its public credibility.) However, other people may have better ideas, and my suggestion is certainly not the only one on the table warranting attention. Since the behavior of contributors is influenced by the options afforded to them by Wikipedia's governance-- as behavior is rooted in process and structure in every organizations-- a formal organ on Wikipedia delegating a special role for **non-anonymous** professionals, academics, graduate students, etc. would have a profound, positve effect on the culture of Wikipedia. Right now, far more talk is generated when a serious user commits a faux pax (e.g., violating the 3RR or 'calling a troll a troll') than when a troll spews crap into an article. Here's the reason: Wikipedia has mechanisms enforsing rules of PROCESS (e.g., Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement) but lacks mechanisms enforsing rules of PRODUCT (e.g., Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). As a result, when a policy related to product is broken, the dispute usually stays on talk, handled only by a handful of serious editors actively watching the page; but when a policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product. I'm not arguing that rules of process ought to be discarded. Instead, they ought to be supplemented by rules emphasizing and ENFORCING quality. I say "supplemented" because of the likelihood that far fewer good users would act rashly if already-existing rules mandating encyclopedic standards were enforced. In short, I'm not laying out a detailed case for policy changes here. I'm just pointing to a problem that ought to be addressed. Right now the rules create a culture on Wikipedia resulting in large amounts of attention to some policies but a lack of attention to others. This asymmetry ought to be addressed, before more users committed to undermining NPOV, no original research, and stylistic conventions figure out how to accomplish their ends by exploiting the over-emphasis on other policy guidelines. Others may disagree with solutions that I am proposing. But that doesn't mean that the problem does not exist. If my proposals are wrong, please come up with better ways of handeling the problem. -172 _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ From dpbsmith at verizon.net Sun Mar 6 02:58:23 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 21:58:23 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] David Gerard's proposal is essentially a "speedy KEEP" In-Reply-To: <20050306010718.35C331AC19A5@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050306010718.35C331AC19A5@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: As I understand David Gerard's proposal, an individual sysop (is it meant to be limited to sysops?) could remove a VfD discussion if he personally judged that a) the nominator had not stated a reason, or that b) the nominator's stated reason was not listed in the written, codified deletion policy, or c) the nominator's stated reason WAS listed but did not actually apply to the article. c) is the big one, but it must be implicit in his proposal. Otherwise every nominator would protect their nomination simply by intoning "No potential to become encyclopedic." Thus, his proposal is essentially that sysops be empowered to perform a "speedy KEEP." Speedy deletes are acceptable because most Wikipedians feel that the criteria are well-defined and that sysops can be trusted to execute the speedy deletion criteria properly. IF we thought the general deletion policy was equally well defined, we wouldn't need VfD. We could just empower sysops to execute on the full deletion policy. Problem solved. The fact that we _don't_ do this proves that we _don't_ think the deletion policy is well enough defined to entrust sysops to act on it as individuals, without soliciting community consensus. So, turning the process around isn't going to be acceptable either. If we can't trust individual sysops to speedy-DELETE articles that fall under "What Wikipedia is not," then we can't trust them to speedy-KEEP articles that don't. -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ From geniice at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 03:29:18 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:29:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >but when a > policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of > users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what > did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on > Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product. Go on name names. When it comes to keeping an eye on the 3RR section of the admins notice board I would be impressed if you come up with more than three. That is hardly a huge crowd. -- geni From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 05:02:31 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:02:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306050232.43798.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > Rick wrote: > > --- David Gerard wrote: > > >>(I still don't see what's so damned hard about > >>having to give a listed reason with one's > >>nomination, > >>JUST LIKE IT SAYS TO DO AT THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF > >>VFD. > >>Can you please explain to me why that's even there > >>if > >>it's too hard?) > > > But that's not what this proposal is asking for. > It's > > asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the > > person who deleted it doesn't agree with the > reason > > for listing. > > > OK, that is a possible loophole. How would you > phrase it? > > > - d. What's wrong with just leaving things the way they are? RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 05:12:40 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:12:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306051240.45867.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Michael Snow wrote: > For people using "not notable" or "not encyclopedic" > as bare-bones > justifications, I would suggest that they retrain > themselves to > elaborate a little bit more. By themselves, these > are meaningless > shorthand for "should be deleted" - we know that > already, that's why you > came to the page. Point out that you put in a little > bit of effort to be > confident that it doesn't belong. "I've never heard > of it and couldn't > find any evidence that anyone else has, either" will > go a lot farther > than "I've never heard of it so it must not be > notable". > > --Michael Snow But "not notable" and "not encyclopedic" is not the same thing as "I never heard of it". There are lots of things on VfD right now which are listed because they're not notable, or at least the nominator believes so, which has nothing to do with whether they're obscure or not. Things like [[Countries on two continents]], [[Russian joke]], [[F11]], [[Cities with same latitude]], [[Axis of weasel]], [[Hypocoristics for Spanish names]], [[Esuvee]], [[Vampire lifestyle]], etc., etc., etc. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 05:23:34 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:23:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Derksen wrote: > Rick wrote: > > >But that's not what this proposal is asking for. > It's > >asking to be allowed to delete the listing if the > >person who deleted it doesn't agree with the reason > >for listing. > > > > > No, it's not. Take a look at the original proposal > itself, posted > 3/4/2005 10:12 AM: > > "Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in > Wikipedia:Deletion policy > may be summarily removed from the page." Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used reasons for listing an article. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From lauri.love at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 05:38:17 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 05:38:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:23:34 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those > criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used > reasons for listing an article. > > RickK Is this because the deletion policy is inadiquate, or because VfD is being abused? I know what your answer will be of course, so explain the notability "criterion" objectively in the policy page so we can all understand it. I personally think it's disgusting tyrrany of the majority. But I don't express opinions on wiki ;-) -nsh From johnleemk at gawab.com Sun Mar 6 05:47:37 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:47:37 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A9979.3070403@gawab.com> Rick wrote: >--- Bryan Derksen wrote: > > >>Take a look at the original proposal >>itself, posted >>3/4/2005 10:12 AM: >> >>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in >>Wikipedia:Deletion policy >>may be summarily removed from the page." >> >> > >Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those >criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used >reasons for listing an article. > >RickK > > I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does* use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon. (taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]]) I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision that the nomination is bullshit. I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the decision by the community as a whole. I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD, making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations. [[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from making suggestions. VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From johnleemk at gawab.com Sun Mar 6 05:48:49 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:48:49 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422A99C1.1040508@gawab.com> Lauri Love (nsh) wrote: >On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:23:34 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > > >>Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those >>criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used >>reasons for listing an article. >> >>RickK >> >> > >Is this because the deletion policy is inadiquate, or because VfD is >being abused? I know what your answer will be of course, so explain >the notability "criterion" objectively in the policy page so we can >all understand it. I personally think it's disgusting tyrrany of the >majority. But I don't express opinions on wiki ;-) >-nsh > > Wikipedia is not meant to protect people from the tyranny of the majority. It's meant to build a free, NPOV encyclopedia. Fortunately most of our editors have enough common sense to understand when to be a benevolent tyranny and when to be ruthless. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From lauri.love at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 07:06:54 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 07:06:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <422A9979.3070403@gawab.com> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422A9979.3070403@gawab.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:47:37 +0800, John Lee wrote: > I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the > community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid > voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has > different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems > highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in > voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does* > use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an > article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's > based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of > contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon. > (taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]]) The difference, my friend, between policy and convention, is that the former is transparent, is rational, and is decided by consensus, whereas the latter is transient, opaque, often irrational, and decided by majority/plurality. A good policy is applied equally to all articles that fall under its remit, whereas convention follows the whims of its constituents. I'm sure there are enough people that don't like any particular article to vote for its deletion. It's only the choice of sample that decides the outcome. And personally, I do not hold much faith and the self-selecting sample that is VfD. > I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason > found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no > specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable > is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an > editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this > topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in > this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded > wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and > that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision > that the nomination is bullshit. It's hard to know where to begin here. How could a nomination be valid, without a rationale? This doesn't grok at all for me, and moreover, troubles me slightly. An editorial judgement it is indeed, and a consensus of 5-7 (arbitrary guess there) is not qualified, in this writer's humble opinion, to make editorial decisions for something that has nearly half a million articles and hundreds of thousands of users. Those who frequent VfD, as I mentioned earlier, as not representative of the whole Community, and it's rather audacious for any size proportially sized group to claim to be. And lastly, isn't this thread an example of the community saying it is unreasonable, and speaking for itself. > I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't > feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised > attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply > because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason > given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial > decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the > topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the > decision by the community as a whole. > I think we're agreed here. It is about geting rid of nominations where the nominator, in addition to being too lazy to improve the article to something which can be built upon, is also too lazy to show why it should be deleted. Shall we just have a voting system for all articles, as you say, it's just an editorial decision. Let's let the community decide by voting,... Also, I think we need to vote in a new lead developer > I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD > by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of > articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for > example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but > not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often > deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD, > making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations. > [[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary > deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed > more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from > making suggestions. > > VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are > already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors > being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large > for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of > trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle. > I don't think your idea of unreasonable nominations, as shown by this post, is quite as extensive as some people's. On the ridiculous size of VfD however, we are fully agreed. The implimentation of this proposal would in part solve that problem. From morven at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 07:39:27 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:39:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42f90dc005030523393c051540@mail.gmail.com> I do think 172 has a point about the dangers of becoming a rules-bound, process-bound culture. The complexity of the Wikipedia process has grown incredibly in the last year or so. -Matt (User:Morven) From johnleemk at gawab.com Sun Mar 6 08:17:05 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 16:17:05 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422A9979.3070403@gawab.com> Message-ID: <422ABC81.8020700@gawab.com> Lauri Love (nsh) wrote: >On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:47:37 +0800, John Lee wrote: > > >>I absolutely agree with Dpbsmith. Policy is meant to change with the >>community, not vice-versa. As much as some of us would like to avoid >>voting using highly subjective grounds like notability (which has >>different meanings from person to person; my idea of notability seems >>highly inclusionistic compared to some of the notability grounds used in >>voting today), the fact remains that a good deal of the community *does* >>use notability as a reason for deletion. If the community wants an >>article to go, we shouldn't disregard their opinion just because it's >>based on something subjective, since the resolution of the issue of >>contention -- should the article be deleted? -- has been agreed upon. >>(taken with a slight modification from [[Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy]]) >> >> > >The difference, my friend, between policy and convention, is that the >former is transparent, is rational, and is decided by consensus, >whereas the latter is transient, opaque, often irrational, and decided >by majority/plurality. A good policy is applied equally to all >articles that fall under its remit, whereas convention follows the >whims of its constituents. I'm sure there are enough people that don't >like any particular article to vote for its deletion. It's only the >choice of sample that decides the outcome. And personally, I do not >hold much faith and the self-selecting sample that is VfD. > > Exactly. However, the solution is not to assume bad faith by discounting votes/nominations that don't provide a rationale directly from the deletion policy. The solution is to make VfD more accessible to the community as a whole instead of some backwater where only those with enough time and a fast connection can vote. Also note that word *does* spread if there is strong contention over an article's status. I do not vote or intently follow VfD (I do survey it occasionally though), but I can easily point you to the Ashlee Simpson scandal not too long ago where there was a lot of debating and a lot of votes, coming from every side. Word *does* get around. Also, convention should be policy should be loose. Tight policy is a very bad thing, for two reasons: 1. [[m:Instruction creep]]. Tightly controlling what people do is a bad thing and goes against the wiki spirit that relies on editors to [[be bold]]. 2. Gaming of policy. Again, the Ashlee Simpson scandal. Also, the case over constant reversion of [[Charles Darwin]] (which happened to centre on the bit of trivia regarding that Darwin and Abraham Lincoln share the same birthday). In both of these cases, due to the rigid policy of the 3RR (which most of us accept as a stop-gap measure; a better one would simply say "Reverting non-vandalism is generally a bad idea"), two editors got into very deep trouble. Rigid policy is a bad, bad thing. As Dpbsmith pointed out on [[Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion]], what's stopping someone from removing votes not conforming to the policy in detail (i.e. "Delete. Advertosing", which clearly means that the article is "advertising", making it deletable). As it is now, convention on VfD is that we vote using our heads and not policy. > > >>I don't think removing nominations from VfD that are without a reason >>found in the deletion policy is a good idea. If the nomination has no >>specific rationale in itself, that might be acceptable, but non-notable >>is often used as shorthand for not encyclopedic. It's basically an >>editorial judgement - it's like a shorter version of "I don't think this >>topic is sufficiently encyclopedic enough to merit its own article in >>this encyclopedia". A nomination to delete should not be discarded >>wantonly. If it's unreasonable, the community will speak for itself, and >>that's much better than letting someone unilaterally make the decision >>that the nomination is bullshit. >> >> > >It's hard to know where to begin here. How could a nomination be >valid, without a rationale? This doesn't grok at all for me, and >moreover, troubles me slightly. > A nomination isn't valid without a rationale. "Non-notable" is accepted by editors as a rationale. This rigid interpretation of policy makes it fair for more gaming of the system by rabid inclusionists. > An editorial judgement it is indeed, >and a consensus of 5-7 (arbitrary guess there) is not qualified, in >this writer's humble opinion, to make editorial decisions for >something that has nearly half a million articles and hundreds of >thousands of users. > 5-7 is not consensus. Nor is 14-7. Something like 30-7 is considered consensus here. If the community is so divided that no clear decision can be made (generally consensus is regarded as >80%), then the article is kept, as no consensus for deleting it has been reached. The reason the 80% rule isn't in policy is because it's a rule of thumb. Making it exact would lead to, again, gaming of the system: "Hey! I want this article undeleted because my tallying indicates only 79.7% of the votes were for delete!" > Those who frequent VfD, as I mentioned earlier, as >not representative of the whole Community, and it's rather audacious >for any size proportially sized group to claim to be. > Exactly, but it works because as soon as someone spots something wrong, the whole community is alerted. > And lastly, >isn't this thread an example of the community saying it is >unreasonable, and speaking for itself. > > I think there are as many people opposing the proposal as there are supporting it. >>I agree something has to be done about VfD's size, though. I just don't >>feel this is the right solution; rather, it more feels like a disguised >>attempt to lead us down the slippery slope of discarding votes simply >>because they just said "Delete. Non-notable." Regardless of the reason >>given, as I stated in the first paragraph, it's still an editorial >>decision that does not need extensive justification: An editor feels the >>topic does not merit an article. That opinion is factored into the >>decision by the community as a whole. >> >I think we're agreed here. It is about geting rid of nominations where >the nominator, in addition to being too lazy to improve the article to >something which can be built upon, > You try Googling for an obscure topic with an article in poor English (I once stumbled across an article about an Eastern European actor who had few hits on Google. Upon listing it on VfD, people soon found out more about the actor and were able to make it more clearer and give it better context, so I withdrew the nomination). Accusing active nominators of being lazy to expand an article seems like a strawman, especially when you consider the status of article content is not a valid reason for deletion. Editors don't go and flame the nominator or remove the nomination from VfD, though. Instead, they expand/rewrite the article and/or vote to keep it. Or, if it's beyond all hope, they will vote to delete it. Generally, most voters of VfD do provide reasons for voting; they may just not be in the policy. That there is no specific order like "You must vote delete for and only for one or more of the following reasons" is a good thing, because it gives editors a free hand in making editorial decisions. I recall the issue of article size last time when old browsers were a bit more common; although policy dictated "YOU MUST TRIM THIS ARTICLE BELOW 32KB!" not many people did. They might embark on trimming the article and/or pushing it out to subarticles using [[wikipedia:summary style]], but as long as the article was readable, nobody bothered. Nobody freaked out when [[Singapore]] began pushing past 40kb (it's been brought down now to 33kb) or when [[Mozilla Firefox]] was a whopping 65kb (it's also been brought down to a more reasonable size, but it's still past 32kb). As a result of this, the policy has recently been changed to reflect editorial convention. Policy should always follow convention (it's even documented somewhere on the site in a guide to writing policy). > is also too lazy to show why it >should be deleted. > People can tell whether the editor made an effort. Most nominations aren't very long these days, just briefly pointing out the article's a neologism, advertising, etc. I see no reason why non-notable, a widely accepted shorthand for "not encyclopedic" should be different. > Shall we just have a voting system for all >articles, as you say, it's just an editorial decision. Let's let the >community decide by voting,... Also, I think we need to vote in a new >lead developer > > I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. > > >>I think what should be done is to get the community more involved in VfD >>by reducing its size and providing more avenues for categorisation of >>articles being nominated for deletion. A professional aviator, for >>example, would be interested in VfD nominations relating to aviation but >>not scuba-diving. And so on. Likewise, a lot of articles are often >>deleted unanimously or nearly unanimously, and end up cluttering VfD, >>making it difficult for editors get to the heavily debated nominations. >>[[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]] and [[Wikipedia:Preliminary >>deletion]] are both proposals that should be considered and discussed >>more; if people aren't satisfied with them, nothing's stopping them from >>making suggestions. >> >> >> > > > >>VfD's problem is not people making unreasonable nominations (those are >>already easily removed because we still have a smattering of editors >>being bold enough to use common sense). VfD's problem is it's too large >>for the community to easily vote. Solve that, and the problem of >>trigger-happy nominations will be easier to handle. >> >> >> > >I don't think your idea of unreasonable nominations, as shown by this >post, is quite as extensive as some people's. > Can you show me examples of unreasonable nominations? I have already given three specific examples backing up my argument. > On the ridiculous size >of VfD however, we are fully agreed. The implimentation of this >proposal would in part solve that problem. > Not really. It'd just give rabid inclusionists more tools to legally troll with. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From slimvirgin at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 08:27:02 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 01:27:02 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4cc603b05030600273d164e05@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000, Abe Sokolov wrote: > Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making > personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for > chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV > nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for > Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public > credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not > to edit anonymously. Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to enforce them. Sarah From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Sun Mar 6 10:35:09 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:35:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> Rick wrote: >--- Bryan Derksen wrote: > > >>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in >>Wikipedia:Deletion policy >>may be summarily removed from the page." >> >> >Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those >criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used >reasons for listing an article. > > So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy, it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD process or with the deletion policy. From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 6 09:57:57 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:57:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Nofollow vote results on en.wikipedia Message-ID: <030620050957.17993.422AD425000AC3090000464922007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Tony Sidaway wrote: > Tomer Chachamu said: > > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 20:27:41 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway > > wrote: > >> > Remove "nofollow" -- 61% (85 votes) > >> > Keep "nofollow" -- 39% (55 votes) > >> > >> This is not a consensus. There is no need to take any action. > > > > Don't be ridiculous. In such a case, where there is a clear majority > > *and the decision is instantly reversible*, the rel="nofollow" should > > be removed. > > Absolutely not. We do things by consensus of en.wikipedia. I suggest we > continue this discussion on wikien-l where it belongs. We don't reach consensus here on wikien-l to the exclusion of the rest of the community, but in the open on the wikipedia site. What we do here is conduct some business with blocked users who don't otherwise have access. Any "consensus" we reach here is mere discussion. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 6 10:10:03 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 10:10:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange fetishes Message-ID: <030620051010.3333.422AD6FB0001DF5C00000D0522007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 21:57:04 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway > wrote: > > It's the "We need *this* edit war for the good of Wikipedia" syndrome. > > It's related to [[Wikipedia:The Wrong Version]]. > > Indeed. There is so much to be achieved through dialectic and > consensus, and nothing at all to be achieved through violence. And > though it may debase the meaning of violence to apply it digitally, a > revert was _is_ analogous a physical controntation when words have > failed. Let us import knowledge from the real world, not stupidity. > :-) That is both debasing to the meaning of violence, and taking the revert all too personally. Really, it may be no more than a statement, that the edit wasn't obvious, and needs to be justified if you are serious about it. You also forget that the edit being reverted may be a change or deletion, and so the "edit" may have been every bit as "violent" as a revert. -- Silverback From magdaf at ibb.waw.pl Thu Mar 3 08:35:59 2005 From: magdaf at ibb.waw.pl (Magdalena Fikus) Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 09:35:59 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Junk DNA Message-ID: <003301c51fcc$1889ca40$7b1c57d4@ibb.waw.pl> In the main text about "Junk DNA' "repressor" is quoted as a kind of junk DNA. Repressors are proteins coded by DNA. The position of the word, just after "enhancer", suggests that may be the author thought about "silencer", the sequence of DNA silencing expression of a given gene. Magdalena Fikus Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Sciences. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:04:24 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:04:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I remember a number of claims you made in that regard. According to you, your advocacy of your point of view represented an objective academic point of view in sharp contrast to other editors who had only published reports of eye-witness accounts to go on. You claimed to be a political scientist and that trumped the experience of the people who actually lived under the systems you advocated. Fred > From: "Abe Sokolov" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > I never asked to be afforded any special > status based on my work outside Wikipedia. From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 11:08:10 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:08:10 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <422AE49A.40007@thingy.apana.org.au> Bryan Derksen wrote: > So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the > most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't > actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy, > it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD > process or with the deletion policy. Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly. - d. From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 6 11:04:48 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:04:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy Message-ID: <030620051104.9665.422AE3D00001837B000025C122007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- >d. wrote: > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > >>I really don't see what's so hard about actually putting a reason bearing > >>a relationship to policy, particularly when VFD explicitly says to do so. > > > What's hard, it that applying policy to to a factual situation is "original > > research". If we can't apply definitions of words, or count for ourselves, > > perhaps we get out of the habit of reasoning. > > Er, I can make no sense of your response in terms of the discussion. Could > you please clarify? Where TF does 'original research' come into VFD policy? I was pointing out the irony, that the "original research" prohibition is taken to extremis in the editing of articles, and yet is relied upon so heavily in the enforcement of and application of policy. The "original research" prohibition probably has many unintended consequences. It can, with a petty community of editors, severely limit the use of words with plain meanings, plainly applied to a situation. If the word hasn't been applied by someone else to the situation it is considered original research. It also, results in articles that are thought to have language that is not smoothing flowing. For example, one often cannot point out an "irony", unless it has been pointed out elsewhere. But one can get two facts contradictory facts into the article in close juxtoposition to each other, and leave the detection of the irony to the reader, but it doesn't quite flow as well as the explicit notation of the irony would. Application of policy to a factual situation is no different than application Just War theory or the Geneva Convention to a factual situation. One is required of the community and the other effectly banned, in the articles, at least. That is why the talk pages are often as useful as the articles themselves. It is also an advantage that signed articles in conventional encyclopedias have, the allow an authorial voice, reasoning and categorization, resulting in good summarys. -- Silverback From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:09:08 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:09:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: "POV nonsense" you say. Yet you seem to have engaged with enthusiasm in systematic POV editing, while covering behind the thin defense that modification of your carefully crafted apolgetics was McCarthyism. Fred > From: "Abe Sokolov" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making > personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for > chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV > nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:14:56 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:14:56 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: They do have a special role. Provided they edit responsibly and are respectful to other users. Your experience is only applicable in support of the proposition that a user who edits aggressively in a point of view way and is disrespectful to other editors will gradually build strong opposition against them despite professional credentials. Fred > From: "Abe Sokolov" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > a special role for **non-anonymous** professionals, academics, graduate > students, etc. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:18:05 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:18:05 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The problem with this is that systemic POV editing in the Wikipedia context is not QUALITY by definition when NPOV is our policy. Nor is contempt for other editors who do not share your ideological orientation. Fred > From: "Abe Sokolov" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > they > ought to be supplemented by rules emphasizing and ENFORCING quality. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:21:00 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:21:00 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Obviously we need to be far more aggressive in identifying and discipling those users who engage in systemic point of view editing. And not be mislead by technical expertise or smokesceens alleging persecution. Fred > From: "Abe Sokolov" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > If my proposals are wrong, please come up with > better ways of handeling the problem. From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sun Mar 6 11:18:52 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:18:52 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422AE71C.3090400@tiscali.co.uk> AndyL wrote: > Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by > the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when > considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could > see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that > he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for > the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper. The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair way for the project. A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided. That's not overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of arbitration. If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee, then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits. But if you are part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are part of the cause of it. > I think the ArbComm > has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of > consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and > vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority? There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the discussion may get lost there. Perhaps we need a page specifically for discussing how the arbitration committee works? In particular, I'm interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/ policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia) --sannse -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.6.0 - Release Date: 02/03/05 From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 11:32:58 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:32:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evidence as to VFD being unusably big Message-ID: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is 1,324,734 bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It takes a minute or two just for the page to render. So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on dialup is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or maybe a Cray. Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day pages, rather than transcluding every one of them. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 11:36:02 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:36:02 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422AE71C.3090400@tiscali.co.uk> References: <422AE71C.3090400@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <422AEB22.2000406@thingy.apana.org.au> sannse wrote: > There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and > [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the > discussion may get lost there. Perhaps we need a page specifically for > discussing how the arbitration committee works? In particular, I'm > interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/ > policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear > more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this > list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia) We do put into words what new stupid thing someone has done when someone comes up with a new form of stupid. I try to keep a healthy fear of novelty in the process, though. - d. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:38:16 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:38:16 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422AE71C.3090400@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: There is no way the Arbitration Committee can avoid making policy. What we do is separate the expressed policies of Wikipedia into those which are regularly enforced and those which either cannot or will not be enforced. The ways we come up with to enforce or encourage following of policy are in themselves additions to policy. For example, personal attack parole, something that was not in the game before the committee began trying to craft some solution to the personal attack problem. Or revert parole where POV editors may be restricted to one revert a day to an article. To follow up though, all these things are fair game for community discussion, especially on the talk pages of the proposed decisions. Fred > From: sannse > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 11:18:52 +0000 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and > [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the > discussion may get lost there. Perhaps we need a page specifically for > discussing how the arbitration committee works? In particular, I'm > interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/ > policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear > more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this > list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia) > > --sannse From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:46:26 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:46:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030600273d164e05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The only reason the current Arbitration Committee does not consider content is because we believe there is a community consensus that we should not. We do, in effect, consider content when the problem is aggressive POV editing, but as to deciding the essential nature of gravity we might be out of our depth. It is ok for Lieutenant Commander Data to throw about talk about gravitons but there are necessarily limits. However an editor who claims Scotland in Asia, that we might be able to deal with. As to whether Mongolia is in Central Asia or East Asia, well the problem is really with the editors who thinks it's important enough to revert over and over and over and over. Fred > From: > Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 01:27:02 -0700 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 02:42:57 +0000, Abe Sokolov > wrote: >> Wikipedia has a court reprimanding users for breaking the 3RR and making >> personal attacks. But it lacks an authority reprimanding users for >> chronically undermining Wikipedia's progress with original research, POV >> nonsense, and ungrammatical prose. My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for >> Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public >> credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not >> to edit anonymously. > > Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would > want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but > would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because > the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are > already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to > enforce them. > > Sarah > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:49:36 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:49:36 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005030523393c051540@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It was trying to deal with editors like 172 which made it that way. Freedom to do whatever he wanted made it difficult to edit for many other editors and resulted in biased articles in important areas. Fred > From: Matt Brown > Reply-To: Matt Brown , English Wikipedia > > Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 23:39:27 -0800 > To: geni , English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > I do think 172 has a point about the dangers of becoming a > rules-bound, process-bound culture. The complexity of the Wikipedia > process has grown incredibly in the last year or so. > > -Matt (User:Morven) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 11:54:01 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 04:54:01 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The problem here is that 172, a confirmed revert warrior, got put on revert parole and was unable to conform to its requirements. He needed to be able to revert frequently in order to maintain the ideological bias he advocates. Trapped, he is lashing out. Fred > From: geni > Reply-To: geni , English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:29:18 +0000 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > >> but when a >> policy related to process is broken, it will attract a huge contingent of >> users fussing over who reverted whom, how many reverts there were, and what >> did or did not constitute a revert. The rules are shaping a culture on >> Wikipedia utterly obsessed with process, but incognizant of product. > > Go on name names. When it comes to keeping an eye on the 3RR section > of the admins notice board I would be impressed if you come up with > more than three. That is hardly a huge crowd. > > -- > geni > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sun Mar 6 12:11:27 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:11:27 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> Message-ID: Bryan Derksen wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> --- Bryan Derksen wrote: >> >> >>> "Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in >>> Wikipedia:Deletion policy may be summarily removed from the page." >>> >> >> Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those >> criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly used >> reasons for listing an article. >> >> > So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the > most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't > actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy, > it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD > process or with the deletion policy. A formal proposal to add non-notability as a reason for deletion has been voted on (with a large number of voters) in the past. It didn't even get majority support. The main problem is that notability depends very much on voters' POVs' [*] whereas verfiability (which enjoys universal support) can be ascertained in an NPOV way, thus the community has not proved willing to enshrine non-notability into policy. Pete [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of the Wikipedia population. From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sun Mar 6 12:14:03 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:14:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: David Gerard wrote: > I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is > 1,324,734 > bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. > > I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It takes > a minute or two just for the page to render. > > So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on dialup > is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or > maybe a Cray. > > Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day pages, > rather than transcluding every one of them. > > > - d. Has splitting VfD by subject area also been proposed? From johnleemk at gawab.com Sun Mar 6 12:15:17 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 20:15:17 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: References: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422AF455.6080202@gawab.com> Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > David Gerard wrote: > >> I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The HTML alone is >> 1,324,734 >> bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. >> >> I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running Netscape 7.2. It >> takes >> a minute or two just for the page to render. >> >> So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband connection - anyone on >> dialup >> is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing with an Athlon 64. Or >> maybe a Cray. >> >> Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day >> pages, >> rather than transcluding every one of them. >> >> >> - d. > > > Has splitting VfD by subject area also been proposed? > [[Wikipedia:Categorized deletion]]. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 6 12:20:04 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:20:04 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com><422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Pete/Pcb21 wrote > [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of > Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar > turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting > with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of > the Wikipedia population. Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question. I don't really accept that analysis, though. A million-dollar turnover manufacturing business is still family-sized, actually. What is more, a million dollars in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another. It is the price of a very ordinary house in London, for example. Charles From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sun Mar 6 12:25:17 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:25:17 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422AEA6A.8050808@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4797.192.168.0.9.1110111917.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > > Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just links to the day > pages, rather than transcluding every one of them. Of the suggestions made so far, I find this the most sensible. People would have just one place to look for recent listings. I've been maintaining my own links to day listings for a few months now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tony_Sidaway/Deletion From lauri.love at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 12:48:17 2005 From: lauri.love at gmail.com (Lauri Love (nsh)) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:48:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:20:04 -0000, Charles Matthews wrote: > Pete/Pcb21 wrote > > > [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of > > Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar > > turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting > > with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of > > the Wikipedia population. > > Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question. I don't really > accept that analysis, though. A million-dollar turnover manufacturing > business is still family-sized, actually. What is more, a million dollars > in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another. It is the > price of a very ordinary house in London, for example. > I don't think Pete was complaining about our slant towards editors' interests, in fact, I'm sure we can all agree that Wikipedia only exists because it allows people to write about what _they_ want, not what others want them to. However, if every time you try and write about something you are told that it is not notable or encyclopedic, you would soon turn away, and another potentially great contributor would be lost. I don't think that a million-dollar family business deserves to be in Wikipedia more than a LOTR plot detail. However, I don't think the converse either. In fact, I don't presume to the qualified to judge the importance of any information, saving whether it is neutrally written about, and verifiably true. Let me note, also, that number ten downing street, is by many standards, a very ordinary house in London. But that billions people know of it, while only a thousands know of the [[Russian_Constitution_of_1906]] does not make one any more suitable for inclusion than the other. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 6 13:02:50 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:02:50 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com><422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <001f01c5224c$ce76d3c0$9e7c0450@Galasien> "Lauri Love (nsh)" wrote >. Let me note, also, > that number ten downing street, is by many standards, a very ordinary > house in London. Think you'll find that's not true, behind the facade. >But that billions people know of it, while only a > thousands know of the [[Russian_Constitution_of_1906]] does not make > one any more suitable for inclusion than the other. What gets included in WP seems mostly fine to me. Details of invented mythologies can always be ridiculed, individually. I don't think anyone actually knows what bits of popular culture will be seen as significant, or will be alluded to, in the year 2050. Charles From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sun Mar 6 14:13:13 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:13:13 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com><422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: Charles Matthews wrote: > Pete/Pcb21 wrote > > >>[*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of >>Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar >>turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting >>with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of >>the Wikipedia population. > > > Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question. I don't really > accept that analysis, though. A million-dollar turnover manufacturing > business is still family-sized, actually. What is more, a million dollars > in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another. It is the > price of a very ordinary house in London, for example. > > Charles Sorry yes I guess $1m was sufficiently low to muddy the waters unnecessarily. But I think I am making a valid point. Trying another example: Pop stars and CEOs of large companies are both fine topics for an encyclopedia with a wide scope such as ours. Yes, fine, pop stars will always have greater coverage on WP because it is a reflection of its editors' interests. I can certainly live with that. However our policies and procedures must work so that when someone odd does come along and write about a CEO their article isn't strangled to death at VfD by people writing "not important , not notable" when they mean "not important, not notable _to me_". If notability were to be defined somehow without reference to POVs, then it would be more acceptable. FWIW, a lot of the stuff that is ultimately deleted as "non-notable" actually fails "no original research" or "no nonsense", anyway. Pete From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 14:11:03 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:11:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... Message-ID: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to write the code. Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. a question on page move vandalism: is there a good technical reason why e.g. checking a user has been around for a time before doing a move is infeasible? or is it just that no-one's coded it yet? (I assume there's a bug on the subject) DavidGerard: yes, we wrote code for that when Wik was running his vandalbot it's currently switched off ok - does it need a vote or something to ratify switching it on? TimStarling: and is the code in question production quality, of course? I plan to mention it on wikien-l, where it's been asked about, and then start a discussion and vote page, if it's usable the checkuser code? it's ready for use if there's anything wrong with it, we'll fix it when problems come up the page move checker. what time limit does it set, or is that configurable? (I'm asking all this because I don't want to present you with consensus for something not quite possible ;-) (ideally for somethng that's no more work than switching it on) the current code just denies access to the move page function for anyone who satisfies the isNewbie() condition which generally meant one of the last 10% of user accounts created what's that set to? ah no particular time limit then of course Wik then created 5000 user accounts on meta, good for him so we made an account creation throttle as well no particular time limit how much work to put in a settable time limit? off the top of your head (i'm thinking what is likely to be comprehensible and play well) the sign-up date is not recorded it's not in the schema, we were just using the user ID oh, so how is the 90 days calculated for votes? by finding the first contribution, but that's an expensive query ew. yes. i shall mention it on wikien-l that it's possible at least ;-) possible to do it by sign-on date? Yes, it's possible if someone wants to write the code it just means a schema change that's what i thought ;-) mind if I c'n'p this conversation to a wikien-l mail? no I don't mind cool :-) - d. From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Sun Mar 6 14:13:21 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:13:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422AE71C.3090400@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote: > > > AndyL wrote: >> Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by >> the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when >> considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could >> see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that >> he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for >> the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper. > > The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a > group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair > way for the project. You haven't expressed why it's flawed, simply that you do not want ArbComm be compared to a court because you don't want the comparison. I put to you that the ArbComm should attempt to emulate a court process even if it is "just a group of users trying to solve disputes" because that is indeed he most practical and especially the most fair way to do it. I don't see that it would be that difficult for the ArbComm to do what I am suggesting above, limit itself to terms of reference set out in the original complaint, not initiate its own countercomplaints ie be a complaints-driven. This is not only standard in courts but in quasi-judicial settings, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world, and ArbComm is nothing if it's not quasi-judicial. > > A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what > after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, > and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children. School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia. > > There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the > argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided. That's not > overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of > arbitration. No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment. "ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that very reason. Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it. > > If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee, > then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits. But if you are > part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are > part of the cause of it. Again, that should mitigate the ArbComm's decision in regard to the respondant but should not result in punishment of the complainant unless and until a separate complaint is filed. > >> I think the ArbComm >> has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of >> consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and >> vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority? > > There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and > [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the > discussion may get lost there. Perhaps we need a page specifically for > discussing how the arbitration committee works? In particular, I'm > interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/ > policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear > more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this > list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia) > > --sannse > From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 6 14:50:01 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 07:50:01 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Arbitration is not a tool to be used in struggle with other editors. If you are struggling with other editors rather than complaining in good faith about violations of Wikipedia policy you are probably violating Wikipedia policies yourself. As to comparisons with the common law, arbitration has always been a way to escape from the rigid and awkward rules of Anglo-Saxon common law with its emphasis on procedure and rules of evidence which prevent adequate investigation of what is actually going on. Our procedures take as much from traditonal equity and from continental civil law as from common law. We need to be free to investigate, not be bound by whatever the litigants choose or are able to bring to us. Fred > From: AndyL > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 09:13:21 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote: > >> >> >> AndyL wrote: >>> Well if the complainant is acting or has acted badly that should be taken by >>> the ArbComm as a mitigating factor in favour of the respondant when >>> considering the complainant's complaint but no more than that. While I could >>> see an ArbComm suggesting to a respondent (or other participants) that >>> he/she/they file their own arbitration request against the complainant for >>> the ArbComm to take that step unilaterally is improper. >> >> The court analogy is flawed, we are not a court of law - we're just a >> group of users trying to solve disputes in the most practical and fair >> way for the project. > > You haven't expressed why it's flawed, simply that you do not want ArbComm > be compared to a court because you don't want the comparison. I put to you > that the ArbComm should attempt to emulate a court process even if it is > "just a group of users trying to solve disputes" because that is indeed he > most practical and especially the most fair way to do it. > > I don't see that it would be that difficult for the ArbComm to do what I am > suggesting above, limit itself to terms of reference set out in the original > complaint, not initiate its own countercomplaints ie be a complaints-driven. > This is not only standard in courts but in quasi-judicial settings, at least > in the Anglo-Saxon world, and ArbComm is nothing if it's not quasi-judicial. > >> >> A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what >> after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, >> and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. > > That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to > headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children. > School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't > think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the > quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts > limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have > no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate > investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia. > > >> >> There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the >> argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided. That's not >> overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of >> arbitration. > > No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is > going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment. > "ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a > number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that > very reason. > > Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong > with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the > complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have > more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or > separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should > initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it. > > >> >> If someone /uninvolved/ brought a dispute to the arbitration committee, >> then I wouldn't see a need to scrutinise their edits. But if you are >> part of the dispute, then we certainly should look to see if you are >> part of the cause of it. > > Again, that should mitigate the ArbComm's decision in regard to the > respondant but should not result in punishment of the complainant unless and > until a separate complaint is filed. > > >> >>> I think the ArbComm >>> has rather unilaterally expanded its powers without seeking any sort of >>> consent from the wikicommunity. Is there a space where we can debate and >>> vote upon a resolution re the ArbComm's rules and authority? >> >> There are the talk pages of [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee]] and >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration]], but I'm a bit concerned that the >> discussion may get lost there. Perhaps we need a page specifically for >> discussing how the arbitration committee works? In particular, I'm >> interested in hearing more about the suggestion that we are /making/ >> policy - it's important to me that we don't do that, so I'd like to hear >> more about it is people think we are doing so (I don't keep up with this >> list fully - I'd prefer the discussion to be on Wikipedia) >> >> --sannse >> > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 6 14:48:45 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 14:48:45 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: <4cc603b05030600273d164e05@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003a01c5225b$9a68e0a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Abe Sokolov: >> My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for > > Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with public > > credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones not > > to edit anonymously. slimvirgin: > Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would > want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but > would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because > the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are > already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to > enforce them. Hmm. 'What Wikipedia needs more than anything else is a movement of genuine editors to insist on quality control and the weeding out of non-encyclopaedic editors.' (From WP:FES.) If I have had reservations about the thing, that just about sums it up. It's the old joke about "I supported this until I heard X speak in favour of the proposal". I don't doubt that things have moved on, since I first decided to suspend judgement on this structure. I chose instead to nail my flag to the Systemic Bias thing (for all the good it did that or me). I'm certainly bothered by the idea that someone with access to an academic library will be able to trump someone without, more-or-less routinely, in a citation arms race. That is obviously not what enforcing content-related policies should be. I feel 'no original research' is OK as subordinate to NPOV; 'cite sources' ought really to be used mostly to unblock logjams in discussion. There is after all plenty of wrong-headed stuff in the academic literature. Enforcement is a tricky area for WP. Basically we have little of it. As far as page content is concerned my past suggestion has been pendulum arbitration and periods of page protection, in the most vexed cases. Charles From neil at tonal.clara.co.uk Sun Mar 6 15:20:33 2005 From: neil at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:20:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422B1FC1.3030405@tonal.clara.co.uk> David Gerard wrote: > > Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on > #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. > > Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle > in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is > possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version > would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to > write the code. > > Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous > for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop > Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. [snip IRC log] Block only the last 1% (we currently have over 200,000 users on en:, so that would be approximately the last 2,000), and turn on the user-account-creation throttling? At the current growth rate, that would mean that a user would pass this threshold in about a month from creating their account, and we'd still have all the sysops, and over 2000 "very active Wikipedians" as well as about 196,000 less active ones able to move pages on en: for users who cannot yet move pages for themselves. -- Neil From usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Sun Mar 6 15:27:31 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 15:27:31 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422B2163.5080201@tonal.clara.co.uk> David Gerard wrote: > > Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on > #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. > > Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle > in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is > possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version > would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to > write the code. > > Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous > for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop > Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. [snip IRC log] Block only the last 1% (we currently have over 200,000 users on en:, so that would be approximately the last 2,000), and turn on the user-account-creation throttling? At the current growth rate, that would mean that a user would pass this threshold in about a month from creating their account, and we'd still have all the sysops, and over 2000 "very active Wikipedians" as well as about 196,000 less active ones able to move pages on en: for users who cannot yet move pages for themselves. -- Neil From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Mar 6 19:29:03 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:29:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050306141059.03040118@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Fred Bauder wrote: >I remember a number of claims you made in that regard. According to you, >your advocacy of your point of view represented an objective academic point >of view in sharp contrast to other editors who had only published reports of >eye-witness accounts to go on. You claimed to be a political scientist and >that trumped the experience of the people who actually lived under the >systems you advocated I am sorry that Fred Bauder finds it necessary to personalize 172's comments about the quality of our articles. For one thing, I am not entirely sure Fred is being fair to 172 -- my sense from having had to deal with him in the past (and he and I have gotten into some pretty heated arguments) is not that he claims to have authority because of some credential or because of his job, but rather that his academic training and work have put him in a position where he has done a tremendous amount of research on both particular topics and the different arguments scholars have over those topics. Be that as it may, if Fred has a problem with how 172 has behaved in the past, he should address that behavior through the appropriate channels in Wikipedia. The members of the list-serve have no authority to sanction an editor, so the list-serve is not the appropriate place to try and judge an editor's behavior. My concern is that by personalizing 172's comments and calling into question his motives, sincerity, or legitimacy, will only distract and divert us from addressing a serious issue -- an issue that needs to be addressed no matter who happens to have brought it up. Fred raises the issue of NPOV, and I do agree with him that our NPOV policy is one of the most important policies we have to facilitate the writing of quality articles. But nothing 172 wrote suggests that we should abandon the NPOV policy. 172 was simply making the point that we do not have adequate mechanisms for ensuring the quality of articles, and he is right. We do have policies, but however crucial NPOV is, other policies -- No original research, Cite sources, and Verifiability -- are just as important for achieving quality articles. I think there is a pretty strong consensus among veteran editors about what NPOV means and how to police it (although of course there are exceptions). I do not think the community has such shared clarity about these other policies, though. Finally, although we have a vigorous mechanism for dealing with behavioral conflicts (from mediation to arbitration), we have no such mechanisms for dealing with unresolvable problems over content. It is not the place of the ArbCom to address the quality of content -- which I think is reasonable. But because ArbCom is really the only strong mechanism we have for dealing with problems, I think that sometimes conflicts that are really about content end up going to mediation or ArbCom, which are ill-equipped to deal with them. As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second. It is therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sun Mar 6 21:07:38 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 21:07:38 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1985.192.168.0.9.1110143258.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > > Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on > #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. > > Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle > in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is > possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version > would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to > write the code. > > Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous > for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop > Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. Why shouldn't it be used? Anybody who needs a page just needs to find one other person who has been around for a while and will agree to do it. We already have the discussion mechanism set up on [[WP:RM]]. --~~~~ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 21:13:01 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:13:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306211301.53749.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Derksen wrote: > Rick wrote: > > >--- Bryan Derksen wrote: > > > > > >>"Any VFD nomination not listing a reason in > >>Wikipedia:Deletion policy > >>may be summarily removed from the page." > >> > >> > >Exactly. And "not notable" is not one of those > >criteria. And yet it's one of the most commonly > used > >reasons for listing an article. > > > > > So why not add non-notability to the deletion > policy? If it's one of the > most commonly used reasons for listing an article > and yet it isn't > actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in > the deletion policy, > it seems there's already a pretty big problem either > with the VfD > process or with the deletion policy. Because, in the recent vote for inclusion as a VfD reason, notability didn't get enough of a consensus as a reason for deletion. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 6 21:05:55 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:05:55 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <422AE49A.40007@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> <422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> <422AE49A.40007@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422B70B3.2000403@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: > Bryan Derksen wrote: > >> So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of >> the most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it >> isn't actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion >> policy, it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the >> VfD process or with the deletion policy. > > Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly. So the solution is simple. We simply avoid using it as an excuse for deleting things until there is a strong consensus about what it means. :-) Wikipedia is a long term encyclopedia project so if it takes a mere two years to reach a consensus only the most impatient among us will be upset. Ec From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 21:19:59 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:19:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The > HTML alone is 1,324,734 > bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. > > I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running > Netscape 7.2. It takes > a minute or two just for the page to render. > > So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband > connection - anyone on dialup > is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing > with an Athlon 64. Or > maybe a Cray. > > Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just > links to the day pages, > rather than transcluding every one of them. Nonsense. I have a dialup connection and have little problem working with the VfD page. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 6 21:32:36 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:32:36 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422B76F4.4060300@telus.net> Fred Bauder wrote: >The only reason the current Arbitration Committee does not consider content >is because we believe there is a community consensus that we should not. We >do, in effect, consider content when the problem is aggressive POV editing, >but as to deciding the essential nature of gravity we might be out of our >depth. It is ok for Lieutenant Commander Data to throw about talk about >gravitons but there are necessarily limits. However an editor who claims >Scotland in Asia, that we might be able to deal with. As to whether Mongolia >is in Central Asia or East Asia, well the problem is really with the editors >who thinks it's important enough to revert over and over and over and over. > A natural consequence of allowing the Arbitration Committee seriously consider contents would be ArbCom elections based on such issues as where one stands in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Voting is no way to arrive at neutrality. To the extent that the content review is acceptable as with a discussion of Scotland's place in Asia the members of the ArbCom need a keen ability to distinguish between gravitons and levitons. Ec From wikienl at jagged.ca Sun Mar 6 21:49:55 2005 From: wikienl at jagged.ca (Olivier Bilodeau) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 16:49:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000801c52296$6fabdc60$c900fea9@diego> I would like to start cleaning up [[Category:Move to Wiktionary]]. I plan to create entries in Wiktionary, if they don't already exist, or remove the template if it is not appropriate. What I'd like to know if it possible to speedy delete the item, if it's been moved? Although this is not a candidate by definition, it has already been established that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I understand that some topics have the potential to become encyclopedic (what doesn't, really), but items that are moved and deleted can always be recreated if someone truly wishes to make an article on the subject. I'm also aware that we're not running out of paper, but I don't think cleaning things up a bit is a bad thing either. Personally, I get annoyed when I click on a live link, hoping to find some decent info on a trivial subject, but only getting a definition. Although each item could be nominated on VfD, that would quickly overload the page, and make it a lot of work for people who maintain it, not the mention the additional work involved in creating the subpage and listing it. I'm aware some entries get greatly expanded when VfD'ed, but this isn't easy when the article only contains a dicdef. Therefore, can the deletion policy be amended to include obvious dictionary definitions? --jag23 From dgerard at gmail.com Sun Mar 6 21:59:29 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:59:29 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <1985.192.168.0.9.1110143258.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> <1985.192.168.0.9.1110143258.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422B7D41.3030803@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > David Gerard said: >>Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on >>#mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. >>Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle >>in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is >>possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version >>would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to >>write the code. >>Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous >>for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop >>Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. > Why shouldn't it be used? Anybody who needs a page just needs to find one > other person who has been around for a while and will agree to do it. We > already have the discussion mechanism set up on [[WP:RM]]. --~~~~ Heh. Think it'll fly? Could do. What's a good name for such a page? Anyone? What are good places to announce it? - d. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Mar 6 22:06:36 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 17:06:36 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050306165633.0316aae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Ray Saintonge >A natural consequence of allowing the Arbitration Committee seriously >consider contents would be ArbCom elections based on such issues as >where one stands in the Israel/Palestine conflict. This is one way to construe 172's suggestions -- but it is not the only way. I certainly do not believe that the solution to conflicts over content can come down to "you are right, you are wrong." Surely there are other ways. here is one: a committee that would specialize in enforcing policies concerning content, e.g. NPOV, No original research (which is not, as Charles Matthews suggested, subordinate to NPOV, or it shouldn't be. They are equally important; neither one trumps the other). This is clearly different from ArbCom which as members of ArbCom have made abundantly clear deals only with conflicts between two or more users, and matters of behavior, not content. Although two users can and often do come into conflict over NPOV or NOR, this is categorically different from the kinds of conflicts ArbCom deals with. ArbCom deals with violations of certain policies (specifically behavioral) caused by a conflict between users. What I and I think 172 and SlimVirgin are talking about is conflicts between users caused by violations of other policies (concerning content). Obviously in order to intervene in a conflict over NPOV or No original research a committee would have to be very attentive to content. But I am sure that no matter what one's beliefs about Jesus, Zionism, or fascism, experienced editors can reach an agreement over what does or doesn't constitute NPOV or original research. This might not resolve all of the issues 172 and SlimVirgin raise, but I think it would go far to address some of them. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 6 22:03:54 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:03:54 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: <20050306052334.97174.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com><422ADCDD.9000901@shaw.ca> <001601c52246$d4d919e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <422B7E4A.9090108@telus.net> Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> Pete/Pcb21 wrote >> >>> [*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of >>> Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar >>> turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting >>> with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of >>> the Wikipedia population. >> >> Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question. I don't >> really >> accept that analysis, though. A million-dollar turnover manufacturing >> business is still family-sized, actually. What is more, a million >> dollars >> in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another. It >> is the >> price of a very ordinary house in London, for example. > > Sorry yes I guess $1m was sufficiently low to muddy the waters > unnecessarily. But I think I am making a valid point. How big $1m really is is a question of perspective. For some of us it is still a hyge amount. Would anybody characterize a $1m donation to the Wikimedia Foundation as small? > Trying another example: > Pop stars and CEOs of large companies are both fine topics for an > encyclopedia with a wide scope such as ours. > > Yes, fine, pop stars will always have greater coverage on WP because > it is a reflection of its editors' interests. I can certainly live > with that. However our policies and procedures must work so that when > someone odd does come along and write about a CEO their article isn't > strangled to death at VfD by people writing "not important , not > notable" when they mean "not important, not notable _to me_". The nerdy student/righty make up of the WP population is bound to influence what is added but it is not a sufficient excuse for subtracting what reflects a different POV. > FWIW, a lot of the stuff that is ultimately deleted as "non-notable" > actually fails "no original research" or "no nonsense", anyway. If that's the case deletionists should have no need to rely upon notability. They would accomplish a lot by simply doing their homework. Ec From sean at epoptic.org Sun Mar 6 22:13:21 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:13:21 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <000801c52296$6fabdc60$c900fea9@diego> References: <000801c52296$6fabdc60$c900fea9@diego> Message-ID: <422B8081.2000801@epoptic.com> Olivier Bilodeau stated for the record: > I would like to start cleaning up [[Category:Move to Wiktionary]]. I > plan to create entries in Wiktionary, if they don't already exist, or > remove the template if it is not appropriate. What I'd like to know if > it possible to speedy delete the item, if it's been moved? The definition of "move" includes the fact that, once the movee is ''there'', it is no longer ''here''. (Cf. [[Pauli exclusion principle]], [[Buckaroo Banzai location principle]].) If you were to add the articles to Wiktionary and not delete them from Wikipedia, you would not have ''moved'' them, you would have ''copied'' them. -- Sean Barrett | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals. sean at epoptic.com | From sean at epoptic.org Sun Mar 6 22:13:27 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:13:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422B76F4.4060300@telus.net> References: <422B76F4.4060300@telus.net> Message-ID: <422B8087.9050906@epoptic.com> Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > ... the members > of the ArbCom need a keen ability to distinguish between gravitons and > levitons. Which we have, of course: gravitons are what give our decisions their all-important gravitas, and levitons are planned communities, the first one of which was constructed in Pennsylvania. -- Sean Barrett | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals. sean at epoptic.com | From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 6 22:14:57 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 14:14:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050306221457.39546.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > As a number of people have recently made clear, Wikipedia is a project to > develop a quality encyclopedia first, and a wiki-community second. It is > therefore impossible for behavioral guidelines alone, or a > dispute-resolution process that is blind to matters of content, to suffice. As much as I'd hate to have to judge content on the ArbCom, I think you are right. I'm not sure if this will be successful and I'm pretty sure this is dangerous ground to tread on. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sun Mar 6 22:15:11 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:15:11 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422B7D41.3030803@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> <1985.192.168.0.9.1110143258.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422B7D41.3030803@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <2188.192.168.0.9.1110147311.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: >> David Gerard said: > >>>Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on >>>#mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. >>>Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle >>>in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is >>>possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version >>>would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to >>>write the code. >>>Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous >>>for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop >>>Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. > >> Why shouldn't it be used? Anybody who needs a page just needs to find >> one other person who has been around for a while and will agree to do >> it. We already have the discussion mechanism set up on [[WP:RM]]. >> --~~~~ > > > Heh. Think it'll fly? Could do. What's a good name for such a page? > Anyone? What are good places to announce it? > WP:RM/N Wikipedia:Requested moves/new users New user lists a move he wants done, explains why. Someone able to do so moves it if he thinks it should be done. --~~~~ From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 6 22:25:53 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:25:53 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422B8371.2030107@telus.net> AndyL wrote: >on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote: > > >>A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what >>after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, >>and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. >> >> >That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to >headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children. >School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't >think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the >quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts >limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have >no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate >investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia. > It also denigrates children, who rarely behave as badly as adults. (e.g. sports parents shouting obscenities from the stands) A comparison to a bar fight might have been closer to reality. >>There is no way that I would be content to just look at one side of the >>argument, because arguments are rarely one-sided. That's not >>overstepping our remit - that's part of the fundamental definition of >>arbitration. >> >> >No, what ArbComm is doing is leading itself into oblivion because no one is >going to want to initiate a complaint if it puts them at risk of punishment. >"ArbComm chill" if you will. I know that there was a serious hesitation by a >number of people to initiate a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky for that >very reason. > >Let each complaint be seperate. You have not explained to me what is wrong >with expecting the respondant or third parties who have issues with the >complainant to initiate their own seperate complaint. I think once we have >more than one complaint the issue of whether to deal with them jointly or >separately can be dealt with but there's no reason why the ArbComm should >initiate countercomplaints rather than have the impacted parties do it. > Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of the criminal process. They provide for the limited right of the respondent to raise issues against his accuser. It does not operate to allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third party meddling. Ec From wikienl at jagged.ca Sun Mar 6 22:40:04 2005 From: wikienl at jagged.ca (Olivier Bilodeau) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 17:40:04 -0500 Subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting Message-ID: <000a01c5229d$70e78c80$c900fea9@diego> Thanks for the clarification of the words moving and copying. Tonight I will go to bed less stupider. I'm not an admin, so I can't delete the item. If you'll look closely at my original post, an item moved to Wiktionary doesn't qualify as a candidate for speedy deletion, which would make its listing and deletion against policy. Last I checked, principles of physics weren't a reason to nominate an item for speedy deletion either. I appreciate your banter, but it's not really helping me. >The definition of "move" includes the fact that, once the movee is >''there'', it is no longer ''here''. (Cf. [[Pauli exclusion >principle]], [[Buckaroo Banzai location principle]].) > >If you were to add the articles to Wiktionary and not delete them from >Wikipedia, you would not have ''moved'' them, you would have ''copied'' >them. > >-- > Sean Barrett | Four parts ammonia, one part iodine crystals. > sean at epoptic.com | >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From sean at epoptic.org Sun Mar 6 22:55:57 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 14:55:57 -0800 Subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <000a01c5229d$70e78c80$c900fea9@diego> References: <000a01c5229d$70e78c80$c900fea9@diego> Message-ID: <422B8A7D.8090902@epoptic.com> Olivier Bilodeau stated for the record: > Thanks for the clarification of the words moving and copying. Tonight I > will go to bed less stupider. I hope you haven't misunderstood me -- I was attempting to express support for you, not insult you. > I'm not an admin, so I can't delete the item. If you'll look closely at > my original post, an item moved to Wiktionary doesn't qualify as a > candidate for speedy deletion, which would make its listing and deletion > against policy. Last I checked, principles of physics weren't a reason > to nominate an item for speedy deletion either. I appreciate your > banter, but it's not really helping me. What I failed to communicate is that I don't think deletion policies apply. The articles in question are already listed for moving; I think that moving them doesn't involve the deletion process, speedy or otherwise. -- Sean Barrett | I don't see you, so don't pretend you're there. sean at epoptic.com | From csherlock at ljh.com.au Sun Mar 6 22:55:50 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 09:55:50 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A nasty and weird site In-Reply-To: <20050302074449.DD69DE5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050302074449.DD69DE5BC7@ws7-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Arno M wrote: > Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its very critical. > > http://www.wikipediasucks.com/ > > Some interesting popups appear when you leave the site which perhaps indicate what its worth. > Its claim that "There are now thousands of pages if you search for 'wikipedia sucks' in > any search engine." is wrong - the supplied does a google search for pages with the words wikipedia or sucks, which not surprisingly does yield thousands of results. But a search for the phrase brings > out 149 instead. And whats all this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine for > "religious hate crimes"? Bizarre! > > However, I do feel compelled to ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo? > As noone seems to have answered this to any degree of satisfaction (except for the answer about the babe), I recommend that Arno check out [[Sollog]]. That's who runs the site. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Sun Mar 6 23:14:37 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:14:37 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <42260890.6050504@telus.net> References: <030220051340.3040.4225C237000AA15500000BE022007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <42260890.6050504@telus.net> Message-ID: Ray Saintonge wrote: > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > >> -------------- Original message -------------- >> >>> There are some minor issues, but I can't see anything overly serious, >>> particularly considering that 172 has had two massive articles >>> (relating to these topics, too) featured in this period, which >>> suggests to me that he is making an effort to reform. >> >> Desysopping does not mean he can't continue to edit articles, although >> it may lessen his powers to enforce his severe authorial >> territorialism through vendettas. >> > What might be an interesting approach when accusations are made would be > to have the promoter of a failed accusation serve the same fate that he > sought to have applied on the accused. Thus if he seeks to have someone > de-sysopped and fails he would be de-sysopped; if seeks to have the > person banned for a month and fails he would be banned for a month. etc. > > It might put an end to all the whining. ;-) > > Ec Not to put too fine a point on this, but this would intimidate real victims. That's why they don't apply this in real life. I think the best example of this is the RFC that was (and still is, for some reason) filed on myself. Personally, I think it was silly, but nonetheless I support the creation of it if enough people endorsed it. They did. However about 15 other people OPPOSED the creation of the RFC. Does this mean that the creator of the RFC should be penalised? No. Incidently, I do know that filing an RFC on a user is not meant to be a "punishment" against that user, rather a request for people to, well, *comment* on that user, but this is as close an example I can come to. The only exception I can see is when you get a user like CheeseDreams, who filed so many RFCs and ArbCom requests that it became a farce and eventually harassment. In this case, however, the ArbCom pretty much made her a vexation litigant. TBSDY From wikienl at jagged.ca Sun Mar 6 23:21:47 2005 From: wikienl at jagged.ca (Olivier Bilodeau) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 18:21:47 -0500 Subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <422B8A7D.8090902@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <000b01c522a3$44fb2310$c900fea9@diego> I just want to be sure that once the entry exists on Wiktionary and I add {{delete}} that I won't be told that I'm bypassing the VfD process or that my csd doesn't fit the established criteria, or worse, that the admin who actually deletes the items gets accused of the above. I was a bit sarcastic in my reply to your post, but I wanted your opinion on the matter to be clarified (which you did, and I appreciate). >What I failed to communicate is that I don't think deletion policies >apply. The articles in question are already listed for moving; I think >that moving them doesn't involve the deletion process, speedy or otherwise. > >-- > Sean Barrett | I don't see you, so don't pretend you're there. > sean at epoptic.com | >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From csherlock at ljh.com.au Sun Mar 6 23:51:14 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:51:14 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) In-Reply-To: <030320050756.15625.4226C31E000CB90600003D0922007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030320050756.15625.4226C31E000CB90600003D0922007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > ------------- Original message -------------- > >>actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >> >> >>>I'm not sure what your point is, if you mean admins=police, >>>apparently, they are running the judicial system too, and >>>they are loath to cost anyone their "jobs", read sysop privilege. >>>Do the admins here unite behind their own version of "The thin blue > > line"? > >> >>[[WP:AN/I]] and [[WP:AN/3RR]] give me a different picture. I see >>quite a bit of disagreement between admins (and of course anyone >>can write there). > > Agreed, I overgeneralized. I meant to refer to a general sense > among the admins that sysop privileges are not to be revoked > lightly. Furthermore, when admins err, I have seen apologias > to the effect that they are just human and are so busy and > contributing so much that errors should be expected to occur > every so often. They are trying their best and should > be allowed an error every so often. > I can agree with this if one is referring to errors of > interpretation or of overlooking certain facts. But it is > a different matter when in pique or anger, the admin makes > personal use of sysop powers. This shows a lack of the > proper discipline and temperament to be an admin, and not > simple error. > It is possible for such a person to learn discipline with > time, but they should not be allowed to learn it on > the job. Such a person should be desysoped. > When they feel they are ready, they can reapply, > but if they reapply for adminship too soon they > are probably the still the wrong temperament. > Adminship is a burden and a public trust. Admins are > to be servants not masters of the community. > Forgive me, I am a community activist who has worked > to reduce police abuse, so I am particularly sensitive > and yes, even outraged (as a matter of principle) at > those who have the hubris to think they have the perogative > to abuse the public trust. I realize that matters > here are not quite so weighty. But then "losing" an > adminship, is also not quite as serious as losing one's > job. > -- Silverback Those who are not admins would not know how easy it is to make a mistake. You judge harshly: admins aren't paid, they cop abuse all the time and they do make mistake in judgement. I know I do. There are checks and balances: admins will often reverse the decision of other admins if they see a problem with the decision made. That's one of the reasons I created [[WP:AN]] - to allow admins to see what other admins are doing and to fix problems/mistakes. Maybe if you became an admin you'd understand. Until then, I think it's fair you critique admins. This helps keep us accountable. However, keep those facts I just outlined in perspective! TBSDY From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Mon Mar 7 02:15:18 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:15:18 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422B8371.2030107@telus.net> Message-ID: on 3/6/05 5:25 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote: >> > Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of > the criminal process. They provide for the limited right of the > respondent to raise issues against his accuser. It does not operate to > allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third > party meddling. > > Ec But it is not the court that initiates countersuits but the respondent. That's where we're getting it wrong. From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Mon Mar 7 02:17:51 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:17:51 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 3/6/05 9:50 AM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: > We need > to be free to investigate, not be bound by whatever the litigants choose or > are able to bring to us. > > Fred You are expressing your desire as a member of the ArbComm to be able to expand your authority but you do not explain why this is necessary or why this is good for wikipedia. Andy From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 02:32:48 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 02:32:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> AndyL wrote: > on 3/6/05 5:25 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote: >>Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of >>the criminal process. They provide for the limited right of the >>respondent to raise issues against his accuser. It does not operate to >>allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third >>party meddling. > But it is not the court that initiates countersuits but the respondent. > That's where we're getting it wrong. Let's get back to the point. You're so far not convincing me that your model works better to get an encyclopedia written than the current one. How does it better achieve that goal? - d. From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Mar 7 02:28:02 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 18:28:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422B8371.2030107@telus.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote: > AndyL wrote: > > >on 3/6/05 6:18 AM, sannse at sannse at tiscali.co.uk wrote: > > > > > >>A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what > >>after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, > >>and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. > >> > >> > >That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to > >headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children. > >School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't > >think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the > >quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts > >limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have > >no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate > >investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia. > > > It also denigrates children, who rarely behave as badly as adults. > (e.g. sports parents shouting obscenities from the stands) A comparison > to a bar fight might have been closer to reality. > Well, we could always compare this to a domestic dispute -- the one situation that I understand all police officers hate to get called into. (At least in the US; it may be different elsewhere.) Not only do the officers have to figure out just who did what, but also deal with the fact that not only will their intervention likely fail to make a difference, but that the aggrieved party is likely to side with her/his adversary -- either at the time of the intervention (e.g. a battered wife attacking the police officer arresting the husband), or later (e.g. the other party pleading to have the charges dropped). Love makes people do strange things. Why should love of knowledge be any different? Geoff From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Mar 7 02:17:18 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 18:17:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: <422AE49A.40007@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, David Gerard wrote: > Bryan Derksen wrote: > > > So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? If it's one of the > > most commonly used reasons for listing an article and yet it isn't > > actually listed as a valid reason for deletion in the deletion policy, > > it seems there's already a pretty big problem either with the VfD > > process or with the deletion policy. > > > Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly. > The times I've cited "non-notable" as a reason for VfD have all been in regards to entries about people. It's my shorthand for saying "this person hasn't done anything important enough to merit an entry." And it's a judgement based on the contents of the first sentence or two of the article -- which should give the reader a quick answer of why this person is important. If you can't tell me why this person matters in the first paragraph, then it's clearly a non-notable entry. For example, if the entry begins "Joe Blow is a husband of 14 years to Jane Blow, has 3 kids & 2 dogs", then it's clearly non-noteable; if the man did something that argues he should be included in Wikipedia (say, he invented the cursor or patented the Smiley), it should say that in the first sentence -- or the second, if the first is devoted to saying he's an engineer, computer enthusiast or convicted sex offender. If the article begins "Joe Blow is the maintainer of the Open Source project [[Road kill]]" then it's not an automatic non-noteable call; even if it turns out that you can't find any mention of Road Kill at the usual Open Source/Free Software download sites (like Freshmeat), it's still not non-noteable -- I'd label it either "vanity" or "hoax" -- especially if that sentence is the entire article. Sadly, even limited to this catagory, this word has a lot of candidates: for some reason countless people think Wikipedia needs to have an article about themselves, their girlfriends, or their best friend. Even if said person's most important achievement in life was survivng birth. I'd probably use this term for other catagories, but I've lost the battle whether public high schools are non-noteable or not. (My own high school is non-noteable, yet other editors insisted on creating an article about it.) And it's easier to argue that an article about a public high school should be deleted because it's unverifiable than non-noteable, whereas with people it's the other way around. ("But you can't say [[Joe Blow]] is unverifiable! Take a look in the phone book -- his name is there! Call him & you'll see that he really exists!") Geoff From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 03:11:35 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 20:11:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A partial or poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their quality. It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." Fred > From: AndyL > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 21:17:51 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > on 3/6/05 9:50 AM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at ctelco.net wrote: >> We need >> to be free to investigate, not be bound by whatever the litigants choose or >> are able to bring to us. >> >> Fred > > You are expressing your desire as a member of the ArbComm to be able to > expand your authority but you do not explain why this is necessary or why > this is good for wikipedia. > > > Andy > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From anthere9 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 05:03:44 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 06:03:44 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of my images Message-ID: <422BE0B0.4090205@yahoo.com> For the second time this month, one of my images was deleted on the english wikipedia. I was not warned at all. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anthere/PictInsectes&diff=0&oldid=10140585 I'll be frank, I AM PISSED OFF. It is written clearly on my talk page, and my user page that all my images are gfdl. All my insects pictures listed on my user subpage are labelled, but this one. Just as I already said on the pump less than 2 weeks ago, I think it is really pure disrespect to delete an image without asking the author, and then only AFTER deletion, to go on this user subpage to remove the link to the deleted image. If there is time to go on my user subpage to remove a link, then there is time to drop by my user talk page and talk to me. Of there is time to read the mention on my user and user talk page and to read my warning about the status of my images and to update the image status. I am sorry, but I really find this of the latest rudeness. From now quite far away, as I have no more time to edit the english wikipedia, I have the horrible feeling the english wikipedia has become a very very cold place, where there is no respect for editors except those well known possibly. If feels like if one is not among the major editors, he does not count, and his feelings are not important at all. It looks like a machine. An automate. Not a great human construction. We are all here because we believe in what we do, but what we do is only good because we do it together and because we trust each other. Well, at least, some people trust other people. And if it is not possible to trust someone who spent already 3 years on wikipedia, I wonder how newbies are treated. In case you feel like telling me "yeah, but this is just one case you know, not everybody does that", I will then ask why Quadell is trusted to delete images. I do not trust him to do so. Not because he does not do this according to rules, but because he does not do this while taking human feelings into account. And wiki only works thanks to human power. Anthere From redgum46 at lycos.com Mon Mar 7 06:23:55 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:23:55 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of my images Message-ID: <20050307062355.F1A1FCA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> I suspect there was an administrative error here, and anthere has complained to Quadell directly about this. Hopefully this will gets sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: Anthere To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of my images Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 06:03:44 +0100 > > For the second time this month, one of my images was deleted on the > english wikipedia. > > I was not warned at all. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anthere/PictInsectes&diff=0&oldid=10140585 > > I'll be frank, I AM PISSED OFF. > > It is written clearly on my talk page, and my user page that all my > images are gfdl. All my insects pictures listed on my user subpage > are labelled, but this one. > > Just as I already said on the pump less than 2 weeks ago, I think > it is really pure disrespect to delete an image without asking the > author, and then only AFTER deletion, to go on this user subpage to > remove the link to the deleted image. If there is time to go on my > user subpage to remove a link, then there is time to drop by my > user talk page and talk to me. Of there is time to read the mention > on my user and user talk page and to read my warning about the > status of my images and to update the image status. > > I am sorry, but I really find this of the latest rudeness. > > From now quite far away, as I have no more time to edit the > english wikipedia, I have the horrible feeling the english > wikipedia has become a very very cold place, where there is no > respect for editors except those well known possibly. If feels like > if one is not among the major editors, he does not count, and his > feelings are not important at all. It looks like a machine. An > automate. Not a great human construction. > > We are all here because we believe in what we do, but what we do is > only good because we do it together and because we trust each other. > > Well, at least, some people trust other people. And if it is not > possible to trust someone who spent already 3 years on wikipedia, I > wonder how newbies are treated. > > In case you feel like telling me "yeah, but this is just one case > you know, not everybody does that", I will then ask why Quadell is > trusted to delete images. I do not trust him to do so. Not because > he does not do this according to rules, but because he does not do > this while taking human feelings into account. And wiki only works > thanks to human power. > > Anthere > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From redgum46 at lycos.com Mon Mar 7 06:35:40 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:35:40 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? Message-ID: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> I already have looked at the Sollog wikipedia article, and I commented on it later. All in all, the "wikipedia sucks" site is a hate site, in which some aspects of Jimbo's Bomis site that I had not been aware of have been highlighted, together with a lot of hysteria about a 10 million dollar fine (that seems to have no legal validity at all). There seems to be nothing we can do about it, either, unless some mediation for this guy can somehow be arranged. (Are there any alternate ideas?) If some had been arranged for this fellow earlier, this anti-wikipedia site MAY have been avoided. On-the-spot mediation/arbitration is something that could also be applied for other edit wars, for which the 3R rule is not a solution. Arno ----- Original Message ----- From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A nasty and weird site Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 09:55:50 +1100 > > Arno M wrote: > > Here's a site that is rather critical of wikipedia. In fact, its > > very critical. http://www.wikipediasucks.com/ > > > > Some interesting popups appear when you leave the site which > > perhaps indicate what its worth. > > Its claim that "There are now thousands of pages if you search > > for 'wikipedia sucks' in any search engine." is wrong - the > > supplied does a google search for pages with the words wikipedia > > or sucks, which not surprisingly does yield thousands of results. > > But a search for the phrase brings out 149 instead. And whats all > > this about Sollog, the Temple of 'Hayah, and a $10 million fine > > for > > "religious hate crimes"? Bizarre! However, I do feel compelled to > > ask : who are those cute young friends on the yacht with Jimbo? > > As noone seems to have answered this to any degree of satisfaction > (except for the answer about the babe), I recommend that Arno check > out [[Sollog]]. That's who runs the site. > > TBSDY > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Mon Mar 7 06:44:39 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 01:44:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: on 3/6/05 9:32 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote: > AndyL wrote: >> on 3/6/05 5:25 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote: > >>> Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of >>> the criminal process. They provide for the limited right of the >>> respondent to raise issues against his accuser. It does not operate to >>> allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third >>> party meddling. > >> But it is not the court that initiates countersuits but the respondent. >> That's where we're getting it wrong. > > > Let's get back to the point. You're so far not convincing me that your > model works better to get an encyclopedia written than the current one. > How does it better achieve that goal? It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate complaints for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned from editing an article until the hearing is complete. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 06:47:47 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 07:47:47 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion of my images References: <20050307062355.F1A1FCA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> There was no administrative error. This was done on purpose as the image was missing a gfdl tag. When I uploaded these images, tags were not mandatory yet. And my insect images had tags *but not* this one. I complained to Quadell directly and asked him to restore the image. But iMeowbot nicely restored it from a mirror. The point is, this is *not the first time it happens*. When I uploaded this picture, I specifically agreed on a little text saying something like "By uploading a file to which you hold the copyright, you agree to licence it under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.". So, I agree, but it does not matter I agree at all. I was also asked some time ago to indicate under which licence I give my images. But the license I mention does not matter. So, why do we have to agree on this little text when we upload and why are we asked under which license we give our images since it does not matter ? And why do I give images to Wikipedia for them to be deleted ? Actually, I recently gave many of Algeria, but the more time goes by, the less I give. The reasons are * some english wikipedians delete images uploaded in good faith without warning * images deleted are not easily recoverable * wikimedia projects do not respect the license by not always displaying clearly that images uploaded on wikicommons are under gfdl nor by mentionning authorship on the local projects * wikicommons does not provide a link to where the images are used, so do not allow editors to check whether the way images are used are following legal requirements or not * uploading images unfortunately takes time, even more on wikicommons where issues of duplicate in names begin to appear * wikicommons is in english only, hence limiting access to those non english speaking * wikinews does not allow uploading images, hence preventing the easy use of images to non english speakers (since they can not easily manage wikicommons) The more time goes by, the less motivating it is to provide images imho. I admire those who continue doing so. It needs real faith. Anthere Arno M a ?crit: > I suspect there was an administrative error here, and anthere has > complained to Quadell directly about this. > > Hopefully this will gets sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. > > Arno > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Anthere > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of my images > Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 06:03:44 +0100 > > >>For the second time this month, one of my images was deleted on the >>english wikipedia. >> >>I was not warned at all. >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anthere/PictInsectes&diff=0&oldid=10140585 >> >>I'll be frank, I AM PISSED OFF. >> >>It is written clearly on my talk page, and my user page that all my >>images are gfdl. All my insects pictures listed on my user subpage >>are labelled, but this one. >> >>Just as I already said on the pump less than 2 weeks ago, I think >>it is really pure disrespect to delete an image without asking the >>author, and then only AFTER deletion, to go on this user subpage to >>remove the link to the deleted image. If there is time to go on my >>user subpage to remove a link, then there is time to drop by my >>user talk page and talk to me. Of there is time to read the mention >>on my user and user talk page and to read my warning about the >>status of my images and to update the image status. >> >>I am sorry, but I really find this of the latest rudeness. >> >> From now quite far away, as I have no more time to edit the >>english wikipedia, I have the horrible feeling the english >>wikipedia has become a very very cold place, where there is no >>respect for editors except those well known possibly. If feels like >>if one is not among the major editors, he does not count, and his >>feelings are not important at all. It looks like a machine. An >>automate. Not a great human construction. >> >>We are all here because we believe in what we do, but what we do is >>only good because we do it together and because we trust each other. >> >>Well, at least, some people trust other people. And if it is not >>possible to trust someone who spent already 3 years on wikipedia, I >>wonder how newbies are treated. >> >>In case you feel like telling me "yeah, but this is just one case >>you know, not everybody does that", I will then ask why Quadell is >>trusted to delete images. I do not trust him to do so. Not because >>he does not do this according to rules, but because he does not do >>this while taking human feelings into account. And wiki only works >>thanks to human power. >> >>Anthere >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 07:50:26 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 02:50:26 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion of my images In-Reply-To: <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> References: <20050307062355.F1A1FCA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050306235041b66896@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 07:47:47 +0100, Anthere wrote: > When I uploaded this picture, I specifically agreed on a little text > saying something like "By uploading a file to which you hold the > copyright, you agree to licence it under the terms of the > GNU Free Documentation License.". I agree that this should be either binding or stricken. We should set up a quarantine where all images which have not been validated or license-verified can be put. Then there will be no un-repealable deletion, save for vandalism images and known copyvios. Please. > * wikinews does not allow uploading images, hence preventing the easy > use of images to non english speakers (since they can not easily manage > wikicommons) Why is this? -- +sj+ From delirium at hackish.org Mon Mar 7 07:56:07 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 02:56:07 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion of my images In-Reply-To: <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> References: <20050307062355.F1A1FCA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422C0917.507@hackish.org> Anthere wrote: > So, why do we have to agree on this little text when we upload and why > are we asked under which license we give our images since it does not > matter ? Well, a lot of people agreed to that text without reading it, and uploaded images they don't own, so Wikipedia has a bunch of nonfree images on it---which is the reason for the whole image-tagging project in the first place. But it's supposed to be standard to ask the uploader about an image before deleting it, so that part wasn't done correctly. -Mark From delirium at hackish.org Mon Mar 7 07:59:33 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 02:59:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050306165633.0316aae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050306165633.0316aae0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <422C09E5.1010500@hackish.org> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > This is clearly different from ArbCom which as members of ArbCom have > made abundantly clear deals only with conflicts between two or more > users, and matters of behavior, not content. Although two users can > and often do come into conflict over NPOV or NOR, this is > categorically different from the kinds of conflicts ArbCom deals > with. ArbCom deals with violations of certain policies (specifically > behavioral) caused by a conflict between users. What I and I think > 172 and SlimVirgin are talking about is conflicts between users caused > by violations of other policies (concerning content). > > Obviously in order to intervene in a conflict over NPOV or No original > research a committee would have to be very attentive to content. But > I am sure that no matter what one's beliefs about Jesus, Zionism, or > fascism, experienced editors can reach an agreement over what does or > doesn't constitute NPOV or original research. The current hope is that the community can deal with this, if people who behave badly are taken out of the system. That is, the community will spot and remove original research, and if someone keeps readding it despite a consensus that it should be removed, the person will eventually be banned. I'd be open to a committee policing for original research at some point, if that turns out to be necessary. Policing for NPOV is a lot more complicated. -Mark From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 7 08:24:33 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 08:24:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: This is backwards (was Re: 172 de-sysopped) Message-ID: <030720050824.8451.422C0FC0000BE9A20000210322007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- TBSDY wrote: > Those who are not admins would not know how easy it is to make a > mistake. You judge harshly: admins aren't paid, they cop abuse all the > time and they do make mistake in judgement. I know I do. There are > checks and balances: admins will often reverse the decision of other > admins if they see a problem with the decision made. That's one of the > reasons I created [[WP:AN]] - to allow admins to see what other admins > are doing and to fix problems/mistakes. > > Maybe if you became an admin you'd understand. Until then, I think it's > fair you critique admins. This helps keep us accountable. However, keep > those facts I just outlined in perspective! Even if other admins step in a reverse the damage fairly quickly, the abusing admin will have gotten a little satisfaction from using their power and imposing their will, and worse, they will have been unfair to a member of the community and gotten away with it. That is not good for community morale. These are not the kind of admins we need. Admins are not in short supply, and it is wrong to claim they can't behave themselves. Yes there are people who will strike their spouses or children, or use spiteful words their "loved ones" will never be able to forget. But it is possible to find people that can show restraint, and more people will show restraint if there is a zero tolerance policy. It is a simple mental discipline, before you act, you ask yourself a couple of questions about whether you are angry and why you are doing this. Even then if you still must strike out, you can still make the decision to use only user capabiliies and not the sysop powers you have been trusted with. You don't steal from or violate the community because you are mad at someone. Yes, there are passionate people that we all love, but we and they need to recognized that they are not cut out to be sysops or parents or spouses, they can serve in other ways. Perhaps they are not really bad people in everyday life where people have faces and actions have consequences, but if anonymity lowers their inhibitions they don't need to be sysops, and we are doing them a favor by relieving them of this temptation. -- Silverback From morven at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 08:42:39 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 00:42:39 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? In-Reply-To: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050307004273fab5a3@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:35:40 +0600, Arno M wrote: > If some had been arranged for this fellow [Sollog] earlier, this anti-wikipedia > site MAY have been avoided. I highly doubt it. This individual's behavior in other forums before, including Usenet (where he was branded "Kook of the month") and the courts, does not encourage any believe in his ability to work well with others or stand a neutral view of himself. Some people are incorrigible. Yes, many can be reached, but not all. -Matt (User:Morven) From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 09:02:33 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 01:02:33 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422B8087.9050906@epoptic.com> References: <422B76F4.4060300@telus.net> <422B8087.9050906@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <422C18A9.7080504@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > >> ... the members >> of the ArbCom need a keen ability to distinguish between gravitons >> and levitons. > > Which we have, of course: gravitons are what give our decisions their > all-important gravitas, and levitons are planned communities, the > first one of which was constructed in Pennsylvania. Thank you for letting my mind wander in yet another direction. There is no community named Leviton in the USA. The place in Pennsylvania is really Levittown, and there are three places with that name. The first one was in Nassau County, NY, then the one in PA, and finally a third one in Puerto Rico, all developed by the same William Levitt. See http://www.capitalcentury.com/1951.html This kind of makes him the father of ticky-tacky. Ec From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 09:27:13 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 04:27:13 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422C18A9.7080504@telus.net> References: <422B76F4.4060300@telus.net> <422B8087.9050906@epoptic.com> <422C18A9.7080504@telus.net> Message-ID: <742dfd0605030701277d76d1d0@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 01:02:33 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Sean Barrett wrote: > > Which we have, of course: gravitons are what give our decisions their > > all-important gravitas, and levitons are planned communities, the > > first one of which was constructed in Pennsylvania. > > Thank you for letting my mind wander in yet another direction. There is > no community named Leviton in the USA. The place in Pennsylvania is > really Levittown, and there are three places with that name. The first > one was in Nassau County, NY, then the one in PA, and finally a third > one in Puerto Rico, all developed by the same William Levitt. See > http://www.capitalcentury.com/1951.html > > This kind of makes him the father of ticky-tacky. > > Ec I love the way that, on wikipedia mailing lists, segues from heated discussion into random trivia are somehow supremely on-topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Levitt -- +sj+ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 10:36:30 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:36:30 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? In-Reply-To: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <20323.194.72.110.12.1110191790.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Arno M said: > > If some had been arranged for this fellow earlier, this anti-wikipedia > site MAY have been avoided. I don't think you understand the situation. Sollog is a nutcase with a track record of acting like this. He's a loony and nothing on that site reflects badly on Wikipedia. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 10:40:28 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:40:28 -0000 (GMT) Subject: FW: [WikiEN-l] Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <422B8A7D.8090902@epoptic.com> References: <000a01c5229d$70e78c80$c900fea9@diego> <422B8A7D.8090902@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <26220.194.72.110.12.1110192028.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Sean Barrett said: > > What I failed to communicate is that I don't think deletion policies > apply. The articles in question are already listed for moving; I think > that moving them doesn't involve the deletion process, speedy or > otherwise. The problem is that as far as I'm aware there is no single consensual process for deciding to move to wiktionary. The items in that category are just those that someone or other has edited to add the mtw template. So we can't just delete the item there and then, unless the move to wiktionary was decided as a result of discussion on WP:RM, WP:VFD or WP:CSD. From zoney.ie at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 10:52:19 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:52:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of my images In-Reply-To: <422BE0B0.4090205@yahoo.com> References: <422BE0B0.4090205@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4418c60e050307025238a155dc@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 06:03:44 +0100, Anthere wrote: > For the second time this month, one of my images was deleted on the > english wikipedia. > > I was not warned at all. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anthere/PictInsectes&diff=0&oldid=10140585 > > I'll be frank, I AM PISSED OFF. > > It is written clearly on my talk page, and my user page that all my > images are gfdl. All my insects pictures listed on my user subpage are > labelled, but this one. > > Just as I already said on the pump less than 2 weeks ago, I think it is > really pure disrespect to delete an image without asking the author, and > then only AFTER deletion, to go on this user subpage to remove the link > to the deleted image. If there is time to go on my user subpage to > remove a link, then there is time to drop by my user talk page and talk > to me. Of there is time to read the mention on my user and user talk > page and to read my warning about the status of my images and to update > the image status. > > I am sorry, but I really find this of the latest rudeness. > > From now quite far away, as I have no more time to edit the english > wikipedia, I have the horrible feeling the english wikipedia has become > a very very cold place, where there is no respect for editors except > those well known possibly. If feels like if one is not among the major > editors, he does not count, and his feelings are not important at all. > It looks like a machine. An automate. Not a great human construction. > > We are all here because we believe in what we do, but what we do is only > good because we do it together and because we trust each other. > > Well, at least, some people trust other people. And if it is not > possible to trust someone who spent already 3 years on wikipedia, I > wonder how newbies are treated. > > In case you feel like telling me "yeah, but this is just one case you > know, not everybody does that", I will then ask why Quadell is trusted > to delete images. I do not trust him to do so. Not because he does not > do this according to rules, but because he does not do this while taking > human feelings into account. And wiki only works thanks to human power. > > Anthere > I agree, it seems there are *some* ill-mannered people around en: these days who consider their work, Wikipedia, or administrative rules more important than individual editors. There are plenty, probably a majority, of well-balanced nice friendly editors, who unfortunately possibly are more frequently becoming unhinged on occasion. The bad tends to make more of an impact than the good. Worse is the fact that there are some editors who don't seem to realise they should observe "social nicities" or in fact scoff at the idea. We aren't robots - exhibiting human behaviour shouldn't be seen as inconvenient at best. And the folks that do give a damn (again, the majority of people I hope) are between a rock and a hard place, as they in fact care about the ill-mannered editors also. Which results in the complaint that people pander to problem editors rather than let them go. But then if people harden themselves and just force people off, that's no solution either. People saying "Oh look, no-one cares that person X has left." or "Who cares? Person X only caused problems." is not an ideal situation to be in. Damn it! What is the answer to keeping everyone happy (which yes, is important for Wikipedia's community, hence its content) yet managing to deal with bad behaviour (occasional/once off or recurrant) without antagonising everyone? I for sure don't think we've cracked it yet! Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From erik_moeller at gmx.de Mon Mar 7 11:05:24 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:05:24 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion of my images In-Reply-To: <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> References: <20050307062355.F1A1FCA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> <422BF913.8000103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422C3574.6070904@gmx.de> (CC to commons-l) Ant- > * wikimedia projects do not respect the license by not always > displaying clearly that images uploaded on wikicommons are under gfdl > nor by mentionning authorship on the local projects In MediaWiki 1.5, a backlink to the Commons is automatically inserted. In 1.4, this was not the case, and it had to be manually put into the MediaWiki: message - some wikis therefore still lack the backlink. This will be fixed once 1.5 goes live, but can also be fixed by any sysop on the project in question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Sharedupload is a good example to use for this. You are correct that image license information should be displayed directly on the image description page. This is likely to happen soon. > * wikicommons does not provide a link to where the images are used, so > do not allow editors to check whether the way images are used are > following legal requirements or not Unfortunately, that is correct. Alongside automatic transclusion of image information pages, an EXTLINKS table on the Wikicommons might be used to store usage information. A quick hack using absolute URLs might be sufficient for now. > * uploading images unfortunately takes time, even more on wikicommons > where issues of duplicate in names begin to appear It is generally a good idea to make a name unique, for example, by adding your username at the end. No matter how large a wiki is, a filename like [[Image:Flower.jpg]] is simply not unique enough. Still, there are ways to improve the handling of the situation, for example, by providing an "Alternative filename" input box when a filename already exists. > * wikicommons is in english only, hence limiting access to those non > english speaking That is not a fair comment. The Main Page alone has been translated into over 30 languages. For gallery page titles, a carefully thought out policy is used (e.g., use native names for specialty foods, use latin binomial for animals and plants). The interface language of the wiki can be selected in the user preferences. Templates have been created to show what languages a user speaks and are actively used. Filenames are accepted in all languages. The main problem is with categories, which are, unfortunately, not easily internationalizable due to redirects from one cat to another not working -- a technological problem. > * wikinews does not allow uploading images, hence preventing the easy > use of images to non english speakers (since they can not easily > manage wikicommons) I do not see how limiting Wikinews to the Commons excludes non-English speakers, see above, though certainly it is a little more difficult. As you know, this is strictly for legal reasons until the fair use situation has been sorted out: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-February/002217.html This procedure has been directly approved by Jimmy. > The more time goes by, the less motivating it is to provide images imho. Personally, I find it more motivating to upload images now, because thanks to the Wikimedia Commons, I know that anyone on any project can easily use them. I agree with you that certain functionality would be useful and fun. I've only ever pledged to implement the baseline functionality for the Commons, which I have done. I'll try to find time to add some of the above discussed features, but frankly, coding and testing a new feature is not a lot of fun, and as I've said before, until the WMF goes into the habit of handing out development contracts, projects like Wikinews and Wikicommons will stagnate technologically. All of the above, plus more, could be fixed with a few strategic investments in developer resources. Single login alone would greatly increase cross-project usability, as language preferences could be persistent, and you could easily upload files directly from a local wiki to the Commons. As an elected Board member, you have the power to speed up the pace of innovation. I have offered many times to help with that. A handful of active developers will *NOT* be able to keep up with the needs of thousands of users. All best, Erik From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 11:33:39 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:33:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422C3C13.2040202@thingy.apana.org.au> AndyL wrote: > on 3/6/05 9:32 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote: >>Let's get back to the point. You're so far not convincing me that your >>model works better to get an encyclopedia written than the current one. >>How does it better achieve that goal? > It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate complaints > for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned from > editing an article until the hearing is complete. I think you greatly underestimate the propensity for gaming the system amongst our more antisocial editors. You proposal strikes me as more gameable, not less. The Arbitration Committee is ultimately the last stage. On small wikis run by individuals, the owner of the wiki ultimately is the one who can say to someone, "You're being a dick and I'm who says so." On Wikipedia, that used to be Jimbo, but the burden of stupid got too stupid so now it's the AC. The job of the AC is to be the ones who, ultimately say, "You're being a dick. Here's how you're being a dick. You're off the wiki until we think you can behave better. And you, who brought this complaint, your behaviour has been notably dicklike too." (see [[:meta:Don't be a dick]].) Ultimately, the AC is the someones who say "You're being a dick" when it's needed. It's an elected committee because that way there's some balance. But that's what its purpose is. - d. From david at sabels.org Mon Mar 7 13:00:43 2005 From: david at sabels.org (David Sabel) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:00:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Introducing upto11.net - seeking advice Message-ID: <006201c52315$ac639560$6501a8c0@dsnotebook> We just launched upto11.net, a music recommendations and search community that integrates articles about musical artists, albums and songs. Currently we feature articles current as of late September 2004, but will be updating them and moving to a "real time" incremental process shortly. Next to each article is a link, back to an edit page at the Wikipedia, that encourages users to "add to or edit this article." Over time we expect to bring new users to the Wikipedia which should increase the number and depth of articles about music. So far, I've added us to the Friends of Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Wikipedia/Specialized_search_engines and, I created a "project" page which further introduces our site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dsupto11 Are there othere pages where links might be appropriate? We'd like get the word out to the Wikipedia community, but do it in a way that is appropriate. Thanks in advance, David Sabel From nought_0000 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 14:45:07 2005 From: nought_0000 at yahoo.com (zero 0000) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 06:45:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050307075308.08EEF1AC19EA@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Fred wrote: > A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A > partial or > poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their > quality. > It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." I think you are missing the point. I don't see anyone wanting to limit the AC's ability to look wherever they like. The issue is of who they have the right to impose penalties on. Again: if someone is accused by a RfA listing, they have the opportunity to write in their own defence and to have their fellows write in their defence. Then the AC imposes a penalty on a different person who had no such opportunity since they didn't know it was necessary. It is fundamentally unfair. The accuser is treated worse than the accused. The solution: except perhaps in emergencies, the AC should only be able to impose penalties on someone who has had an opportunity to mount a defence. There should be a rule on how much opportunity must be given. Zero. __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From viajero at quilombo.nl Mon Mar 7 14:28:52 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:28:52 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Stange fetishes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422C6524.20600@quilombo.nl> Abe Sokolov wrote: > Michael Becker wikimb at gmail.com wrote: > > "Wikipedia is a wiki community foremost and an encyclopedia second." > > I'm certain that Michael has the means mixed up with the ends. Just > consider the role of the person who established Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales. [snip] wow, great post. V. From theresaknott at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 14:30:43 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:30:43 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> > It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate complaints > for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned from > editing an article until the hearing is complete. Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. Theresa From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 14:59:28 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:59:28 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050307075308.08EEF1AC19EA@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> zero 0000 said: > Fred wrote: >> A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A >> partial or >> poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their >> quality. >> It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." > > I think you are missing the point. I don't see anyone wanting to > limit the AC's ability to look wherever they like. The issue is of who > they have the right to impose penalties on. The arbcom is empowered to make such decisions. There is no issue that I can see here, except for those who want editors to be free to complain about other editors without suffereing the consequences of their own behavior where this has been deleterious to Wikipedia. It's all a matter of what you think arbcom is for. Is it to be a catspaw with which adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept enemies, or is it (as I believe to be the case) a body elected by the editors and delegated by Jimmy Wales to stop editors doing harm to Wikipedia by their actions? If the latter, it should levy penalties to all who merit such penalties. If it only ever penalizes the people nominated by the petitioners, then it can only ever be driven by the perceptions of, and the prejudices of, the cleverer, more adept, editors. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 15:04:06 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:04:06 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> References: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Theresa Knott said: >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum >> tempbanned from editing an article until the hearing is complete. > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? > Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am > not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. I think it is more the case that people have gone to arbcom and not obtained quite the result they expected. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 15:05:14 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:05:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422C09E5.1010500@hackish.org> Message-ID: >From: Delirium > >The current hope is that the community can deal with this, if people who >behave badly are taken out of the system. That is, the community will spot >and remove original research, and if someone keeps readding it despite a >consensus that it should be removed, the person will eventually be banned. > >I'd be open to a committee policing for original research at some point, if >that turns out to be necessary. Policing for NPOV is a lot more >complicated. Well, as I noted on the list a couple of days ago, policing for original research seems equally difficult, when even long time editors consider original research to be "simple facts" or "simple deductive reasoning." Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be updated with examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, someone else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to do is quote them. Jay. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 15:26:24 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:26:24 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050307075308.08EEF1AC19EA@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422C72A0.8010907@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > The arbcom is empowered to make such decisions. There is no issue that I > can see here, except for those who want editors to be free to complain > about other editors without suffereing the consequences of their own > behavior where this has been deleterious to Wikipedia. > It's all a matter of what you think arbcom is for. Is it to be a catspaw > with which adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept > enemies, or is it (as I believe to be the case) a body elected by the > editors and delegated by Jimmy Wales to stop editors doing harm to > Wikipedia by their actions? If the latter, it should levy penalties to > all who merit such penalties. If it only ever penalizes the people > nominated by the petitioners, then it can only ever be driven by the > perceptions of, and the prejudices of, the cleverer, more adept, editors. I believe that's the longer form of what I meant when I said "you greatly underestimate the propensity of our more antisocial editors for gaming the system" ;-) - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 15:23:46 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:23:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050307004273fab5a3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Matt Brown > >Some people are incorrigible. Yes, many can be reached, but not all. This is an important point that is often overlooked by idealists. There *are* people who are long time disruptive influences and who *cannot* be reached by any sort of reasoning, Wikilove, mediation, etc. Jay. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 15:28:59 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 08:28:59 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think it clear that we should notice in anyone who has become involved. For example, although we have a warning on each arbitration page (the main page, not the evidence page) that editing the page enters you into the case, folks may not read or understand that. So unless the person made the original complaint or joined in it, if they latter add to the complaint, it may not be clear to them that they have become a "plaintiff" and subject to a "counterclaim". Fred > From: zero 0000 > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 06:45:07 -0800 (PST) > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > Fred wrote: >> A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A >> partial or >> poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their >> quality. >> It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." > > I think you are missing the point. I don't see anyone wanting to > limit the AC's ability to look wherever they like. The issue is of > who they have the right to impose penalties on. > > Again: if someone is accused by a RfA listing, they have the > opportunity to write in their own defence and to have their > fellows write in their defence. Then the AC imposes a penalty > on a different person who had no such opportunity since they > didn't know it was necessary. It is fundamentally unfair. > > The accuser is treated worse than the accused. > > The solution: except perhaps in emergencies, the AC should > only be able to impose penalties on someone who has had an > opportunity to mount a defence. There should be a rule on > how much opportunity must be given. > > Zero. > > > > > > __________________________________ > Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! > Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web > http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 15:30:09 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 08:30:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Right, if you want to play a game, try BatMUD. Fred > From: "Tony Sidaway" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:59:28 -0000 (GMT) > To: > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > zero 0000 said: >> Fred wrote: >>> A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A >>> partial or >>> poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their >>> quality. >>> It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." >> >> I think you are missing the point. I don't see anyone wanting to >> limit the AC's ability to look wherever they like. The issue is of who >> they have the right to impose penalties on. > > The arbcom is empowered to make such decisions. There is no issue that I > can see here, except for those who want editors to be free to complain > about other editors without suffereing the consequences of their own > behavior where this has been deleterious to Wikipedia. > It's all a matter of what you think arbcom is for. Is it to be a catspaw > with which adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept > enemies, or is it (as I believe to be the case) a body elected by the > editors and delegated by Jimmy Wales to stop editors doing harm to > Wikipedia by their actions? If the latter, it should levy penalties to > all who merit such penalties. If it only ever penalizes the people > nominated by the petitioners, then it can only ever be driven by the > perceptions of, and the prejudices of, the cleverer, more adept, editors. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 15:38:57 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:38:57 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422C72A0.8010907@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050307075308.08EEF1AC19EA@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422C72A0.8010907@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <56618.194.72.110.12.1110209937.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > > I believe that's the longer form of what I meant when I said "you > greatly underestimate the propensity of our more antisocial editors for > gaming the system" ;-) > Indeed. Having said that, I think arbcom must take great care to afford all involved in a case an opportunity to give evidence in their defense. Towards the end of the recent Robert the Bruce case, it emerged that one innocent third party named by Robert the Bruce as a sock puppet only heard of this accusation by accident. He had not been involved in the arbitration case at all except by being named, unknown to him, by one of the parties. A sock puppet check was ordered on him without his knowledge. In cases of sock puppet accusations sometimes the accused may be able to, and certainly should always be given the opportunity to, convince the arbitrators that he is not a sock puppet. Many people use AOL which I understand uses a round-robin web proxy system, so it would be quite easy for two people with ostensible similarities in their patterns of Wiki usage to be mistaken for sock puppets. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 15:48:41 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:48:41 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Theresa Knott > > It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate >complaints > > for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned >from > > editing an article until the hearing is complete. > >Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? Public evidence? No, of course not. >Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am >not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. You're on ArbCom, so you wouldn't be; you only hear the cases made by people who are brave/foolish enough to approach ArbCom. Jay. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 15:54:14 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:54:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <56618.194.72.110.12.1110209937.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050307075308.08EEF1AC19EA@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422C72A0.8010907@thingy.apana.org.au> <56618.194.72.110.12.1110209937.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422C7926.3090002@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > Indeed. Having said that, I think arbcom must take great care to afford > all involved in a case an opportunity to give evidence in their defense. > Towards the end of the recent Robert the Bruce case, it emerged that one > innocent third party named by Robert the Bruce as a sock puppet only heard > of this accusation by accident. He had not been involved in the > arbitration case at all except by being named, unknown to him, by one of > the parties. A sock puppet check was ordered on him without his > knowledge. Yeah. I should add also that the AC is not perfect. Mind you, sockpuppet checks are not IMO themselves an intrusion, as we do take care not to give the details, e.g. "technical evidence shows". Privacy is important. > In cases of sock puppet accusations sometimes the accused may be able to, > and certainly should always be given the opportunity to, convince the > arbitrators that he is not a sock puppet. Many people use AOL which I > understand uses a round-robin web proxy system, so it would be quite easy > for two people with ostensible similarities in their patterns of Wiki > usage to be mistaken for sock puppets. We are *keenly* aware of the anoying case of AOL ... Sockpuppetry is usually flagged through a remarkable similarity in edits and favourite topics. Occasionally when a noted sockpuppeteer starts throwing around spurious allegations of sockpuppetry against his detractors. Writing and editing styles are what's telling; technical evidence is only a corroboration. - d. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Mon Mar 7 15:55:02 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 07:55:02 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Can arbitration really support policy? Message-ID: Fred Bauder wisely observed: "Arbitration is not a tool to be used in struggle with other editors. If you are struggling with other editors rather than complaining in good faith about violations of Wikipedia policy you are probably violating Wikipedia policies yourself." However, users (of all ranks): * Generally regard arbitration as a HIM vs. YOU matter. * Often use arbitration as a weapon with which to carry on struggles with other editors. What we need instead is a board which enforces rules in HIM vs. US paradigm. That is, a user's conduct or speech is evaluated in terms of how well it supports or thwarts the aims of Wikipedia. If someone's name-calling is really bugging others, distracting them from writing superb articles, and making them want to kick the dust of this crummy little town off their shoes -- well, I'd say then that HIS NAME-CALLING is out of line and ought to be squelched somehow. It would be good to have a rule on hand, which we can pull off a shelf, dust off, and apply. (YOU ARE BLOCKED FOR X AMOUNT OF TIME.) The time-out gives the rest of us a chance to recover from his annoying behavior, and get back into the normal, everyday routine of cooperative editing. And he might even *choose* to adhere more closely to the rules when we let him come back. Let's stop making it a "dispute resolution process" between two EQUALS who happen to disagree. Maybe ONE of them is actually in the RIGHT, and the other guy is MESSING THINGS UP. In such a case, it's not a matter of smoothing over a 'conflict' between two people. It's enforcing the rules of the COMMUNITY so we can get on with furthering the aims of our project. Let's send this message to all and sundry: "You wanna help us build a great encyclopedia? Fine, and welcome! You want to advance your own agenda? Stop right here: learn to do it our way, or simply DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE." Uncle Ed Poor Wikipedia's First Elected Bureaucrat Developer Emeritus ...and all around nice guy! From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:01:31 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:01:31 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <40271.194.72.110.12.1110207568.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >The arbcom is empowered to make such decisions. There is no issue that I >can see here, except for those who want editors to be free to complain >about other editors without suffereing the consequences of their own >behavior where this has been deleterious to Wikipedia. Why should it be only people who have actually brought cases before ArbCom who must "suffer the consequences for their own behaviour where this has been deleterious to Wikipedia?" If you're so keen on the concept that everyone should suffer consequences for their behaviour, shouldn't you be promoting the idea that ArbCom should have its own investigative police, scouring Wikipedia for "deleterious" behaviour, and bringing all suspects before ArbCom for summary judgement? >It's all a matter of what you think arbcom is for. Is it to be a catspaw >with which adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept >enemies, or is it (as I believe to be the case) a body elected by the >editors and delegated by Jimmy Wales to stop editors doing harm to >Wikipedia by their actions? If the latter, it should levy penalties to >all who merit such penalties. If it only ever penalizes the people >nominated by the petitioners, then it can only ever be driven by the >perceptions of, and the prejudices of, the cleverer, more adept, editors. You've set up a Strawman ArbCom, and then insisted that the current ArbCom is vastly better. ArbCom has never been "a catspaw with which adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept enemies", and there is no indication that it will ever be so. Rather, it has been a body which has helped rid Wikipedia of some of its most egregious policy violators, editors who collectively have done more harm to Wikipedia than 100 "catspaw" ArbComs could ever do. The Cheese Dreams et al of Wikipedia were not banned for being "unadept" at "procedure-manipulation", and it is ridiculous to even imply as much. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:03:10 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:03:10 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >Theresa Knott said: > >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate > >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum > >> tempbanned from editing an article until the hearing is complete. > > > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? > > Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am > > not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. > >I think it is more the case that people have gone to arbcom and not >obtained quite the result they expected. Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. Jay. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 16:12:21 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:12:21 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <47994.194.72.110.12.1110211941.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: > > Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now > that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. Make an evidence page. From dpbsmith at verizon.net Mon Mar 7 16:13:42 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:13:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: upto11.net Message-ID: <13514570.1110212022767.JavaMail.root@vms063.mailsrvcs.net> >From: "David Sabel" <david at sabels.org> >Subject: [WikiEN-l] Introducing upto11.net - seeking advice [snip] >We just launched upto11.net, a music recommendations and search community that integrates articles about musical artists, albums and songs. > >So far, I've added us to the Friends of Wikipedia page > >Are there othere pages where links might be appropriate? We'd like get the word out to the Wikipedia community, but do it in a way that is appropriate. > >Thanks in advance, > >David Sabel 1) THANKS FOR ASKING. Good move. 2) One very good approach would be to encourage _your_ user base to do useful work editing Wikipedia articles, create accounts, and _identify themselves as upto11.net members on their usage page._ You can... let me phrase this carefully so nobody will jump on me too hard... get away with a reasonable amount of promotion on user pages, which can be personal chatty diaries or pretty much whatever you want. You can certainly create such a user page yourself. And Google does index Wikipedia user pages. 3) DO caution your user base _against_ inserting links to your site on any pages that are in the "main" name space--that is, in actual encyclopedia articles. This will raise hackles unless the link provides useful information that is very clearly pertinent to the article and is not easily found elsewhere. 4) I was just on your site. Jeez, I wish Wikipedia were as fast. (Wikipedia is having a bad day today... don't try to do anything with Wikipedia right now!) From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 7 16:14:09 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:14:09 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? References: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003201c52330$b3070030$9e7c0450@Galasien> zero 0000 wrote > The accuser is treated worse than the accused. The argument, I take it, is that the ArbCom should only be able to apply remedies to the editor complained of. OK - suppose that was agreed today - how long would it take for every 'accused' to figure out that it is possible to bring a countersuit against the 'accuser'? Now an number of those suits would no doubt be thrown right out by the ArbCom. But for those where there is not such a clear case, wouldn't it come to much the current position? Charles From theresaknott at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:21:54 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:21:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050307082147607059@mail.gmail.com> > > Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now that > no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > > Jay. Such as? Theresa From slimvirgin at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:23:00 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 09:23:00 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4cc603b0503070823b873412@mail.gmail.com> > >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate > >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised Theresa Knott said: > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? . . . > >I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. I was reluctant to bring the case against the LaRouche editor Herschelkrustofsky because of uncertainty about arbcom attitudes. Herschel was operating a couple of sockpuppets and for months the three user accounts engaged in absurd POV editing and original research, as well as trying to goad editors into making personal attacks. I couldn't prove they were sockpuppets, and twice asked a developer for help but got no response, so I couldn't bring a case. They started attacking me in November, and I managed to last several weeks of daily snide remarks and POV editing, when I finally broke down and called one of them a "toxic troll" twice within half an hour, the only time I had said anything that could be called a personal attack. The context was that, after days of negotiation with Herschel to have an NPOV tag taken down, we finally reached an agreement, took down the tag, and then one of his sockpuppets put it straight back up again. Hence my troll comment. Herschel was pleased as punch that I'd finally weakened and he went straight to the arbcom page and asked for a penalty against me. Fred Bauder responded by saying that if I ever showed up at the arbcom, I'd be banned for a day or two at least. This, without having seen any evidence or asking for my side of the story. That definitely made me reluctant to bring a case, though I did in the end. In January, I asked David Gerard for help regarding my sockpuppet suspicion. He was able to get a developer to check the accounts, and it was confirmed that they appeared to be sockpuppets, so I took the case to the new, recently elected arbcom. In the course of it, Herschel complained about my toxic-troll comment on an arbcom talk page. He submitted no evidence on the evidence page, and provided no diffs, but the arbcom took his comment as evidence and found the diffs for him. I didn't know they would do this, and hadn't prepared a defense. I wasn't penalized but I was formally warned. When the proposed decision against Herschel was being written up, Fred also made a couple of remarks about the need to deal with "the POV warriors on the other side," and named one editor, but he said warriors plural, so I assume he also meant me and/or one of the other editors. This meant we had to spend more time submitting defenses for ourselves. Fred provided no evidence of POV-pushing on our part, no examples, diffs, nothing, so we didn't even know what we were defending ourselves against. These were minor things, but they were annoying, because several editors had spent a lot of time dealing with Herschel for eight months, and we were doing it for Wikipedia, not for our own benefit. None of us had personal POVs that we were pushing, except a desire for accuracy. Keeping him and the two other accounts at bay was hard work, as was putting up with his constant snide remarks, and then putting the arbcom case together; yet it felt as though we were on trial too. If we'd had an editorial review committee, editors could have gone there about his original-research and NPOV violations when he first turned up in May, without having to wait for sockpuppet checks or for him to violate other conduct-related policies. I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his activities here completely. Sarah From johnleemk at gawab.com Mon Mar 7 16:26:30 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 00:26:30 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422C80B6.6080507@gawab.com> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Tony Sidaway" >> >> Theresa Knott said: >> >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate >> >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum >> >> tempbanned from editing an article until the hearing is complete. >> > >> > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? >> > Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am >> > not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. >> >> I think it is more the case that people have gone to arbcom and not >> obtained quite the result they expected. > > > Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now > that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > > Jay. Perhaps you could present a specific example or two? John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:26:58 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:26:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <47994.194.72.110.12.1110211941.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: "Tony Sidaway" > >JAY JG said: > > > > Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now > > that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > >Make an evidence page. LOL! No thanks, my profile is high enough already. Jay. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:30:14 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:30:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <47994.194.72.110.12.1110211941.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <47994.194.72.110.12.1110211941.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422C8196.5060800@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > JAY JG said: >>Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now >>that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > Make an evidence page. Or rather, make it a Request For Comment. - d. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 16:30:51 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:30:51 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? Message-ID: <17121.194.72.110.12.1110213051.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: > > Why should it be only people who have actually brought cases before > ArbCom who must "suffer the consequences for their own behaviour where > this has been deleterious to Wikipedia?" If you're so keen on the > concept that everyone should suffer consequences for their behaviour, > shouldn't you be promoting the idea that ArbCom should have its own > investigative police, scouring Wikipedia for "deleterious" behaviour, > and bringing all suspects before ArbCom for summary judgement? In a sense, this is what we have. All editors are responsible for ensuring that no harm comes to Wikipedia, and the dispute resolution process escalates otherwise-intractable behavior to arbcom level in due course. > ArbCom has never been "a catspaw with which > adept procedure-manipulators can wage war on their less adept > enemies", and there is no indication that it will ever be so. Rather, > it has been a body which has helped rid Wikipedia of some of its most > egregious policy violators, editors who collectively have done more > harm to Wikipedia than 100 "catspaw" ArbComs could ever do. The Cheese > Dreams et al of Wikipedia were not banned for being "unadept" at > "procedure-manipulation", and it is ridiculous to even imply as much.> I agree completely. Arbcom must be free to investigate cases brought before it and identify and remedy deleterious behavior. To this end it should probably not be further restricted artificially as if it were a court in an adversarial justice system. I was commenting on zero's idea that we should limit which parties to a case arbcom was permitted to apply a remedy to. There is nothing wrong with arbcom saying at the end of a case: "you've all been naughty, now stop it" if this is merited. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:32:06 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:32:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb050307082147607059@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Theresa Knott > > > Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now >that > > no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > > > > Jay. > >Such as? Public naming brings too much attention from trolls. Jay. From theresaknott at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:32:16 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:32:16 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422C8196.5060800@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <47994.194.72.110.12.1110211941.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422C8196.5060800@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050307083276d5c0d2@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:30:14 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > > JAY JG said: > > >>Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now > >>that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > > > Make an evidence page. > > Or rather, make it a Request For Comment. Exactly. If the community speaks up the conflict may be resolved without the need for the AC. Even if it does go to AC the rfc will give you a pretty good idea of what AC opinion is likely to be. We are unlikely to contradict the community.(unless new evidence comes to light) Theresa From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Mon Mar 7 16:34:05 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:34:05 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <003201c52330$b3070030$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> <003201c52330$b3070030$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <22897.194.72.110.12.1110213245.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Charles Matthews said: > zero 0000 wrote > >> The accuser is treated worse than the accused. > > The argument, I take it, is that the ArbCom should only be able to > apply remedies to the editor complained of. > > OK - suppose that was agreed today - how long would it take for every > 'accused' to figure out that it is possible to bring a countersuit > against the 'accuser'? Now an number of those suits would no doubt be > thrown right out by the ArbCom. But for those where there is not such > a clear case, wouldn't it come to much the current position? There would be procedural problems that would render such cases difficult to manage. For instance if Arbcom is not been permitted to act on evidence brought by a defendant, who is then banned, the defendant will not be able to participate in the counter-suit. The current way is better. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:36:34 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:36:34 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503070823b873412@mail.gmail.com> References: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4cc603b0503070823b873412@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422C8312.4010307@thingy.apana.org.au> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the > decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his > activities here completely. Well, theoretically. There is an editor many are fairly sure is Herschel, based on style, but who seems to be keeping well away from LaRouche related activity, and who no-one's brought a formal complaint against as yet. This is, I suppose, a combination of "infinite forgiveness" (if User:Michael came back as a good editor, ANYONE can) and "if there's no problem, there's no problem" (everyone has other things to concern themselves with, e.g. writing an encyclopedia). (I expect a sockpuppet check to fail to turn up any evidence, as Herschel was clearly quite technically adept and was only caught as Weed Harper by slipping up. But editing patterns are how socks are suspected anyway.) In any AC case, there will be myriad accusations and counteraccusations flying about, even if we put in a new rule that a case can only be considered in terms of the initial accused, not the initial accuser. That's why we like clear and detailed evidence pages so very much. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:38:33 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:38:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Can arbitration really support policy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422C8389.8030803@thingy.apana.org.au> Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Fred Bauder wisely observed: > "Arbitration is not a tool to be used in struggle with other > editors. If you are struggling with other editors rather > than complaining in good faith about violations of Wikipedia > policy you are probably violating Wikipedia policies > yourself." > However, users (of all ranks): > * Generally regard arbitration as a HIM vs. YOU matter. > * Often use arbitration as a weapon with which to carry on struggles > with other editors. Yep, which is incorrect. > What we need instead is a board which enforces rules in HIM vs. US > paradigm. That is, a user's conduct or speech is evaluated in terms of > how well it supports or thwarts the aims of Wikipedia. > If someone's name-calling is really bugging others, distracting them > from writing superb articles, and making them want to kick the dust of > this crummy little town off their shoes -- well, I'd say then that HIS > NAME-CALLING is out of line and ought to be squelched somehow. It would > be good to have a rule on hand, which we can pull off a shelf, dust off, > and apply. (YOU ARE BLOCKED FOR X AMOUNT OF TIME.) The time-out gives > the rest of us a chance to recover from his annoying behavior, and get > back into the normal, everyday routine of cooperative editing. And he > might even *choose* to adhere more closely to the rules when we let him > come back. > Let's stop making it a "dispute resolution process" between two EQUALS > who happen to disagree. Maybe ONE of them is actually in the RIGHT, and > the other guy is MESSING THINGS UP. In such a case, it's not a matter of > smoothing over a 'conflict' between two people. It's enforcing the rules > of the COMMUNITY so we can get on with furthering the aims of our > project. > Let's send this message to all and sundry: > "You wanna help us build a great encyclopedia? Fine, and welcome! You > want to advance your own agenda? Stop right here: learn to do it our > way, or simply DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE." I think there's a lot of what you describe in what we try to do now ;-) Perhaps there's a good way to phrase it that can go on a suitable page. - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:36:14 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:36:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503070823b873412@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: > > > >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate > > >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised >Theresa Knott said: > > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? . . >. > > >I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. > >I was reluctant to bring the case against the LaRouche editor >Herschelkrustofsky because of uncertainty about arbcom attitudes. >Herschel was operating a couple of sockpuppets and for months the >three user accounts engaged in absurd POV editing and original >research, as well as trying to goad editors into making personal >attacks. I couldn't prove they were sockpuppets, and twice asked a >developer for help but got no response, so I couldn't bring a case. >They started attacking me in November, and I managed to last several >weeks of daily snide remarks and POV editing, when I finally broke >down and called one of them a "toxic troll" twice within half an hour, >the only time I had said anything that could be called a personal >attack. The context was that, after days of negotiation with Herschel >to have an NPOV tag taken down, we finally reached an agreement, took >down the tag, and then one of his sockpuppets put it straight back up >again. Hence my troll comment. Herschel was pleased as punch that I'd >finally weakened and he went straight to the arbcom page and asked for >a penalty against me. Fred Bauder responded by saying that if I ever >showed up at the arbcom, I'd be banned for a day or two at least. >This, without having seen any evidence or asking for my side of the >story. That definitely made me reluctant to bring a case, though I did >in the end. > >In January, I asked David Gerard for help regarding my sockpuppet >suspicion. He was able to get a developer to check the accounts, and >it was confirmed that they appeared to be sockpuppets, so I took the >case to the new, recently elected arbcom. In the course of it, >Herschel complained about my toxic-troll comment on an arbcom talk >page. He submitted no evidence on the evidence page, and provided no >diffs, but the arbcom took his comment as evidence and found the diffs >for him. I didn't know they would do this, and hadn't prepared a >defense. I wasn't penalized but I was formally warned. > >When the proposed decision against Herschel was being written up, Fred >also made a couple of remarks about the need to deal with "the POV >warriors on the other side," and named one editor, but he said >warriors plural, so I assume he also meant me and/or one of the other >editors. This meant we had to spend more time submitting defenses for >ourselves. Fred provided no evidence of POV-pushing on our part, no >examples, diffs, nothing, so we didn't even know what we were >defending ourselves against. > >These were minor things, but they were annoying, because several >editors had spent a lot of time dealing with Herschel for eight >months, and we were doing it for Wikipedia, not for our own benefit. >None of us had personal POVs that we were pushing, except a desire for >accuracy. Keeping him and the two other accounts at bay was hard work, >as was putting up with his constant snide remarks, and then putting >the arbcom case together; yet it felt as though we were on trial too. > >If we'd had an editorial review committee, editors could have gone >there about his original-research and NPOV violations when he first >turned up in May, without having to wait for sockpuppet checks or for >him to violate other conduct-related policies. > >I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the >decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his >activities here completely. > >Sarah I'm glad Sarah was brave enough to speak out; this e-mail perfectly illustrates the problem. And Sarah is not a POV warrior with a grudge against Larouche, but someone who was reluctantly drawn into an obvious mess created by a Larouch acolyte. Jay. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:40:14 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:40:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <17121.194.72.110.12.1110213051.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <17121.194.72.110.12.1110213051.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422C83EE.7080003@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > There is nothing wrong with arbcom saying at the end of a case: "you've > all been naughty, now stop it" if this is merited. There are lots of cases in which we basically really want to do just this. The antisocial against the antisocial. - d. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 7 16:36:31 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:36:31 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: Message-ID: <003b01c52333$d2c2c050$9e7c0450@Galasien> JAY JG wrote > Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be updated with > examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, someone > else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to do is > quote them. Literally speaking, conversion of temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius would fall foul of this. And numerous other things: such as conversion of dates out of one calendar system into another, metrication, currency conversion, inverting family relationships from 'nephew' to 'uncle' ... It is far from obvious that _every instance_ of every such low-level operation can be supported as a literal quote. I don't expect this to have much effect on editors. But surely drawing up such a policy that is drafted in too sweeping a way is going to inhibit something valuable, sometime, somewhere. There was an argument brought forward on the Featured Article status discussion for [[The Cantos]], that everything said about the interpretation for this poem should be drawn from the secondary literature. Now, the argument had some merit: the article was amended in specific ways. But considering that the article itself summarised (expertly, and that part was nothing to do with me) all 107-odd cantos of this 500 page poem, there was also a slightly ridiculous quality to arguing that you couldn't just provide a helpful summary of themes extracted from all that, to help the reader get into 80K of text. And I honestly think the article might never have got started at all, if NOR had clouded my judgement about getting some scaffolding in place. Charles From gamaliel8 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 16:39:28 2005 From: gamaliel8 at yahoo.com (Rob) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:39:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? Message-ID: <20050307163929.28675.qmail@web54505.mail.yahoo.com> >If some had been arranged for this fellow earlier, this anti-wikipedia > site MAY have been avoided. Did you bother to look at the talk page or the history of the article? Did you bother to look at the history of vandalism from Sollog and his minions? He had literally dozens of sockpuppets - so many that we made a template to mark them all - and vandalized not only [[Sollog]] but many other articles, including many that were on the main page. Unless you can point to exactly *what* we should have done and *when* we should have done it, your suggestion is worse than useless, it is insulting to all those editors who worked to undo Sollog's vandalism while at the same time creating an NPOV article on the person who was attacking us. __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From david at sabels.org Mon Mar 7 16:39:56 2005 From: david at sabels.org (David Sabel) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 11:39:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: upto11.net References: <13514570.1110212022767.JavaMail.root@vms063.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <03e001c52334$4bdc7da0$6501a8c0@dsnotebook> Thanks for the quick reply. > 2) One very good approach would be to encourage _your_ user base to do > useful > work editing Wikipedia articles, create accounts, and _identify themselves > as > upto11.net members on their usage page._ > You can certainly create such a user page yourself. And Google does index > Wikipedia user pages. 1. Do you have an example of the type of user page you are suggesting? Is it something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dsupto11 in structure? > 3) DO caution your user base _against_ inserting links to your site on any > pages that are in the "main" name space--that is, in actual encyclopedia > articles. This will raise hackles unless the link provides useful > information > that is very clearly pertinent to the article and is not easily found > elsewhere. 2. We definitely will discourage folks from linking, within a Wikipedia article, to upto11.net, as that would be really confusing for users - the link might go to the page they are on! We want our users to add to the main encyclopedia articles, not promote upto11. >From our FAQ Q. What is Wikipedia? A. It's an open-content encyclopedia that has been created by thousands of people. The project's aim is to create a free encyclopedia, in fact, the largest encylcopedia in history. Information about artists, albums and songs that is presented on upto11.net is provided, in part, from the Wikipedia. Q. What can I do to help make Wikipedia more successful? A. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort that anyone can contribute to. Even you. All you need to know is how to edit a page, and have some encyclopedic knowledge you want to share. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page to learn more about how to contribute. Q. What does the link "add to or edit this information" do? A. Upto11.net encourages its users to become active contributors to the Wikipedia project. If, in the course of your use of the upto11.net site, you encounter a page with little or no content about a band, album or song that you are familiar with, please click on the "add to or edit" link to share that knowledge. Over time, the encyclopedia will grow and become more useful to all users, especially to you, the music fan who enjoys using upto11.net. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:45:07 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:45:07 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422C8196.5060800@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: David Gerard > >Tony Sidaway wrote: >>JAY JG said: > >>>Actually, you are incorrect; there are obvious ArbCom cases right now >>>that no-one is willing to bring before ArbCom. > >>Make an evidence page. > > >Or rather, make it a Request For Comment. I've done one user-related Request for Comment. The evidence for placed in it for violations of policy (particularly around personal attacks) were so obvious that if they had been used in a RfAR, they would have undoubtedly warranted at least a month block. Yet the RfC was itself turned into a two-way trial, with partisans on his side, and his buddies, lining up and complaining about me ("e.g. true, he called you an asshole etc. but you provoked him by reverting his edit, so you're both equally guilty"). This of course is not how RfCs are supposed to be used, but it was justified on the basis that other people had done it in other RfCs. In the end nothing came of it, and the effort was mostly wasted, because the person in question did not modify his behaviour in the slightest, and when it came to the inevitable RfAR months later (after which the person in question was banned for over a year), none of the evidence presented in the RfC was even considered. In my experience (and as I've said before on this list) people-related RfCs do no good whatsoever, and are simply a necessary bit of bureaucracy one must slog though in order to prepare for the real event, ArbCom. Jay. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 16:51:11 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:51:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307165111.49488.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> --- JAY JG wrote: > In my experience (and as I've said before on this list) people-related RfCs > do no good whatsoever, and are simply a necessary bit of bureaucracy one > must slog though in order to prepare for the real event, ArbCom. This is not true at all in my experience as an arbcom member. If and when I know an RfC exists on a user, I *always* look at that in order to see what interested people in the community think about the user's behavior. RfCs are very important in that regard. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From gamaliel8 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 16:46:42 2005 From: gamaliel8 at yahoo.com (Rob) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:46:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Evidence as to VFD being unusably big Message-ID: <20050307164642.62025.qmail@web54507.mail.yahoo.com> >Nonsense. I have a dialup connection and have little >problem working with the VfD page. Not everyone on dialup is so lucky. I don't even bother attempting to load the vfd page anymore. __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From theresaknott at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 16:57:54 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:57:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <4cc603b0503070823b873412@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030708571ff7ea62@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:36:14 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > >From: > > > > > >> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate > > > >> complaints for fear that they too would be penalised > >Theresa Knott said: > > > > Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? . . > >. > > > >I am not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. > > > >I was reluctant to bring the case against the LaRouche editor > >Herschelkrustofsky because of uncertainty about arbcom attitudes. > >Herschel was operating a couple of sockpuppets and for months the > >three user accounts engaged in absurd POV editing and original > >research, as well as trying to goad editors into making personal > >attacks. I couldn't prove they were sockpuppets, and twice asked a > >developer for help but got no response, so I couldn't bring a case. > >They started attacking me in November, and I managed to last several > >weeks of daily snide remarks and POV editing, when I finally broke > >down and called one of them a "toxic troll" twice within half an hour, > >the only time I had said anything that could be called a personal > >attack. The context was that, after days of negotiation with Herschel > >to have an NPOV tag taken down, we finally reached an agreement, took > >down the tag, and then one of his sockpuppets put it straight back up > >again. Hence my troll comment. Herschel was pleased as punch that I'd > >finally weakened and he went straight to the arbcom page and asked for > >a penalty against me. Fred Bauder responded by saying that if I ever > >showed up at the arbcom, I'd be banned for a day or two at least. > >This, without having seen any evidence or asking for my side of the > >story. That definitely made me reluctant to bring a case, though I did > >in the end. > > > >In January, I asked David Gerard for help regarding my sockpuppet > >suspicion. He was able to get a developer to check the accounts, and > >it was confirmed that they appeared to be sockpuppets, so I took the > >case to the new, recently elected arbcom. In the course of it, > >Herschel complained about my toxic-troll comment on an arbcom talk > >page. He submitted no evidence on the evidence page, and provided no > >diffs, but the arbcom took his comment as evidence and found the diffs > >for him. I didn't know they would do this, and hadn't prepared a > >defense. I wasn't penalized but I was formally warned. > > > >When the proposed decision against Herschel was being written up, Fred > >also made a couple of remarks about the need to deal with "the POV > >warriors on the other side," and named one editor, but he said > >warriors plural, so I assume he also meant me and/or one of the other > >editors. This meant we had to spend more time submitting defenses for > >ourselves. Fred provided no evidence of POV-pushing on our part, no > >examples, diffs, nothing, so we didn't even know what we were > >defending ourselves against. > > > >These were minor things, but they were annoying, because several > >editors had spent a lot of time dealing with Herschel for eight > >months, and we were doing it for Wikipedia, not for our own benefit. > >None of us had personal POVs that we were pushing, except a desire for > >accuracy. Keeping him and the two other accounts at bay was hard work, > >as was putting up with his constant snide remarks, and then putting > >the arbcom case together; yet it felt as though we were on trial too. > > > >If we'd had an editorial review committee, editors could have gone > >there about his original-research and NPOV violations when he first > >turned up in May, without having to wait for sockpuppet checks or for > >him to violate other conduct-related policies. > > > >I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the > >decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his > >activities here completely. > > > >Sarah > > I'm glad Sarah was brave enough to speak out; this e-mail perfectly > illustrates the problem. And Sarah is not a POV warrior with a grudge > against Larouche, but someone who was reluctantly drawn into an obvious mess > created by a Larouch acolyte. But as Sarah said "These were minor things, but they were annoying" Let's keep things in perspective. Should we really change the way the AC works to avoid annoying minor gripes. Quoting Sarah again "I should add to this, however, that I'm grateful to the arbcom for the decisions they reached in the end, as they managed to stop his activities here completely." Is it really worth hindering the AC from trying get rid of trolls, POV pushers, out and out lunatics etc in order to avoid causing such little greviences? I'm not saying everything is perfect. But I think the alternatives being suggested at the moment will be worse, not better. Theresa > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 17:01:04 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 09:01:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307170104.70106.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Theresa Knott wrote: > > It wouldn't artificially discourage people from > making legitimate complaints > > for fear that they too would be penalised or at a > minimum tempbanned from > > editing an article until the hearing is complete. > > Is there any evidence that this has actually > happened in the past? {Waves hand} RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 17:01:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:01:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <003b01c52333$d2c2c050$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" > >JAY JG wrote > > > Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be updated >with > > examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, someone > > else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to do is > > quote them. > >Literally speaking, conversion of temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius >would fall foul of this. And numerous other things: such as conversion of >dates out of one calendar system into another, metrication, currency >conversion, inverting family relationships from 'nephew' to 'uncle' ... No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes original research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if you were to assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive reasoning" that uncles were more closely related to nephews than aunts were to nieces, that would be original research, and you'd have to find some source which supported it. Jay. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 17:22:58 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:22:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422C8DF2.4070800@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG wrote: > and when it came to the inevitable RfAR months later > (after which the person in question was banned for over a year), none of > the evidence presented in the RfC was even considered. Er, why not? It would likely have been an excellent start to arbitration evidence. Which case do you mean? - d. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Mon Mar 7 17:30:46 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:30:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way Message-ID: Here is the URL: http://www.sdmagazine.com/articles/2005/0504/ Sorry, but they require registration to see it. Uncle Ed > -----Original Message----- > From: Poor, Edmund W [mailto:Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com] > Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 5:56 PM > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: [WikiEN-l] SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way > > > The April 2005 edition of Software Development Magazine has > an article Rick Wayne wrote about wiki software, and > MediaWiki has BY FAR the nicest screen shots. You'll > recognize the yellow flower and the puzzle-world right away. > It's in the April 2005 edition, which just arrived in my > snail mailbox today at work. (The online version lags a few > days behind, but I'll send in the URL once it's up. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 17:38:40 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:38:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422C8DF2.4070800@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: David Gerard >JAY JG wrote: > >>and when it came to the inevitable RfAR months later (after which the >>person in question was banned for over a year), none of the evidence >>presented in the RfC was even considered. > > >Er, why not? It would likely have been an excellent start >to arbitration evidence. Which case do you mean? As far as I know none of the evidence in my RfC re: Alberuni was used in the actual findings against him. Jay. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 7 18:37:22 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 18:37:22 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: Message-ID: <001601c52344$b4e4d0d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jay JG wrote > "Deductive reasoning" becomes original > research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in an > article, not when used to do unit conversions. I have to say that I'm not comfortable with 'content policy' being made into something slightly different in this way. Policy on content fundamentally is there to help sort out what content is encyclopedic in nature. It is not really there - though clearly will be used by some - to tell you when you may or may not argue a certain way (as if the process was inherently adversarial). One obviously shouldn't end up with a path-dependent criterion, for example. Charles From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 19:11:15 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:11:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG wrote: > From: David Gerard >> JAY JG wrote: >>> and when it came to the inevitable RfAR months later (after which the >>> person in question was banned for over a year), none of the evidence >>> presented in the RfC was even considered. >> Er, why not? It would likely have been an excellent start >> to arbitration evidence. Which case do you mean? > As far as I know none of the evidence in my RfC re: Alberuni was used in > the actual findings against him. Ah, okay. Apology on my part for not going looking, that was one of the earliest cases I looked at. Note to all bringing RFArs: if you've done an RFC, list it on the Evidence page *and* explicitly reuse the evidence! - d. From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 19:26:58 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:26:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: >From: David Gerard > >JAY JG wrote: >>From: David Gerard >>>JAY JG wrote: > >>>>and when it came to the inevitable RfAR months later (after which the >>>>person in question was banned for over a year), none of the evidence >>>>presented in the RfC was even considered. > >>>Er, why not? It would likely have been an excellent start >>>to arbitration evidence. Which case do you mean? > >>As far as I know none of the evidence in my RfC re: Alberuni was used in >>the actual findings against him. > > >Ah, okay. Apology on my part for not going looking, that was one of the >earliest cases I looked at. > >Note to all bringing RFArs: if you've done an RFC, list it on the >Evidence page *and* explicitly reuse the evidence! Just to be clear, I was not a complainant in the RfAR against Alberuni. I explicitly avoided that case for a number of reasons, including ones mentioned earlier on this list. Jay. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Mar 7 19:40:59 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:40:59 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307142305.031ccad0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Delerium wrote, >The current hope is that the community can deal with this, if people who >behave badly are taken out of the system. That is, the community will >spot and remove original research, and if someone keeps readding it >despite a consensus that it should be removed, the person will >eventually be banned. I understand this. And, as I hope I have made very clear, I do believe that the unregulated community must and can be the first, and major, way of dealing with such problems. Two big buts (and, as we all know, everyone has big buts): First, many other people have pointed out that the way that the community deals with such issues often escalates to a point where vigilant members of the community violate personal behavior rules in the process of trying to control an editor who is damaging the content of an article. I am not excusing violation of personal behavior rules, I am just making what I think is a factual observation. Since the only official dispute-resolution mechanism we currently have is concerned exclusively with behavioral violations, and not content, vigilant members of the community are punished along with those damaging content. As many have pointed out, the 3RR actually favors editors who damage content, against vigilant members. I am NOT saying that the ArbCom should stop dealing with violations of behavior policies. I Am saying that this situation calls for a second mechanism. (I share Mav's concern about extending the ArbCom's powers -- I think that such a second mechanism should involve a second committee. Second, let's remember that there was a time when we similarly expected the "community" to deal with all problems, including personal conflicts involving violations of behavioral policies. Mediation and ArbCom developed as we realized that the anarchic community processes simply were not sufficient. I think it is clear now that anarchic community processes are not always sufficient to deal with violations of content policies. Believe me, I sometimes miss the days when there was no formal mechanism for dealing with problems, and editors just had to argue it out -- even vituperatively! -- until someone gave up. This is why I still think that the community should try to resolve all disputes, concerning content and behavioral policies. But I understand the need for the ArbCom -- as Wikipedia grows, and becomes even more heterogeneous, I don't see an alternative. But similarly, as Wikipedia grows, I think we now need a second committee. Two committees to handle different kinds of disputes may seem like a lot compared to the old days. But really, I don't think two committees is too much. >I'd be open to a committee policing for original research at some point, >if that turns out to be necessary. Policing for NPOV is a lot more >complicated. As long as it is seen as a dispute resolving mechanism, rather than as police, I think it would work for both (indeed, one of the problems with the ArbCom right now is that it is both dispute-resolving, and police. Maybe we need both functions, but they call for different mechanisms -- a dispute-resolution process does require, as Fred has insisted, that the committee look at the behavior of "both" parties. But this is possible only because there are two or more parties. I think the policing function requires a committee that can talk to users who violate policies even when no one has filed a formal complaint). Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 19:36:24 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:36:24 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422CAD38.4000906@telus.net> Geoff Burling wrote: >On Sun, 6 Mar 2005, David Gerard wrote: > > >>Bryan Derksen wrote: >> >> >>>So why not add non-notability to the deletion policy? >>> >>> >>Mostly because it'll be too damn subjective to fly. >> >> >The times I've cited "non-notable" as a reason for VfD have all been in >regards to entries about people. It's my shorthand for saying "this person >hasn't done anything important enough to merit an entry." And it's a judgement >based on the contents of the first sentence or two of the article -- which >should give the reader a quick answer of why this person is important. If >you can't tell me why this person matters in the first paragraph, then >it's clearly a non-notable entry. > >For example, if the entry begins "Joe Blow is a husband of 14 years to Jane >Blow, has 3 kids & 2 dogs", then it's clearly non-noteable; if the man >did something that argues he should be included in Wikipedia (say, he >invented the cursor or patented the Smiley), it should say that in the first >sentence -- or the second, if the first is devoted to saying he's an >engineer, computer enthusiast or convicted sex offender. If the article >begins "Joe Blow is the maintainer of the Open Source project [[Road kill]]" >then it's not an automatic non-noteable call; even if it turns out that >you can't find any mention of Road Kill at the usual Open Source/Free Software >download sites (like Freshmeat), it's still not non-noteable -- I'd label >it either "vanity" or "hoax" -- especially if that sentence is the entire >article. > >Sadly, even limited to this catagory, this word has a lot of candidates: >for some reason countless people think Wikipedia needs to have an article >about themselves, their girlfriends, or their best friend. Even if said >person's most important achievement in life was survivng birth. > >I'd probably use this term for other catagories, but I've lost the battle >whether public high schools are non-noteable or not. (My own high school is >non-noteable, yet other editors insisted on creating an article about it.) >And it's easier to argue that an article about a public high school should >be deleted because it's unverifiable than non-noteable, whereas with people >it's the other way around. ("But you can't say [[Joe Blow]] is unverifiable! >Take a look in the phone book -- his name is there! Call him & you'll see >that he really exists!") > Congratulations! For once someone has said something sensible in favour of this deletion criterion. "Article does not say why this person is notable," is an objective and easily verifiable criterion. If the basis for the person's notability is to be found later in the article, then it's an easy fix. All too often the term "not notable" seems to be a shortcut for, "He's not important because I never heard of him." That kind of sloppy remark ends up saying more about the person proposing the deletion than about the article in question. A little sensitivity and understanding on the part of some deletionists would go a long way toward defusing this issue. Having established the verifiability of [[Joe Blow]], we need to consider the fate of the late [[Joe Blow, Sr.]] whom the telephone company has so rudely omitted since his death. Obviously his supporters are unfamiliar with the SSDI (Social Security Death Index). This on-line resource is well known by genealogists. It lists the reported death of anybody who had a social security number. Failure to have a SSN may be an indicator of non-notability. Access to that list could be the basis for [[List of notably deceased Americans by Social Security Number]]. :-) Ec From jayjg at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 19:48:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:48:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <001601c52344$b4e4d0d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" > >Jay JG wrote > > > "Deductive reasoning" becomes original > > research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in >an > > article, not when used to do unit conversions. > >I have to say that I'm not comfortable with 'content policy' being made >into >something slightly different in this way. It's not being made into anything different at all; rather, it has been that all along, but people often fail to abide by it. Quoting from [[Wikipedia:No original research]] "A wikipedia entry (including a part of an article) counts as original research if it proposes ideas, that is... it purports to refute another idea." It couldn't be simpler, really, which is why it is astonishing that even some long time editors seem unable to understand and/or accept it. >Policy on content fundamentally >is there to help sort out what content is encyclopedic in nature. Right. And, at least for Wikipedia, it has been decided that "original reasearch" is not "encyclopedic in nature". And one of the things defined as "original research" is material that "purports to refute another idea." >It is not >really there - though clearly will be used by some - to tell you when you >may or may not argue a certain way (as if the process was inherently >adversarial). But of course it is there to do just that (among other things). For example, Wikipedia clearly insists (via the NPOV policy) that you may not argue only one position on a subject, but must bring countering views citing various holders of positions, inevitably introducing an adversarial element to articles. And the original research policy insists that one cannot argue one's own views, but rather must present other's views, and that tempered with the caveat that extreme minority views need not be presented at all. Jay. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Mon Mar 7 19:49:03 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:49:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307142305.031ccad0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307142305.031ccad0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <422CB02F.2030403@sprintmail.com> I don't think it would hurt our process for certain talk pages to say, "The content of this article is subject to the following binding editorial decisions of the Content Arbitration Committee:" Each decision could include an expiration date. Tom From brian1954 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 19:53:56 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:53:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <547b297e0503071153688c15ec@mail.gmail.com> It would seem that reasonable "due process" would require that if the arbcom is contemplating imposing a sanction on a user as a result of evidence of his misbehaviour presented in the course of a case, he should be notified of this and invited to present his own evidence in the case. These procedural rights are accorded to the original "respondent" in an arbcom case. If anyone else becomes a "respondent" in course of a case, either as a result of a counter-charge by the original respondent, or through any other evidence presented in the case, he or should be accorded the same privileges. If the arbcom believes that it is necessary to proceed in the quasi-judicial manner that it has adopted, with "cases", "respondents", "petitioners", "evidence", "injunctions", etc, then it should afford all users the same procedural protections. But personally, I think the arbcom should abandon its current quasi-judial, excessively legalistic procedure and proceed more informally as the implementors of the community consensus when individuals misbehave according to the policies. I would prefer to see the Arbitration Committee change its name to the Moderation Committee and operate more informally, imposing sanctions where appropriate on any member deemed to have violated policy in an egregious manner. They should not wait for "complaints" and "cases" to do this, although of course members should be able to bring problems to their attention via complaints. The reality is that (1) the current procedure is not an arbitration; (2) the process of collecting "evidence", etc, simply slows down the meting out of appropriate sanctions, and can be gamed by trolls; (3) all the legalistic posturing by wannabe lawyers makes Wikipedia look childish and silly; and (4) the arbcom is not in any case an impartial panel of judges but are members themselves of the affected community sharing its project (whether they recuse themselves or not), and most probably the sanctions imposed by the Arbitrators are not made solely on the basis of the evidence presented, but also on their personal knowledge or investigation of the facts, and their own assessment of what sanctions the community consensus will favor or support. --Brian (BM) From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 20:07:44 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:07:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307200744.74848.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > Note to all bringing RFArs: if you've done an RFC, list it on the > Evidence page *and* explicitly reuse the evidence! Exactly. My original idea for RfA was that they could be used for arbitration evidence and to show arbcom members community opinion on the issues raised in the RfC. Unfortunately, the format of RfA evidence pages and the format for RfCs is no longer the same. These should be re-synced to make re-use as easy as possible. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Mar 7 20:11:22 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:11:22 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307145029.031bc078@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> JAYJG wrote: >Well, as I noted on the list a couple of days ago, policing for original >research seems equally difficult, when even long time editors consider >original research to be "simple facts" or "simple deductive reasoning." >Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be updated with >examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, someone >else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to do is >quote them. Are you talking about situations where such a committee might have to police the quality of the research? Okay, I grant that sometimes this can be difficult. But it isn't insurmountable. If the committee works, like ArbCom, by attending to a complaint and giving people opportunities to provide evidence, I think in most cases they will then be able to see the difference between an appropriate and inappropriate source, or a reputable or disreputable source. However, there is another way the committee could work. It could simply ask a user, "what research did you do? What are your sources?" Anyone who has done any amount of research can answer this easily, and then the committee might just recommend that the sources used by cited more clearly, end of problem. This may sound like a little thing, but I think it is vitally needed. When I was in conflict with CheeseDreams about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus, one of my major problems was that she seemed not to have done any research whatsoever. I asked her, many, many times, what her sources were and she ignored me. Now, in that particular case Wikipedia was lucky enough that CD's own behavior consistently undermined her, until she was banned. But what if there is a user who strictly adheres to all behavior policies, but who nevertheless thinks of an article as if it were his/her own blog? The thing is, CD never answered my simple question, what was her source -- and I could not compel her to answer, and there was no sanction for her not answering. What if someone very well-behaved acts just as recklessly in their contributions? Here is one place where I see the value of a committee that is empowered to ask "what are your sources" or "what kind of research did you do" and, if the answer is silence or something that just doesn't hold up, can impose a sanction. I do of course agree that the NOR policy needs improvement. There has been work on a new draft, which perhaps you can help, and which I think should be merged with the current policy soon. You know, a new committee with clear procedural rules will itself begin generating clearer ideas about how to deal with disagreements over what constitutes original research, too, Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From theresaknott at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 20:10:32 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 20:10:32 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <547b297e0503071153688c15ec@mail.gmail.com> References: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> <547b297e0503071153688c15ec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030712105496cdf8@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:53:56 -0500, Brian M wrote: > It would seem that reasonable "due process" would require that if the > arbcom is contemplating imposing a sanction on a user as a result of > evidence of his misbehaviour presented in the course of a case, he > should be notified of this and invited to present his own evidence in > the case. > > These procedural rights are accorded to the original "respondent" in > an arbcom case. If anyone else becomes a "respondent" in course of a > case, either as a result of a counter-charge by the original > respondent, or through any other evidence presented in the case, he or > should be accorded the same privileges. > > If the arbcom believes that it is necessary to proceed in the > quasi-judicial manner that it has adopted, with "cases", > "respondents", "petitioners", "evidence", "injunctions", etc, then it > should afford all users the same procedural protections. > > But personally, I think the arbcom should abandon its current > quasi-judial, excessively legalistic procedure and proceed more > informally as the implementors of the community consensus when > individuals misbehave according to the policies. I would prefer to > see the Arbitration Committee change its name to the Moderation > Committee and operate more informally, imposing sanctions where > appropriate on any member deemed to have violated policy in an > egregious manner. They should not wait for "complaints" and "cases" > to do this, although of course members should be able to bring > problems to their attention via complaints. > > The reality is that (1) the current procedure is not an arbitration; > (2) the process of collecting "evidence", etc, simply slows down the > meting out of appropriate sanctions, and can be gamed by trolls; (3) > all the legalistic posturing by wannabe lawyers makes Wikipedia look > childish and silly; and (4) the arbcom is not in any case an impartial > panel of judges but are members themselves of the affected community > sharing its project (whether they recuse themselves or not), and most > probably the sanctions imposed by the Arbitrators are not made solely > on the basis of the evidence presented, but also on their personal > knowledge or investigation of the facts, and their own assessment of > what sanctions the community consensus will favor or support. > > --Brian (BM) I agree. I came to the AC after it was formed and it's way of working was set. But personally i hate the jargon and the quasilegalistic way of working. I would like to go to the people concerned and ask questions "Why did you remove that chunk of text" "Do you regret calling him a shithead and have you said or done anything by way of an aplogy" "If you had to to it again, would you have handled it differently?" that sort of thing. I'd like things to be far more informal than they are at the moment, but i don't know how the community feel about that, and i don't want to break a process, that basically works (even though it has its faults) Theresa From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 20:33:59 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:33:59 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05030712105496cdf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I think you should just start doing those things. The questions and answers will be on the record and will be evidence which we can consider especially when we look at remedies. Fred > From: Theresa Knott > Reply-To: Theresa Knott , English Wikipedia > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 20:10:32 +0000 > To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > I agree. I came to the AC after it was formed and it's way of working > was set. But personally i hate the jargon and the quasilegalistic way > of working. I would like to go to the people concerned and ask > questions "Why did you remove that chunk of text" "Do you regret > calling him a shithead and have you said or done anything by way of an > aplogy" "If you had to to it again, would you have handled it > differently?" that sort of thing. I'd like things to be far more > informal than they are at the moment, but i don't know how the > community feel about that, and i don't want to break a process, that > basically works (even though it has its faults) > > Theresa From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Mon Mar 7 20:31:56 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:31:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Grown-ups and children Message-ID: > >>A much better analogy is of a school headmaster sorting out who did what > >>after a playground fight. We want to know who hit first, who hit most, > >>and who chucked in a sly boot from the side-lines. > >> > >> > >That's quite an insulting example actually and elevates the ArbComm to > >headmaster while denigrating the rest of us to the status of children. > >School is the closest most of us get to being in a dictatorship - I don't > >think that's really a great model to emulate. The difference between the > >quasi-judicial model and the "headmaster" model is that the former puts > >limits on the ArbComm. While I can see why the ArbComm would prefer to have > >no limits and be able to do what they wish, including initiate > >investigations, I don't think that would be healthy for Wikipedia. > > > It also denigrates children, who rarely behave as badly as adults. > (e.g. sports parents shouting obscenities from the stands) A comparison > to a bar fight might have been closer to reality. There's nothing wrong with providing elevated status to a headmaster. One of the purposes of a school is to teach children the right way to behave. Respecting school property and the rights of other pupils are non-negotiable. That is, the headmaster is not going to stoop to the kid's level and debate the rules each time a teacher brings a violator to his attention. He's the "head" because he controls the student "body". Sure, a well-run school will consider changes to the rules, and there's always the liberality (or magnanimity) of making exceptions, but the headmaster's *job* is to enforce the rules, in a decidedly asymmetric way. He's nobody's equal. At Wikipedia, we all defer to others who have gained our respect. I always listen to mav and snott rake and Saint Anthere (to name just a few: the rest know who they are!) because (a) they've shown that they care and (b) they are right when I'm wrong so often that it's not even worth double-checking any more. And kids do not "rarely" behave as badly as adults. The school one block away from my workplace has countless incidents of kids threatening or mugging each other, even assaulting teachers (two years ago, a student was murdered). That sort of thing is exceedingly rare *my* workplace. (It does not denigrate children, rather it reassures them, to know that grown-ups are in charge and will protect them. Okay, maybe a few people feel I lord it over them here. But I make quite a bit of effort to set a good example myself. Shouldn't those of us who follow the rules be entitled to take the moral high road occasionally? We must reform our system so that a cadre of well-trusted SENIOR members may exercise a bit of authority over those who cannot or will not contribute to this project. We are not all equal here, and there's no need to pretend otherwise. Those of us with a proven track record of solid contributions and good social skills SHOULD have a greater say on how this project is managed. Uncle Ed From rkscience100 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 20:37:34 2005 From: rkscience100 at yahoo.com (Robert) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:37:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Refusing to cite sources In-Reply-To: <20050307201045.E59BF1AC18DB@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050307203734.52417.qmail@web20322.mail.yahoo.com> Steve writes: > This may sound like a little thing, but I think it is > vitally needed. When I was in conflict with CheeseDreams > about the Cultural and Historical background of Jesus, > one of my major problems was that she seemed not to > have done any research whatsoever. I too have come across this. It is frustrating to read over a dozen technical papers on science, philosophy or global warming, many published in peer-reviewed journals...yet find that my edits being reverted by someone who knows little about the topic. Sadly, anarchy-loving Wikipedians value nice words and avoidance of three reverts in a day, but it places little value on sourced facts. We are doomed to fail in our effort to build a reliable, referenced and accurate encyclopedia unless the people contributing to articles can source their contributions. Some claims, obviously, need no sourcing. "Most Christians do not worship Satan, and most Christians do not believe that the Sun orbits the Earth." When making statements of obvious and well-known fact, one does not need a source. But when someone claims "Most Christians today believe that Jesus has already arrived on Earth..." one must provide proper sources! Yet as long as one behaves "nicely" people continue to shove nonsense into articles, even when they are unable and unwilling to back up their own claim, and even when their own position is refuted by articles published by well-known scholars. The position of ten physicists with peer-reviewed publications falls away when confronted with one person who says "Nope, these papers don't claim what you say they claim. Physicists don't really believe that gravity exists on the moon." Well, the papers do make clear that physicists hold this view, but how do we counter someone who just replies "No, they don't"...and offers no sources. In such a situation the person who offers quotes from published, and ofter peer-reviewed sources, should be allowed to make the edit, and the person who offers no sources should not be able to delete it. Is this not sensible? Yet this is not happening, and we have no enforcement procedures in place. Larry Sanger's recent comments are thus well deserved. > But what if there is a user who strictly adheres to all > behavior policies, but who nevertheless thinks of an > article as if it were his/her own blog?... > The thing is, CD never answered my simple question, what > was her source -- and I could not compel her to answer, > and there was no sanction for her not answering. > > Here is one place where I see the value of a committee > that is empowered to ask "what are your sources" or > "what kind of research did you do" and, if the answer is > silence or something that just doesn't hold up, can > impose a sanction. Sounds reasonable. Robert __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 20:30:27 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:30:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Antiwikipedia site - are there any solutions? In-Reply-To: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050307063540.99C7ACA099@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <422CB9E3.9080905@telus.net> Arno M wrote: >There seems to be nothing we can do about it, either, unless some >mediation for this guy can somehow be arranged. (Are there any alternate ideas?) > >If some had been arranged for this fellow earlier, this anti-wikipedia >site MAY have been avoided. > > I think that one way of reading this suggests a typo on Arno's part. He may have just missed typing a "c" in the middle of "mediation" :-) Ec From rubenste at ohiou.edu Mon Mar 7 20:34:29 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:34:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307152942.0325ac88@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Theresa wrote: >But as Sarah said "These were minor things, but they were annoying" > > >Let's keep things in perspective. Should we really change the way the >AC works to avoid annoying minor gripes. Sarah's nature (at least here) is to self-effacing and gentle. However "minor" she characterizes her experience, I think it is the perfect example of the kind of thing that should be avoided as best possible. I understand that many members of the ArbCom have serious problems with the various proposals floating around. So I ask a question to the ArbCom: forget about those proposals. Just looking at Sarah's experience, can you propose any reforms, either to the ArbCom m.o., or to the dispute resolution process as a whole, that would make it very unlikely for an editor in good standing to go through something like this in the future? There are so many proposals because people have slightly differing notions of what is wrong. I hope the ArbCom will take this sense that something is wrong seriously, even if the proposals thus far fall short. Maybe if instead of proposing solutions based on general notions of what is wrong, we focus on one or two actual cases and ask how things could have gone better, we will come up with some workable solutions. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From brian1954 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 20:45:33 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:45:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <1bfe3eb05030712105496cdf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <547b297e05030712456c346f18@mail.gmail.com> The Arbitrators should become "moderators". When a moderator becomes aware of an issue, he should try to resolve it by communicating with the party or parties concerned. If he cannot, he should simply go to the other moderators and say (in effect): "The facts are such and such. Here is what I have tried to resolve it; but it hasn't worked. I propose that we impose such-and-such sanction. The other moderators should then just vote over the course of a few days, and the decision should be implemented. There is no need for the deliberation to be formal, long, or even public. Decisions should just be announced on the Administrator noticeboard, which is also where people might go to get the Moderators attention for problems. There would probably need to be some system so that several Moderators didn't work the same problems and get in each other's way. The process should be very fast with a minimum of nonsense. The AC replaces Jimmy and I am sure that Jimmy didn't go through all of this laughable legaiistic claptrap when he was making his decisions. From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 20:40:45 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 12:40:45 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422CBC4D.7030100@telus.net> AndyL wrote: >on 3/6/05 9:32 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote: > > >>AndyL wrote: >> >> >>>on 3/6/05 5:25 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge at telus.net wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Countersuits are a normal part of the civil judicial process, but not of >>>>the criminal process. They provide for the limited right of the >>>>respondent to raise issues against his accuser. It does not operate to >>>>allow the court to initiate new complaints, nor does it allow for third >>>>party meddling. >>>> >>>> >>>But it is not the court that initiates countersuits but the respondent. >>>That's where we're getting it wrong. >>> >>> >>Let's get back to the point. You're so far not convincing me that your >>model works better to get an encyclopedia written than the current one. >>How does it better achieve that goal? >> >> >It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate complaints >for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned from >editing an article until the hearing is complete. > > The issue is a couple of steps removed from the ultimate goal of a great encyclopedia. Badly behaved people of any kind are an impediment to achieving that. Article material that is contrary to key rules is only one form of bad behaviour; persistent complaining about colleagues is another. Ec From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 21:14:08 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:14:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <547b297e05030712456c346f18@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Jimbo did spend a lot of time going through the edits so he could figure out what is going on. That is what takes the time. And discussing what is really the right thing to do. Fred > From: Brian M > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:45:33 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > The Arbitrators should become "moderators". When a moderator becomes > aware of an issue, he should try to resolve it by communicating with > the party or parties concerned. If he cannot, he should simply go > to the other moderators and say (in effect): "The facts are such and > such. Here is what I have tried to resolve it; but it hasn't worked. > I propose that we impose such-and-such sanction. The other > moderators should then just vote over the course of a few days, and > the decision should be implemented. There is no need for the > deliberation to be formal, long, or even public. Decisions should > just be announced on the Administrator noticeboard, which is also > where people might go to get the Moderators attention for problems. > There would probably need to be some system so that several Moderators > didn't work the same problems and get in each other's way. The > process should be very fast with a minimum of nonsense. The AC > replaces Jimmy and I am sure that Jimmy didn't go through all of this > laughable legaiistic claptrap when he was making his decisions. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 21:12:45 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:12:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <742dfd06050307131256386422@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:55:39 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > The April 2005 edition of Software Development Magazine has an article > Rick Wayne wrote about wiki software, and MediaWiki has BY FAR the > nicest screen shots. You'll recognize the yellow flower and the > puzzle-world right away. It's in the April 2005 edition, which just Hey, that's fantastic. > "The Wikipedia is the canonical example of what you can do with > MediaWiki; here's the entry on data structures, with the navigation bar Yet another person who says "THE Wikipedia". Alas. -- +sj+ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 21:24:47 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:24:47 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307152942.0325ac88@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: The problem was that Hershchelkrustovsky had gone through an arbitration. The proposal to ban him from LaRouche related articles had been defeated by a vote of the arbitration committee, so he was an editor in good standing. There are people who believe in good faith that the the LaRouche movement can be accurately described as fascist. There were a few who insisted that that characterization could be applied on Wikipedia both to LaRouche and to Hershchelkrustovsky and his colleagues (I am still not sure how many edited, although more than one "user" was editing from the same ip). In that context personal attacks on him were inappropriate despite the obvious fact he was here only to push LaRouche. Provided his ban is not extended indefinitely he will be back in a year and under our policies entitled to the same respectful treatment as any other editor. It can be anticipated he will simply go back to the same stuff. Any suggestions? Fred > From: "steven l. rubenstein" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:34:29 -0500 > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > Theresa wrote: >> But as Sarah said "These were minor things, but they were annoying" >> >> >> Let's keep things in perspective. Should we really change the way the >> AC works to avoid annoying minor gripes. > > > Sarah's nature (at least here) is to self-effacing and gentle. However > "minor" she characterizes her experience, I think it is the perfect example > of the kind of thing that should be avoided as best possible. > > I understand that many members of the ArbCom have serious problems with the > various proposals floating around. So I ask a question to the ArbCom: > forget about those proposals. Just looking at Sarah's experience, can you > propose any reforms, either to the ArbCom m.o., or to the dispute > resolution process as a whole, that would make it very unlikely for an > editor in good standing to go through something like this in the future? > > There are so many proposals because people have slightly differing notions > of what is wrong. I hope the ArbCom will take this sense that something is > wrong seriously, even if the proposals thus far fall short. Maybe if > instead of proposing solutions based on general notions of what is wrong, > we focus on one or two actual cases and ask how things could have gone > better, we will come up with some workable solutions. > > 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 maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 21:29:34 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:29:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307212934.3585.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > As long as it is seen as a dispute resolving mechanism, rather than as > police, I think it would work for both (indeed, one of the problems with > the ArbCom right now is that it is both dispute-resolving, and > police. Maybe we need both functions, but they call for different > mechanisms -- a dispute-resolution process does require, as Fred has > insisted, that the committee look at the behavior of "both" parties. But > this is possible only because there are two or more parties. I think the > policing function requires a committee that can talk to users who violate > policies even when no one has filed a formal complaint). Police are enforcers. The ArbCom does not enforce its rulings - non-ArbCom admins and developers who are interested in that type of thing do. Thus there is already a separation. I'm all for giving admins broader police powers, but this needs to be implemented in a slow and well thought-out way. I'm not for adding yet another committee since that will not scale nearly as well as using existing admins. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From jack-lutz at comcast.net Mon Mar 7 21:30:34 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (Jack Lutz) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:30:34 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Grown-ups and children References: Message-ID: <004b01c5235c$e6347c90$6b01a8c0@one> Uncle Ed, while your plan for guiding Wikipedia by a few trusted users which just so happens to include you is very exciting to me, a largely unknown contributor (i.e., child) who contributes hours a day to Wikipedia, I think Jimbo's Statement of principles may prove thorny: 2. Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who are already starting to affect us), should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny". "Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other. For example: rather than trust humans to correctly identify "regulars", we must use a simple, transparent, and open algorithm, so that people are automatically given full privileges once they have been around the community for a very short period of time. The process should be virtually invisible for newcomers, so that they do not have to do anything to start contributing to the community. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 21:35:12 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:35:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307213512.88078.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Theresa Knott wrote: > I agree. I came to the AC after it was formed and it's way of working > was set. But personally i hate the jargon and the quasilegalistic way > of working. I would like to go to the people concerned and ask > questions "Why did you remove that chunk of text" "Do you regret > calling him a shithead and have you said or done anything by way of an > aplogy" "If you had to to it again, would you have handled it > differently?" that sort of thing. I'd like things to be far more > informal than they are at the moment, but i don't know how the > community feel about that, and i don't want to break a process, that > basically works (even though it has its faults) That is a role that mediation should play. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From brian1954 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 21:36:26 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:36:26 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <547b297e05030712456c346f18@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <547b297e0503071336689ba682@mail.gmail.com> I am sure Jimbo did not just shoot from the hip, and anybody trying to sort out what is happening would still need "to go through the edits". But what isn't needed is the whole quasi-legalistic infrastructure that the arbcom has evolved with "cases", "petitioners", "respondents", "recusals", "votes to accept or deny cases", "injunctions", "evidence", etc, etc, It is silly. I have no idea of the AC history, but somewhere back when the arbcom was getting rolling it took a wrong turn and now we have this tremendously heavy process. The basic need is simply to be able to get an experienced and level-headed Wikipedian who is respected and trusted by the community involved in various situations who can (1) warn people that they are out of line and try to nudge them towards correcting their behaviour; and/or (2) impose a sanction if the misbehaviour continues, with the easily-obtained backing of a committee that represents the community consensus, On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:14:08 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > Jimbo did spend a lot of time going through the edits so he could figure out > what is going on. That is what takes the time. And discussing what is really > the right thing to do. > > Fred > > > From: Brian M > > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:45:33 -0500 > > To: English Wikipedia > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > > > The Arbitrators should become "moderators". When a moderator becomes > > aware of an issue, he should try to resolve it by communicating with > > the party or parties concerned. If he cannot, he should simply go > > to the other moderators and say (in effect): "The facts are such and > > such. Here is what I have tried to resolve it; but it hasn't worked. > > I propose that we impose such-and-such sanction. The other > > moderators should then just vote over the course of a few days, and > > the decision should be implemented. There is no need for the > > deliberation to be formal, long, or even public. Decisions should > > just be announced on the Administrator noticeboard, which is also > > where people might go to get the Moderators attention for problems. > > There would probably need to be some system so that several Moderators > > didn't work the same problems and get in each other's way. The > > process should be very fast with a minimum of nonsense. The AC > > replaces Jimmy and I am sure that Jimmy didn't go through all of this > > laughable legaiistic claptrap when he was making his decisions. > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 21:40:29 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:40:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307214029.82742.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > You know, a new committee with clear procedural rules will itself begin > generating clearer ideas about how to deal with disagreements over what > constitutes original research, too, There is no need for a new committee. The existing ArbCom just needs to be more aggressive at enforcing content policies and guidelines. We did not tackle these issues at first due to the fact that we did not have clear community support and many feared giving us that power. The mood now has changed and I think the community has a great deal more trust in the ArbCom and the ArbCom itself is better-prepared to deal with this type of issue. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From brian1954 at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 21:43:40 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:43:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050307213512.88078.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050307213512.88078.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <547b297e0503071343515d651f@mail.gmail.com> > > That is a role that mediation should play. > > -- mav > Why separate "mediation" from "arbitration"? Why such complicated dispute resolution procedures? It is almost as if we want to make it hard and complicated to resolve disputes, something you can only do if you are determined. What is the logic behind that? Wouldn't mediation work better if the parties knew that the mediator seeking a resolution to a dispute/behaviour problem had the ready means to impose a sanction on any parties deemed not to be cooperating? Iron fist in the velvet glove. At present, in the case of real a behaviour problem (as opposed to a good-faith difference of opinion) mediation is a hoop people have to jump through to get to arbitration, and anyway it is broken. --Brian M (BM) From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 21:46:13 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 13:46:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307214613.10261.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Bauder wrote: > I think you should just start doing those things. The questions and answers > will be on the record and will be evidence which we can consider especially > when we look at remedies. Yep - no reason why this can't also happen at the ArbCom level (even if it was already tried and failed on the MedCom level - at least the ArbCom version would be public). -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 22:02:57 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 22:02:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422CCF91.6080209@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG wrote: > But of course it is there to do just that (among other things). For > example, Wikipedia clearly insists (via the NPOV policy) that you may > not argue only one position on a subject, but must bring countering > views citing various holders of positions, inevitably introducing an > adversarial element to articles. And the original research policy > insists that one cannot argue one's own views, but rather must present > other's views, and that tempered with the caveat that extreme minority > views need not be presented at all. It may be worth mentioning that recent ArbCom rulings have done their best to bludgeon home this aspect of NPOV: that all significant views on a disputed topic need mention. ("Significant" then may become a bone of contention^Weditorial discussion. Creationism, for example, is of tremendous social and political importance, but is very unlikely to achieve significant play in almost any scientific article about biology. Osama bin Laden has strong views on America and on Jews, but his views are unlikely to play a great, if any, role in [[Jew]] or [[United States]]; they will only end up in more directly relevant articles because most editors would find it *intolerably stupid* otherwise. The view that Australia is in fact a republic is so insignificant a view by numbers that it is only advocated as [[original research]]. Etc. Etc.) - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 7 22:08:19 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 22:08:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422CB02F.2030403@sprintmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050307142305.031ccad0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <422CB02F.2030403@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <422CD0D3.2040004@thingy.apana.org.au> Tom Haws wrote: > I don't think it would hurt our process for certain talk pages to say, > "The content of this article is subject to the following binding > editorial decisions of the Content Arbitration Committee:" > Each decision could include an expiration date. I don't think we're at that stage yet. NPOV still has far too much life in it. (Remember: all new policy is [[m:Instruction creep]] until proven otherwise.) - d. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 22:13:32 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:13:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Refusing to cite sources In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307221332.22495.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Robert wrote: > In such a situation the person who offers quotes from > published, and ofter peer-reviewed sources, should be > allowed to make the edit, and the person who offers no > sources should not be able to delete it. Is this not > sensible? I would certainly support enforcement of the no-original research and cite sources guidelines are strict policies. But that brings me to this very important point: We need to to readjust our focus very, *very* clearly back to this basic premise, which I will call our prime directive (which I'm astonished some newer users don?t get); We are here to create the biggest, best, and most respected encyclopedia on the planet and provide those contents to as many people as possible. *Wiki is a means to *that* end. *Our openness is a means to *that* end. *The community itself is a means to *that* end. Everything else can be compromised but our prime directive cannot. That said, wiki, our openness and the community certainly *has* brought us far toward attaining our prime directive. So we must not do anything that would negatively affect the positive aspects of wiki, openness, and the community (meaning those aspects that help us get closer to attaining our prime directive). Therefore we must not be hasty and instead move cautiously and deliberatively by using the systems that are already in place (at first), and only scraping or augmenting those systems (such as adding more bureaucracy in the form of yet-another-committee) if they cannot be modified enough to get the desired effect. The ArbCom is already moving in the direction of stronger enforcement of the content policies. This momentum only needs a push in the form of developing well-reasoned ways to maximize the positive aspects of doing this and minimizing the negative. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 22:20:21 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:20:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307222021.7258.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brian M wrote: > I have no idea of the AC history, but somewhere back when the arbcom > was getting rolling it took a wrong turn and now we have this > tremendously heavy process. The basic need is simply to be able to > get an experienced and level-headed Wikipedian who is respected and > trusted by the community involved in various situations who can (1) > warn people that they are out of line and try to nudge them towards > correcting their behaviour; and/or (2) impose a sanction if the > misbehaviour continues, with the easily-obtained backing of a > committee that represents the community consensus, And yet we get through cases just fine and since 1 January rather fast. So where is it broke again? -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 22:26:55 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 14:26:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307222655.67307.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brian M wrote: > Why separate "mediation" from "arbitration"? Why such complicated > dispute resolution procedures? It is almost as if we want to make > it hard and complicated to resolve disputes, something you can only do > if you are determined. What is the logic behind that? One-size-fits-all solutions are rarely effective. The dispute resolution process is soft at first and then gets harsher and harsher as one moves through it. This gives people with good intentions plenty of time to reform before even the possibility of harsh sanctions are imposable. > Wouldn't mediation work better if the parties knew that the mediator > seeking a resolution to a dispute/behaviour problem had the ready > means to impose a sanction on any parties deemed not to be > cooperating? Iron fist in the velvet glove. At present, in the > case of real a behaviour problem (as opposed to a good-faith > difference of opinion) mediation is a hoop people have to jump through > to get to arbitration, and anyway it is broken. I've already proposed that anything agreed to in mediation should be strictly enforceable. There was a good deal of support for that idea - but I have not had time to check back on the progress toward that (it could simply be done by fiat by the ArbCom, but gaining community support first is a good idea). -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 22:48:55 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:48:55 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050307144507.61135.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422CDA57.90603@telus.net> zero 0000 wrote: >Fred wrote: > > >>A full investigation will improve the quality of our decisions. A >>partial or >>poor investigation restricted by artificial rules will reduce their >>quality. >>It's pretty much summed up by "The more you know..." >> >> > >I think you are missing the point. I don't see anyone wanting to >limit the AC's ability to look wherever they like. The issue is of >who they have the right to impose penalties on. > >Again: if someone is accused by a RfA listing, they have the >opportunity to write in their own defence and to have their >fellows write in their defence. Then the AC imposes a penalty >on a different person who had no such opportunity since they >didn't know it was necessary. It is fundamentally unfair. > >The accuser is treated worse than the accused. > >The solution: except perhaps in emergencies, the AC should >only be able to impose penalties on someone who has had an >opportunity to mount a defence. There should be a rule on >how much opportunity must be given. > > Turning an acusation around and looking at the activities of the accuser does not imply that the accuser would be deprived of the right to defend himself. If the AC determines that the accuser's activities need examining they would bring the matter to his attention at that time for comment. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 22:54:06 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:54:06 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <422BBD50.1050108@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb05030706305f091129@mail.gmail.com> <50255.194.72.110.12.1110207846.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422CDB8E.4010504@telus.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Theresa Knott said: > > >>>It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate >>>complaints for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum >>>tempbanned from editing an article until the hearing is complete. >>> >>> >>Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? >>Certainly requests for arbitration appear to come thick and fast. I am >>not aware of a legit complaint not having been made out of fear. >> >> >I think it is more the case that people have gone to arbcom and not >obtained quite the result they expected. > > Yep. How does that compare with the probability of success in a small claims court? Ec From abesokolov at hotmail.com Mon Mar 7 23:13:37 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 23:13:37 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: Daniel Mayer maveric149 at yahoo.com wrote: "There is no need for a new committee. The existing ArbCom just needs to be more aggressive at enforcing content policies and guidelines. We did not tackle these issues at first due to the fact that we did not have clear community support and many feared giving us that power. The mood now has changed and I think the community has a great deal more trust in the ArbCom and the ArbCom itself is better-prepared to deal with this type of issue." It would be great if the arbcom would become more aggressive at enforcing content policies and guidelines. However, there is no evidence that it has the capacity to give equal weight to content and behavioral policies, especially considering the slow (but at least increasingly rapid) pace at which it still handles cases on behavior-- its traditional sphere. A second committee would mean more capacity and more expertise to handle the policies that always been difficult for the arbcom to address (No original research, Cite sources, NPOV, Verifiability, et. al.). Aside from the issue of capacity, there's also the matter of credibility, particularly public credibility. Even if the Wikipedia community has more trust in the arbcom now, we cannot infer based on that observation that Wikipedia readers or the public will hold it in any high esteem. Frankly, many people (to say the least) would be highly skeptical of an encyclopedia whose editorial concerns are officially handled by teenagers. (This isn't calling into question the abilities of the teenage arbom members; IMO at least two of them have more sense in them than many of the older members put together.) Even if public perception is unfounded, Wikipedia still cannot afford to disregard it. After all, it matters insofar as our work having any meaning. If Wikipedia editors are the only people taking Wikipedia articles and processes seriously, then we've all been wasting our time. A second arbitration mechanism would not threaten the influence of a single editor. It would only serve to bolster public faith in Wikipedia content among those skeptical of the project due to the present lack of a professionalized system of editorial review, giving more meaning to the work of all involved in the project. In the end, everyone involved in Wikipedia would have more real influence. By boosting capacity, Wikipedia governance would also be more responsive and efficient when it comes to dealing with the interests of serious editors. -172 _________________________________________________________________ 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 Mon Mar 7 23:15:52 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:15:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <547b297e0503071343515d651f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Mediators should explore what is likely to happen if the parties take the matter to arbitration. Those possible negative consequences should serve to motivate a settlement at the mediation level. This is another reason to continue to look at possible infractions on both sides of any dispute. Once we give someone carte blanche to let it all hang out if the other party is a bad guy they will have absolutely no reason to settle at the mediation or lower level. Fred > From: Brian M > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:43:40 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > >> >> That is a role that mediation should play. >> >> -- mav >> > > Why separate "mediation" from "arbitration"? Why such complicated > dispute resolution procedures? It is almost as if we want to make > it hard and complicated to resolve disputes, something you can only do > if you are determined. What is the logic behind that? > > Wouldn't mediation work better if the parties knew that the mediator > seeking a resolution to a dispute/behaviour problem had the ready > means to impose a sanction on any parties deemed not to be > cooperating? Iron fist in the velvet glove. At present, in the > case of real a behaviour problem (as opposed to a good-faith > difference of opinion) mediation is a hoop people have to jump through > to get to arbitration, and anyway it is broken. > > --Brian M (BM) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 23:31:28 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:31:28 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <547b297e0503071336689ba682@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I guess I replying to this you need to go back to the old saw: Wikipedia is not an experiment in anarchy. I suggest you try out this sort of decision process in a business or social group and see how it goes. We have worked hard on our procedures and although we change them from time to time we know what to expect and what needs to be done next. It is kind of like a checklist, it enables us to get through the work, and more than anything else it is transparent. Anyone can look at a proposed decision and the policies and evidence that backs it up. That would not be possible with trusted users who may or may not explain to the community at large what they are doing and why. Fred > From: Brian M > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 16:36:26 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > I am sure Jimbo did not just shoot from the hip, and anybody trying to > sort out what is happening would still need "to go through the edits". > But what isn't needed is the whole quasi-legalistic infrastructure > that the arbcom has evolved > with "cases", "petitioners", "respondents", "recusals", "votes to > accept or deny cases", "injunctions", "evidence", etc, etc, It > is silly. > > I have no idea of the AC history, but somewhere back when the arbcom > was getting rolling it took a wrong turn and now we have this > tremendously heavy process. The basic need is simply to be able to > get an experienced and level-headed Wikipedian who is respected and > trusted by the community involved in various situations who can (1) > warn people that they are out of line and try to nudge them towards > correcting their behaviour; and/or (2) impose a sanction if the > misbehaviour continues, with the easily-obtained backing of a > committee that represents the community consensus, > > On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:14:08 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: >> Jimbo did spend a lot of time going through the edits so he could figure out >> what is going on. That is what takes the time. And discussing what is really >> the right thing to do. >> >> Fred >> >>> From: Brian M >>> Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia >>> >>> Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:45:33 -0500 >>> To: English Wikipedia >>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? >>> >>> The Arbitrators should become "moderators". When a moderator becomes >>> aware of an issue, he should try to resolve it by communicating with >>> the party or parties concerned. If he cannot, he should simply go >>> to the other moderators and say (in effect): "The facts are such and >>> such. Here is what I have tried to resolve it; but it hasn't worked. >>> I propose that we impose such-and-such sanction. The other >>> moderators should then just vote over the course of a few days, and >>> the decision should be implemented. There is no need for the >>> deliberation to be formal, long, or even public. Decisions should >>> just be announced on the Administrator noticeboard, which is also >>> where people might go to get the Moderators attention for problems. >>> There would probably need to be some system so that several Moderators >>> didn't work the same problems and get in each other's way. The >>> process should be very fast with a minimum of nonsense. The AC >>> replaces Jimmy and I am sure that Jimmy didn't go through all of this >>> laughable legaiistic claptrap when he was making his decisions. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 7 23:42:13 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:42:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050307234214.9495.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Abe Sokolov wrote: > It would be great if the arbcom would become more aggressive at enforcing > content policies and guidelines. However, there is no evidence that it has > the capacity to give equal weight to content and behavioral policies, > especially considering the slow (but at least increasingly rapid) pace at > which it still handles cases on behavior-- its traditional sphere. A second > committee would mean more capacity and more expertise to handle the policies > that always been difficult for the arbcom to address (No original research, > Cite sources, NPOV, Verifiability, et. al.). Policy is policy but some policies take more thought to enforce than others. The arbcom is already ruling on NPOV infractions - something we would not touch at first due to it being too closely related to content. Expanding into the other content policies would not be a big deal, if done is a deliberate and well-measured way (as was the move into enforcing NPOV). The current ArbCom already has experience in this type of thing. Let's build on that. Danny and I were playing with the idea of having the ArbCom convene special panels of non-involved people for certain cases (not necessarily English Wikipedia users), who could inform the ArbCom on the particulars of content (whether or not a particular idea is mainstream, alternative but valid to include in some way, or idiosyncratic/original research). Such info could be used in ArbCom proceedings to better inform the arbcom in cases that involve accusation of breaking content-related policies (just as developers inform the arbcom on the likelyhood that two or more users are socks). IMO, such an idea deserves some thought and refinement. But having a separate standing committee would be redundant, especially due to the fact that any one case will likely involve accusations of breaking both content and behavioral policies and guidelines. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Mon Mar 7 23:56:26 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:56:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <20050307234214.9495.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: This is something courts do when they are faced with fact situations they aren't competent to deal with. Sometimes such a fact finder is called a special master. This will become much easier to do as more experts become aware of and interested in Wikipedia. Fred > From: Daniel Mayer > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:42:13 -0800 (PST) > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > Danny and I were playing with the idea of having the ArbCom convene special > panels of non-involved people for certain cases (not necessarily English > Wikipedia users), who could inform the ArbCom on the particulars of content > (whether or not a particular idea is mainstream, alternative but valid to > include in some way, or idiosyncratic/original research). > > Such info could be used in ArbCom proceedings to better inform the arbcom in > cases that involve accusation of breaking content-related policies (just as > developers inform the arbcom on the likelyhood that two or more users are > socks). IMO, such an idea deserves some thought and refinement. From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 7 23:55:19 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:55:19 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Charles Matthews" >> >> JAY JG wrote >> >> > Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be >> updated with >> > examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, >> someone >> > else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to >> do is >> > quote them. >> >> Literally speaking, conversion of temperatures from Fahrenheit to >> Celsius >> would fall foul of this. And numerous other things: such as >> conversion of >> dates out of one calendar system into another, metrication, currency >> conversion, inverting family relationships from 'nephew' to 'uncle' ... > > No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes > original research when it is used to build a case against a position > presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if > you were to assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive > reasoning" that uncles were more closely related to nephews than aunts > were to nieces, that would be original research, and you'd have to > find some source which supported it. That's certainly an extremist view. It implies that a crackpot theory is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere else. However, if the public thought that the theory was so ridiculous that they felt it a waste of time to dispute it we would not be allowed to publish a refutation on the grounds that it was original research. You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. Ec From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 00:11:46 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:11:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: <20050307234214.9495.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <742dfd060503071611177fab16@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:56:26 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > This is something courts do when they are faced with fact situations they > aren't competent to deal with. Sometimes such a fact finder is called a > special master. This will become much easier to do as more experts become > aware of and interested in Wikipedia. Neat tidbit. It seems to me it would require a very large pool of people to draw on. Sort of like the 100+ usage experts for the American Heritage Dictionary -- not exclusive, just anyone who has expertise, or a good editing history in that area... It could be ugly if there were a fixed set of 3 or 4 people for each subject who were called on each time; or if simple content disputes, which would otherwise have been resolved elsewhere, were encouraged to come before the AC. -- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] From slimvirgin at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 00:15:57 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 17:15:57 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> References: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030716154cff1279@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:55:19 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: It implies that a crackpot theory > is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere > else. However, if the public thought that the theory was so ridiculous > that they felt it a waste of time to dispute it we would not be allowed > to publish a refutation on the grounds that it was original research. > You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. It would be acceptable so long as it had been published somewhere reputable and credible, and the chances of it being crackpot would therefore be low. If the public genuinely thought a theory so ridiculous that no one had bothered to challenge it, it almost certainly wouldn't have a place in Wikipedia. This is why the NOR, NPOV, and cite sources policies should always be considered jointly, as each policy serves to illuminate the meaning of the others. Jointly, they would be able to deal with the kind of example you raise. Sarah From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Mar 8 00:27:59 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:27:59 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503071611177fab16@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This would give our experts something which their special qualifications, knowing the literature, would provide real help to Wikipedia. We would still need to be on the look out for axe grinders. However, the biases of scholars who have an extensive body of published work are not that hard to figure out. We might require some real names and verification for this. I seem this as more a committee of thousands than dozens; but that's looking ahead. Fred > From: Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> > Reply-To: Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com>, English Wikipedia > > Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:11:46 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards > > On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:56:26 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: >> This is something courts do when they are faced with fact situations they >> aren't competent to deal with. Sometimes such a fact finder is called a >> special master. This will become much easier to do as more experts become >> aware of and interested in Wikipedia. > > Neat tidbit. It seems to me it would require a very large pool of > people to draw on. Sort of like the 100+ usage experts for the > American Heritage Dictionary -- not exclusive, just anyone who has > expertise, or a good editing history in that area... > > It could be ugly if there were a fixed set of 3 or 4 people for each > subject who were called on each time; or if simple content disputes, > which would otherwise have been resolved elsewhere, were encouraged to > come before the AC. > > -- > +sj+ > _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From wikimb at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 00:27:55 2005 From: wikimb at gmail.com (Michael Becker) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:27:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <422CF18B.3020209@gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 23:13:37 +0000, Abe Sokolov wrote: > Aside from the issue of capacity, there's also the matter of credibility, > particularly public credibility. Even if the Wikipedia community has more > trust in the arbcom now, we cannot infer based on that observation that > Wikipedia readers or the public will hold it in any high esteem. Frankly, > many people (to say the least) would be highly skeptical of an encyclopedia > whose editorial concerns are officially handled by teenagers. (This isn't > calling into question the abilities of the teenage arbom members; IMO at > least two of them have more sense in them than many of the older members put > together.) Even if public perception is unfounded, Wikipedia still cannot > afford to disregard it. After all, it matters insofar as our work having any > meaning. If Wikipedia editors are the only people taking Wikipedia articles > and processes seriously, then we've all been wasting our time. > -172 If we are going to worry about puplic perception, some would argue that the first thing we should do is work on making Wikipedia child/offendable safe. I've been a strict opponent of censorship on Wikipedia myself, but I think that issues regarding potentially offensive content is has more potential for damage to our credibility than unenforced content guidelines. I agree that quality control is a valid concern, however I thin that if the justification is public perception, potentially offensive content tops that list. -- Michael Becker From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 00:51:04 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:51:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030716154cff1279@mail.gmail.com> References: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> <4cc603b05030716154cff1279@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a0503071651381ced60@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 17:15:57 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 15:55:19 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > It implies that a crackpot theory > > is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere > > else. However, if the public thought that the theory was so ridiculous > > that they felt it a waste of time to dispute it we would not be allowed > > to publish a refutation on the grounds that it was original research. > > You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. > > It would be acceptable so long as it had been published somewhere > reputable and credible, and the chances of it being crackpot would > therefore be low. If the public genuinely thought a theory so > ridiculous that no one had bothered to challenge it, it almost > certainly wouldn't have a place in Wikipedia. This is why the NOR, > NPOV, and cite sources policies should always be considered jointly, > as each policy serves to illuminate the meaning of the others. > Jointly, they would be able to deal with the kind of example you > raise. > Just a few thoughts on this: 1. *Who* defines "reputable"? If crackpot is just defined as "not reputable" then that just shifts the point of discretion somewhere else; it doesn't resolve it. 2. "The public" rarely challenges theories. "Pundits", "journalists", "writers", and "academics" challenge theories. The vast majority of "the public" is informationally mute. Which again gets back to the "who?" question. Of course, the "who?" question seems to be the most divisive one here, and I'm not sure it *should* be resolved. I think removing than tension, however satisfying it may feel at first, will destroy the engine which makes this online knowledge project qualitatively better than any of the other attempts (nupedia and everything2 come to mind as extreme approachs to answering the "who?" question in a binding way, and both seem to fail in my opinion for that reason). Okay, now I'm just rambling on... FF From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Mar 8 01:14:13 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 18:14:13 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 Message-ID: Although NewYorkTimes.com is going through a slow patch, this week we pulled even, almost ready to break into the top 100. See: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&y=t&u rl=wikipedia.org#top Compare with newyorktimes.com Fred From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 01:19:25 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:19:25 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> References: <4225E740.70905@quilombo.nl> <4225F35E.60704@hackish.org> Message-ID: Delirium wrote: > Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone > doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you > wish". > > (And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the > fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into > outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) > > -Mark What a load of crap. Ever read the history of Russia? Yeah, that's now a FA article. You can't GET FA articles that are POV screeds. TBSDY From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 01:15:39 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:15:39 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05030712105496cdf8@mail.gmail.com> References: <422CA753.7090406@thingy.apana.org.au> <547b297e0503071153688c15ec@mail.gmail.com> <1bfe3eb05030712105496cdf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422CFCBB.4000507@telus.net> Theresa Knott wrote: > I agree. I came to the AC after it was formed and it's way of working > >was set. But personally i hate the jargon and the quasilegalistic way >of working. I would like to go to the people concerned and ask >questions "Why did you remove that chunk of text" "Do you regret >calling him a shithead and have you said or done anything by way of an >aplogy" "If you had to to it again, would you have handled it >differently?" that sort of thing. I'd like things to be far more >informal than they are at the moment, but i don't know how the >community feel about that, and i don't want to break a process, that >basically works (even though it has its faults) > > Isn't this why mediation and arbitration were planned as separate procedures. Mediation should do what you suggest. When a dispute is begun by someone intent on applying some kind of punishment the idea of finding a negotiated settlement on the article content has been pretty well abandoned. Refusal to co-operate with mediation should be used against a participant who wants to go immediately to arbitration. Ec From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Tue Mar 8 01:32:53 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 20:32:53 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 3/7/05 10:48 AM, JAY JG at jayjg at hotmail.com wrote: >> From: Theresa Knott >>> It wouldn't artificially discourage people from making legitimate >> complaints >>> for fear that they too would be penalised or at a minimum tempbanned >> from >>> editing an article until the hearing is complete. >> >> Is there any evidence that this has actually happened in the past? I have stated once already that someone I know who was working on a complaint against Herschelkrustofsky had second thoughts upon seeing tempbans implemented (or pondered) in other cases against complainants (specifically my complaint against ArmchairVexillologistDon in which the ArbComm was initially considering tempbanning *both of us* from all articles related to Canada until the arbitration was concluded - this was being proposed before any evidence had even been heard Andy From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 01:43:50 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:43:50 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way In-Reply-To: <742dfd06050307131256386422@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307131256386422@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422D0356.5000208@telus.net> Sj wrote: >On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:55:39 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > >>"The Wikipedia is the canonical example of what you can do with >>MediaWiki; here's the entry on data structures, with the navigation bar >> >> >Yet another person who says "THE Wikipedia". Alas. > I don't have much objection to this. Properly stressed, the word "the" emphasizes the uniqueness of Wikipedia. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 01:53:42 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:53:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preview? Message-ID: I just clicked on the submit button and it told me I was doing a preview! Yet the revision got through. What's going on? TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 02:00:19 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general who is the Queen's representative. Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that: Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is Australia's Head of State because: The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, Constitution). If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can. TBSDY Skyring wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 08:03:08 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net > wrote: > >>------------- Original message -------------- >> >>>Peter, the Queen IS the Head of state here in Australia , though the matter is >>>complicated by the G-G representing her. >> >>But isn't Peter also correct that Austrailia is a republic? I thought most constitutional monarchies were republics. The salient point is whether the monarch or the constitution is supreme. If the monarch cannot suspend or amend the constitution, then what you have is the rule of law, a "republic". > > > Spot on. The Australian people drew up their Constituion through a > People's Convention with popularly elected delegates, and the > resultant constitution was approved by the people in each of the six > colonies. The constitution may ONLY by changed by a majority of the > voters in a majority of the six States. > > Neither the Queen, nor the Governor-General, nor Parliament, nor the > Government may amend a single letter of the Constitution without the > express approval of the people. > > The Governor-General's powers are given to him in the Constitution by > the people, and the Queen is all but powerless. She cannot issue > instructions nor may she exercise any of the Governor-General's > constitutional powers. From abesokolov at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 02:09:41 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 02:09:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: Daniel Mayer maveric149 at yahoo.com wrote: "But having a separate standing committee would be redundant, especially due to the fact that any one case will likely involve accusations of breaking both content and behavioral policies and guidelines." Not necessarily. Two committees would has separate jurisdictions with the right to accept and act on the cases that are sent to them according to their own rules and procedures. The new committee would handle disputes over articles concerning content (No original research, Cite sources, NPOV, Verifiability, et. al.); the existing committee, however, was born with and will always have an emphasis on behavioral policies. For the sake of argument, even if the existing committee will be able to start handling everything, it seems likely to be quite slow and cumbersome. Calling on academics and and professionals as 'fact finders' may boost its capacity, but it still takes a great deal of time to call on fact checkers, wait for them to assemble, wait for them to deliberate, wait for them to reach an opinion, assess their opinion, and then decide how to act on it. A great deal of time will be consumed just by waiting for the current arbitrators and the 'fact finders' to communicate with each other. However, by specializing in certain policy areas, two committees would bring in more people with more authority to work more expeditiously in the areas in which they specialize. The idea of convening special panels of non-involved people for certain cases is great and I fully support it. While I think that a second mechanism would work better, Mav's ideas are at least a step in the right direction, and they're better than nothing. -172 _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 02:04:48 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:04:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050304013611ccbcef@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050304082346.30313C610F@ws7-5.us4.outblaze.com> <550ccb82050304013611ccbcef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:23:46 +0600, Arno M wrote: > >>Sigh! I shouldn't have bitten. >> >>The Australia page has been through this before, and the ,um, debate, >>involving someone called Daeron , whose views seem similar to yours, >>can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Australia/Archive_2. > > > Some dodgy reasoning and a lot of shouting. No definitive source given. > >>Peter is not correct, period. India is a republic, yes, but Australia is not. > > > Australia is a republic using just about every definition I've ever > seen. Including Wikipedia's. > Look, this is my last word on the matter on the mailing list, but I notice that you haven't given us your sources on here. Your assertion is extremely dodgy, and not even the ARM agree with you! TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 02:14:01 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:14:01 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR and gaming the system In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050304131417ca4ece@mail.gmail.com> References: <42285C62.6060301@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb82050304131417ca4ece@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:02:26 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > >>In this case, I'm amazed saying "Australia is a republic" isn't >>being counted as simple vandalism. Repeatedly putting in misleading >>and plainly factually incorrect information certainly counted as >>vandalism when User:Michael was going hogwild at it. > > > Perhaps you should read the discussion page. There is a gulf between > public perception and reality here, obviously. Much like people > incorrectly believing that Queen Elizabeth II is the Queen of England. > Yes, including the Australian Republican Movement evidently. Sorry, couldn't resist reply! TBSDY From skyring at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 02:33:02 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:33:02 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820503071833826e7b6@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general > who is the Queen's representative. He is only the Queen's representative in a very limited way, as set out in the Constitution. His constitutional powers, including the reserve powers, are given to him in his own right. Unlike other Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Canada, where the Governor-General merely exercises the Queen's powers. > Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a > monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". > Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. And it says that where...? > See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that: > > Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is > Australia's Head of State because: > > The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a > Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal > legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). > > The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the > Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, > Constitution). > > If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can. The ARM quotes the Constitution, but the Constitution doesn't say that the Queen is head of state, unlike the constitutions of other Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Papua New Guinea. The ARM is relying on their own opinion rather than any definitive source. The ARM is a partisan organisation promoting a one-sided view. This is like saying that the Republican Party's views on gay marriage are definitive. Interesting, but unimpressive. -- Peter in Canberra From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 03:39:29 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:39:29 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Suitable topics for the family-friendly version of Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <42289A4E.7070201@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb0503041512b5f1003@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > Theresa Knott wrote: > >> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 23:03:31 +0000, Pete/Pcb21 >> wrote: >> >>> David Gerard wrote: >> >> >> >>> Ermm, it seems to me like the livejournalers (I only read the first few, >>> admitedly) didn't actually understand the subtlety (such as it is) of >>> Bell Canada's advert? >> >> >> >> Well. it's late, and i'm feeling tired and stupid, so please spell it >> out for me because I didn't understand the subtlety myself. >> >> Theresa > > > Isn't Bell Canada saying that censoring a medical poster of the human > body would be a ridiculous extreme? Yes. Who says Americans don't get irony? TBSDY From kkrueger at whoi.edu Tue Mar 8 04:01:13 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 23:01:13 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050308040113.GA17700@whoi.edu> On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 11:13:37PM +0000, Abe Sokolov wrote: > Even if public perception is unfounded, Wikipedia still cannot afford > to disregard it. After all, it matters insofar as our work having any > meaning. If Wikipedia editors are the only people taking Wikipedia > articles and processes seriously, then we've all been wasting our > time. A lack of credibility is not a problem that Wikipedia currently has. Indeed, Wikipedia's credibility is if anything on the rise, as more people have heard of it through the media, academic discussions, and so on. Remember that we started from zero, not from Britannica; and thus that everything we have built in terms of credibility is a long step up from the -nothing- that many assumed Wikipedia could accomplish. What's more, greater credibility will not come by establishing more and more arcane policies and procedures, making a greater bureaucratic hassle of the project. It will, rather, come through the production and presentation of high-quality articles. The Featured Articles project has a great deal more to say about Wikipedia's credibility than the Arbitration Committee. The former is a way of presenting our very best work; the latter is simply a tool to help fend off the worst vandals, liars, harassers, and persistent abusers of power. It is unfortunate, but true, that bad news gets more coverage than good, and that people can get more attention and name-recognition within the project by mistreating others and breaking things than by producing good material. Thankfully this does not have to the image that Wikipedia presents to the world. The excellent front page material, the featured articles, and other mechanisms that promote excellent work are what give Wikipedia its credibility -- and all the trolls, POV-pushers, and other abusers are not going to degrade that. -- Karl A. Krueger From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 06:02:27 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 18:14:13 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > Although NewYorkTimes.com is going through a slow patch, this week we pulled > even, almost ready to break into the top 100. There was a cute exchange about this at the WebCred conference about Wikipedia buckling under catastrophic success (with people from the Times in the room) : ====== Jonathan Zittrain: "If the front page of the New York Times were a wiki that just froze to the version that existed at 6:00 a.m. ... they'd have a different set of problems than you would, and I worry that you are about to inherit those." Jimmy Wales: "Yeah, they might... but our traffic is very, very close now to the traffic of the New York Times." Dave Winer: "And it never freezes." ====== http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/?p=66 (day 2 PM) I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time. That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon. SJ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 06:35:48 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:35:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Rick wrote: > --- David Gerard wrote: > >>I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The >>HTML alone is 1,324,734 >>bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. >> >>I have a Pentium II 450MHz with 768MB memory running >>Netscape 7.2. It takes >>a minute or two just for the page to render. >> >>So to vote on VFD, you must have a broadband >>connection - anyone on dialup >>is pretty much barred - and preferably be browsing >>with an Athlon 64. Or >>maybe a Cray. >> >>Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just >>links to the day pages, >>rather than transcluding every one of them. > > > Nonsense. I have a dialup connection and have little > problem working with the VfD page. > > RickK Really? I have broadband and I have lots of difficulty working with this page. Firefox and IE takes ages to render the darned thing. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 07:14:05 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:14:05 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: Interesting idea, however shouldn't we also use a metric to determine whether a newbie rapidly gets up to speed on Wikipedia and becomes a very good contributor with thousands of edits? Can we take this into account? Otherwise - good plan. It's a paint to fixup page moves. And I've already pissed off enough developers (hi Brion!) by restoring a moved sandbox to try to shift it back during one of Wikipedia's numerous downtimes. TBSDY David Gerard wrote: > > Just had the following conversation with Tim Starling on > #mediawiki. Log quoted with permission. > > Basically: there is a feature. Present version is unsubtle > in its restriction (last 10% of created accounts, which is > possibly a bit harsh to get consensus. A timed version > would be nice, but someone interested in it will have to > write the code. > > Of course, if that restriction isn't considered too onerous > for the moment, it can just be switched on, and it will stop > Willy On Wheels! in his tracks. > > > a question on page move vandalism: is there a good > technical reason why e.g. checking a user has been around for a time > before doing a move is infeasible? or is it just that no-one's coded it > yet? > (I assume there's a bug on the subject) > DavidGerard: yes, we wrote code for that when Wik was > running his vandalbot > it's currently switched off > ok - does it need a vote or something to ratify > switching it on? > TimStarling: and is the code in question production > quality, of course? I plan to mention it on wikien-l, where it's been > asked about, and then start a discussion and vote page, if it's usable > the checkuser code? it's ready for use > if there's anything wrong with it, we'll fix it when > problems come up > the page move checker. what time limit does it set, or > is that configurable? > (I'm asking all this because I don't want to present > you with consensus for something not quite possible ;-) > (ideally for somethng that's no more work than > switching it on) > the current code just denies access to the move page > function for anyone who satisfies the isNewbie() condition > which generally meant one of the last 10% of user > accounts created > what's that set to? > ah > no particular time limit then > of course Wik then created 5000 user accounts on meta, > good for him > so we made an account creation throttle as well > no particular time limit > how much work to put in a settable time limit? off the > top of your head > (i'm thinking what is likely to be comprehensible and > play well) > the sign-up date is not recorded > it's not in the schema, we were just using the user ID > oh, so how is the 90 days calculated for votes? > by finding the first contribution, but that's an > expensive query > ew. yes. > i shall mention it on wikien-l that it's possible at > least ;-) > possible to do it by sign-on date? Yes, it's possible > if someone wants to write the code > it just means a schema change > that's what i thought ;-) > mind if I c'n'p this conversation to a wikien-l mail? > no I don't mind > cool :-) > > > - d. From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 07:15:57 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:15:57 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: FW: Moving to wiktionary and deleting In-Reply-To: <000b01c522a3$44fb2310$c900fea9@diego> References: <422B8A7D.8090902@epoptic.com> <000b01c522a3$44fb2310$c900fea9@diego> Message-ID: I think there is a {{deletebecause}}. Check [[Template:Deletebecause]] to see if there are any template parameters. TBSDY Olivier Bilodeau wrote: > I just want to be sure that once the entry exists on Wiktionary and I > add {{delete}} that I won't be told that I'm bypassing the VfD process > or that my csd doesn't fit the established criteria, or worse, that the > admin who actually deletes the items gets accused of the above. I was a > bit sarcastic in my reply to your post, but I wanted your opinion on the > matter to be clarified (which you did, and I appreciate). > > >>What I failed to communicate is that I don't think deletion policies >>apply. The articles in question are already listed for moving; I think > > >>that moving them doesn't involve the deletion process, speedy or > > otherwise. > >>-- >> Sean Barrett | I don't see you, so don't pretend you're there. >> sean at epoptic.com | >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 07:26:25 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:26:25 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: SD Magazine article: The Wiki Way In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Can you add this to [[WP:Press]]? TBSDY Poor, Edmund W wrote: > The April 2005 edition of Software Development Magazine has an article > Rick Wayne wrote about wiki software, and MediaWiki has BY FAR the > nicest screen shots. You'll recognize the yellow flower and the > puzzle-world right away. It's in the April 2005 edition, which just > arrived in my snail mailbox today at work. (The online version lags a > few days behind, but I'll send in the URL once it's up. And, no, this is > not an April Fool's joke; I never joke around about the *really* > important stuff!) > > Here's the caption for the Sample Wikipedia Page: > > "The Wikipedia is the canonical example of what you can do with > MediaWiki; here's the entry on data structures, with the navigation bar > at the left and the toolbar on the top." (P. 32) > > Wayne also mentions Wiki Woes: > > "Vandals. Unless you're trying for the widest possible user community, > it's best to hide your wiki behind some sort of access control. > Otherwise, the maladjusted may take advantage of the Edit This Page > button until you're ready to chuck the whole thing. . . ." (P. 33) > > Who knows? Maybe we'll get a flurry of contributions to our > computer-programming articles. > > Uncle Ed > (still alive and kickin') From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 07:23:48 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:23:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: upto11.net In-Reply-To: <03e001c52334$4bdc7da0$6501a8c0@dsnotebook> References: <13514570.1110212022767.JavaMail.root@vms063.mailsrvcs.net> <03e001c52334$4bdc7da0$6501a8c0@dsnotebook> Message-ID: Out of interest, are you able to add a notice about the GFDL to that FAQ? I'd hate your users to get pissed of that they didn't know about the GFDL! TBSDY >> From our FAQ > > > Q. What is Wikipedia? > A. It's an open-content encyclopedia that has been created by thousands > of people. The project's aim is to create a free encyclopedia, in fact, > the largest encylcopedia in history. Information about artists, albums > and songs that is presented on upto11.net is provided, in part, from the > Wikipedia. > Q. What can I do to help make Wikipedia more successful? > > A. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort that anyone can contribute to. > Even you. All you need to know is how to edit a page, and have some > encyclopedic knowledge you want to share. Visit > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page to learn more > about how to contribute. > > Q. What does the link "add to or edit this information" do? > A. Upto11.net encourages its users to become active contributors to the > Wikipedia project. If, in the course of your use of the upto11.net site, > you encounter a page with little or no content about a band, album or > song that you are familiar with, please click on the "add to or edit" > link to share that knowledge. Over time, the encyclopedia will grow and > become more useful to all users, especially to you, the music fan who > enjoys using upto11.net. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 07:35:35 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 07:35:35 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1429.192.168.0.9.1110267335.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> AndyL said: > > I have stated once already that someone I know who was working on a > complaint against Herschelkrustofsky had second thoughts upon seeing > tempbans implemented (or pondered) in other cases against complainants > (specifically my complaint against ArmchairVexillologistDon in which > the ArbComm was initially considering tempbanning *both of us* from all > articles related to Canada until the arbitration was concluded - this > was being proposed before any evidence had even been heard Why is this a problem? For a tempban to stick, the arbitrators all have to agree to it. If you don't trust them to make a fair decision in such a case, you certainly can't trust them to arbitrate. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 07:27:23 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 23:27:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <20050307214029.82742.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050307214029.82742.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422D53DB.8010808@telus.net> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > > >>You know, a new committee with clear procedural rules will itself begin >>generating clearer ideas about how to deal with disagreements over what >>constitutes original research, too, >> >> >There is no need for a new committee. The existing ArbCom just needs to be more >aggressive at enforcing content policies and guidelines. We did not tackle >these issues at first due to the fact that we did not have clear community >support and many feared giving us that power. The mood now has changed and I >think the community has a great deal more trust in the ArbCom and the ArbCom >itself is better-prepared to deal with this type of issue. > > It has nothing to do with trusting the ArbCom. Disciplinary issues need to be kept separate from content issues. Otherwise the content will develop the appearance of being decided by a cabal. The disciplinary role is necessary, and dealing with problem characters often requires harsh measures. That mentality can too easily creep into other decisions. Content issues need to retain fluidity and permanent negotiability. Saying that the ArbCom made a decision six months age about the content is a drop dead argument that prevents any participation by those who were not a part of the original debate. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 07:17:42 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:17:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Deletion of my images In-Reply-To: <422BE0B0.4090205@yahoo.com> References: <422BE0B0.4090205@yahoo.com> Message-ID: I'll be honest here. I have deleted a whole bunch of OBVIOUS copyright violations of FHM pics, etc, without telling the original author. I suppose I should have. TBSDY Anthere wrote: > For the second time this month, one of my images was deleted on the > english wikipedia. > > I was not warned at all. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anthere/PictInsectes&diff=0&oldid=10140585 > > > I'll be frank, I AM PISSED OFF. > > It is written clearly on my talk page, and my user page that all my > images are gfdl. All my insects pictures listed on my user subpage are > labelled, but this one. > > Just as I already said on the pump less than 2 weeks ago, I think it is > really pure disrespect to delete an image without asking the author, and > then only AFTER deletion, to go on this user subpage to remove the link > to the deleted image. If there is time to go on my user subpage to > remove a link, then there is time to drop by my user talk page and talk > to me. Of there is time to read the mention on my user and user talk > page and to read my warning about the status of my images and to update > the image status. > > I am sorry, but I really find this of the latest rudeness. > > From now quite far away, as I have no more time to edit the english > wikipedia, I have the horrible feeling the english wikipedia has become > a very very cold place, where there is no respect for editors except > those well known possibly. If feels like if one is not among the major > editors, he does not count, and his feelings are not important at all. > It looks like a machine. An automate. Not a great human construction. > > We are all here because we believe in what we do, but what we do is only > good because we do it together and because we trust each other. > > Well, at least, some people trust other people. And if it is not > possible to trust someone who spent already 3 years on wikipedia, I > wonder how newbies are treated. > > In case you feel like telling me "yeah, but this is just one case you > know, not everybody does that", I will then ask why Quadell is trusted > to delete images. I do not trust him to do so. Not because he does not > do this according to rules, but because he does not do this while taking > human feelings into account. And wiki only works thanks to human power. > > Anthere From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 07:32:40 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 23:32:40 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <547b297e0503071343515d651f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050307213512.88078.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> <547b297e0503071343515d651f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422D5518.8080904@telus.net> Brian M wrote: >>That is a role that mediation should play. >> >>-- mav >> >> >Why separate "mediation" from "arbitration"? Why such complicated >dispute resolution procedures? It is almost as if we want to make >it hard and complicated to resolve disputes, something you can only do >if you are determined. What is the logic behind that? > >Wouldn't mediation work better if the parties knew that the mediator >seeking a resolution to a dispute/behaviour problem had the ready >means to impose a sanction on any parties deemed not to be >cooperating? Iron fist in the velvet glove. At present, in the >case of real a behaviour problem (as opposed to a good-faith >difference of opinion) mediation is a hoop people have to jump through >to get to arbitration, and anyway it is broken. > > When a mediator needs to use an iron fist he has proved himself incompetent as a mediator, and should be fired. Ec From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 07:42:02 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 07:42:02 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: References: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1439.192.168.0.9.1110267722.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> csherlock at ljh.com.au said: > > Really? I have broadband and I have lots of difficulty working with > this page. Firefox and IE takes ages to render the darned thing. lynx is your friend. :) Seriously, though, I think we should do David's suggestion and have a page of links to nominations by day. This would be a very easy edit; the only difficulties would be explaining how it works and providing navs (if required) on each day page to the other days. It would be nice to have a "click here to move to next day" link. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 08:21:17 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 00:21:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308082118.70870.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Brian M wrote: > I am sure Jimbo did not just shoot from the hip, and > anybody trying to > sort out what is happening would still need "to go > through the edits". > But what isn't needed is the whole > quasi-legalistic infrastructure > that the arbcom has evolved > with "cases", "petitioners", "respondents", > "recusals", "votes to > accept or deny cases", "injunctions", "evidence", > etc, etc, It > is silly. > > I have no idea of the AC history, but somewhere back > when the arbcom > was getting rolling it took a wrong turn and now we > have this > tremendously heavy process. The basic need is > simply to be able to > get an experienced and level-headed Wikipedian who > is respected and > trusted by the community involved in various > situations who can (1) > warn people that they are out of line and try to > nudge them towards > correcting their behaviour; and/or (2) impose a > sanction if the > misbehaviour continues, with the easily-obtained > backing of a > committee that represents the community consensus, > I COMPLETELY endorse everything Brian is saying here. The entire process is so cumbersome as to be daunting and not worth the effort, especially since the arbcom will bend over backwards to do everything they can to make sure that the most egregious of vandals and edit warriors are treated with more respect than the valid editors who have to deal with them. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Mar 8 10:08:18 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 10:08:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 Message-ID: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > Delirium wrote: > > Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone > > doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you > > wish". > > > > (And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the > > fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into > > outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) > > > > -Mark > > What a load of crap. Ever read the history of Russia? Yeah, that's now a > FA article. You can't GET FA articles that are POV screeds. > > TBSDY Yes, you can get FA articles that are POV, and History of Russia is just such an example. It's POV language was just recently improved and there are many more criticisms/changes such as that which are yet to be made. Selection of material or focus can be a source of POV, and yet can subtlely masquerade as NPOV, because the POV problem is not with the information included, but with the selectivity of what was included and what was left out. Strangely, that article also includes superatives, which should have been a red flag. There are very citations of sources within the article which, while making for easier reading, usually indicates that something has limited peer review, perhaps the community interested in the subject shared the same POV, or there was just lack of interest in general, allowing authorial territoriality to achieve free reign. -- Silverback From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 12:35:53 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:35:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> AndyL wrote: > I have stated once already that someone I know who was working on a > complaint against Herschelkrustofsky had second thoughts upon seeing > tempbans implemented (or pondered) in other cases against complainants > (specifically my complaint against ArmchairVexillologistDon in which the > ArbComm was initially considering tempbanning *both of us* from all articles > related to Canada until the arbitration was concluded - this was being > proposed before any evidence had even been heard Temporary injunctions are for the specific purpose of keeping the peace. I'll also note that this one did not in fact pass, or even close. Are you saying the idea should not have even been *considered*? - d. From david at sabels.org Tue Mar 8 12:35:16 2005 From: david at sabels.org (David Sabel) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 07:35:16 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: upto11.net References: <20050308073548.895FE1AC1749@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <001101c523db$48546e70$6701a8c0@dsnotebook> > Out of interest, are you able to add a notice about the GFDL to that > FAQ? I'd hate your users to get pissed of that they didn't know about > the GFDL! > > TBSDY We just did a promotion last night where, among other changes, we added a footer to every wikipedia article that says " This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. " Is that sufficient, or should we add an FAQ as well? Thanks, David From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Mar 8 12:54:20 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:54:20 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general > who is the Queen's representative. > > Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a > monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". > Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. > > See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that: > > Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is > Australia's Head of State because: > > The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a > Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal > legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). > > The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the > Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, > Constitution). > > If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can. > > TBSDY Your citation of the constitution only lends credence to Austrailia as a republic, the true "head of state" is the constitution. All purported human heads are subject to the limitations of the constitution. Now if the queen or governer general could invalidate the constitution, you might have an argument that Austrailia was not a republic or true constitutional monarchy. The fact that the constitution gives these positions their limited roles, makes Austrialia a type of republic, more correctly referred to as a constitutional monarchy, because that is more specific. -- Silverback From andyl2004 at sympatico.ca Tue Mar 8 12:58:03 2005 From: andyl2004 at sympatico.ca (AndyL) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 07:58:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: on 3/8/05 7:35 AM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote: > AndyL wrote: > >> I have stated once already that someone I know who was working on a >> complaint against Herschelkrustofsky had second thoughts upon seeing >> tempbans implemented (or pondered) in other cases against complainants >> (specifically my complaint against ArmchairVexillologistDon in which the >> ArbComm was initially considering tempbanning *both of us* from all articles >> related to Canada until the arbitration was concluded - this was being >> proposed before any evidence had even been heard > > > Temporary injunctions are for the specific purpose of keeping the peace. > I'll also note that this one did not in fact pass, or even close. Are you > saying the idea should not have even been *considered*? > > > - d. > It didn't come to pass because I intervened but I only intervened because I happened to notice it. I had been inclined to not check the arbcomm pages in question after having made my complaint about Don and no one alerted me on my talk page that such a proposal was being made. Considering Don's behaviour and considering that the conflict was occurring only on two or three pages related to the very narrow topic of red ensign flags the proposal to temp ban both of us from *all* articles pertaining to Canada (ie thousands of pages) was excessive and had I not noticed it (ie because I was busy with something else for a few days) it would have passed. So no, it should never have been considered. In fact, I believe it was on the verge of being approved (or technically even had the needed number of endorsers) until I intervened so this isn't a case of one arbitrator making a wild proposal and no one else picking it up but of the ArbComm panel agreeing to a proposal until the affected party noticed what was going on and said, in essence, "are you guys nuts?" Andy From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 13:12:09 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:12:09 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> AndyL said: > Considering Don's behaviour and considering that the conflict was > occurring only on two or three pages related to the very narrow topic > of red ensign flags the proposal to temp ban both of us from *all* > articles pertaining to Canada (ie thousands of pages) was excessive and > had I not noticed it (ie because I was busy with something else for a > few days) it would have passed. So no, it should never have been > considered. In fact, I believe it was on the verge of being approved > (or technically even had the needed number of endorsers) until I > intervened so this isn't a case of one arbitrator making a wild > proposal and no one else picking it up but of the ArbComm panel > agreeing to a proposal until the affected party noticed what was going > on and said, in essence, "are you guys nuts?" Suppose it had been passed, what harm would have been done to Wikipedia? From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 13:50:10 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:50:10 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> Tony Sidaway wrote: > AndyL said: >>Considering Don's behaviour and considering that the conflict was >>occurring only on two or three pages related to the very narrow topic >>of red ensign flags the proposal to temp ban both of us from *all* >>articles pertaining to Canada (ie thousands of pages) was excessive and >>had I not noticed it (ie because I was busy with something else for a >>few days) it would have passed. So no, it should never have been >>considered. In fact, I believe it was on the verge of being approved >>(or technically even had the needed number of endorsers) until I >>intervened so this isn't a case of one arbitrator making a wild >>proposal and no one else picking it up but of the ArbComm panel >>agreeing to a proposal until the affected party noticed what was going >>on and said, in essence, "are you guys nuts?" > Suppose it had been passed, what harm would have been done to Wikipedia? An editor in good standing feeling mistreated is the sort of thing that makes volunteers fade away, so all this is a matter of concern. Temp injunctions need to be applied with care. - d. From zoney.ie at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 13:50:57 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:50:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4418c60e050308055078636162@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:54:20 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > -------------- Original message -------------- > > > Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general > > who is the Queen's representative. > > > > Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a > > monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". > > Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. > > > > See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that: > > > > Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is > > Australia's Head of State because: > > > > The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a > > Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal > > legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). > > > > The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the > > Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, > > Constitution). > > > > If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can. > > > > TBSDY > > Your citation of the constitution only lends credence to Austrailia as a republic, the true "head of state" is the constitution. All purported human heads are subject to the limitations of the constitution. > > Now if the queen or governer general could invalidate the constitution, you might have an argument that Austrailia was not a republic or true constitutional monarchy. The fact that the constitution gives these positions their limited roles, makes Austrialia a type of republic, more correctly referred to as a constitutional monarchy, because that is more specific. > > -- Silverback I'm sorry to jump into the midst of this argument, but I wonder are the parties in this debate aware of Ireland's previous situation, between 1937 when we approved a new constitution (one with no reference to the monarch) and 1949 (when we passed a law to officially become a Republic). The monarch represented Ireland internationally until 1949, despite our having a president. The question of who was head of state is not clear cut (though I think people outside Ireland tend to see it as the monarch who was head of state). In other words, I think it's fair to say Australia isn't a Republic, but probably, like Ireland, they would become one simply by passing law, rather than the customary new constitution. I think Ireland is the only country to date that has become a Republic in this fashion. We do have articles on Wikipedia on the Irish historical situation (which I probably should have double-checked before writing all this) which you may find interesting. A good starting point is probably [[President of Ireland]]. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 13:55:04 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:55:04 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422DAEB8.5060205@thingy.apana.org.au> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Interesting idea, however shouldn't we also use a metric to determine > whether a newbie rapidly gets up to speed on Wikipedia and becomes a > very good contributor with thousands of edits? > Can we take this into account? So Write The Code (tm). Pleeeeeaassseee!!! (tm) The present plan is feasible basically because it's just a matter of enabling existing code, not writing anything new. Whether it'll fly is another. > Otherwise - good plan. It's a paint to fixup page moves. And I've > already pissed off enough developers (hi Brion!) by restoring a moved > sandbox to try to shift it back during one of Wikipedia's numerous > downtimes. Yeah. Possibly the isNewbie() function needs to be set to the last 2% or whatever, to minimise collateral inability to move pages. The thing is that's not a definite measure, but advertising the metric on the move page would only encourage Willy on Wheels! to work around it with account creations and leaving them dormant until it's time for a move attack. Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves as an emergency measure. - d. From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 13:59:49 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:54:20 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > Now if the queen or governer general could invalidate the constitution, you might have an argument that Austrailia was not a republic or true constitutional monarchy. The fact that the constitution gives these positions their limited roles, makes Austrialia a type of republic, more correctly referred to as a constitutional monarchy, because that is more specific. As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies. In any case, I really doubt that everyone on this list is interested in this discussion. I suggest [[Talk:Australia]] or [[Talk:Republic]]. Steve From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 14:17:10 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:17:10 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Evidence as to VFD being unusably big In-Reply-To: References: <20050306211959.46585.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422DB3E6.6020705@thingy.apana.org.au> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Rick wrote: >> --- David Gerard wrote: >>> I just saved [[WP:VFD]] as of a few minutes ago. The >>> HTML alone is 1,324,734 >>> bytes. The associated files are 28,964 bytes. >>> Here's one suggestion: make the main VFD page just >>> links to the day pages, >>> rather than transcluding every one of them. >> Nonsense. I have a dialup connection and have little >> problem working with the VfD page. >> RickK > Really? I have broadband and I have lots of difficulty working with this > page. Firefox and IE takes ages to render the darned thing. I've started a discussion here. No vote as yet, I want to see what the consensus is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Votes_for_deletion#VfD.27s_ridiculous_size:_suggestion Note that breaking it up into days will not alter the substance of the VFD process and may allow more people to participate, giving it more legitimacy. - d. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 14:17:31 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 06:17:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308141731.42169.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Abe Sokolov wrote: > The idea of convening special panels of non-involved people for certain > cases is great and I fully support it. While I think that a second mechanism > would work better, Mav's ideas are at least a step in the right direction, > and they're better than nothing. Then let's try this first - see if it works. It would take many months for a new committee to be up and running effectively - it took the ArbCom a year. People who serve in a few special panels would be in the best position to form a separate committee if that is eventually deemed necessary. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From skyring at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 14:21:15 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 01:21:15 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030806214027371@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest wrote: > As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition > of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies. How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary? Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of government, the form of government is republican and the executive power is exercised by an appointed official. Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada, but the constitutional arrangements are quite different. -- Peter in Canberra From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 14:23:53 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 06:23:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308142353.85500.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > It has nothing to do with trusting the ArbCom. Disciplinary issues need > to be kept separate from content issues. Otherwise the content will > develop the appearance of being decided by a cabal. The disciplinary > role is necessary, and dealing with problem characters often requires > harsh measures. That mentality can too easily creep into other decisions. I'm talking about the ArbCom deciding if a user has violated our content polices and guidelines. That is very much within the authority of the ArbCom. We have just moved slowly so far into enforcing those policies. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From sean at epoptic.org Tue Mar 8 14:25:30 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 06:25:30 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> (message from David Gerard on Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:35:53 +0000) References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <200503081425.j28EPUoZ022529@orwen.epoptic.com> > Are you saying the idea should not have even been *considered*? This thread has given me the idea that there are at least a few Wikipedians who feel that they have the Divine Right of Long-Standing Editors, and as such are permanently beyond reproach in all things. That the ArbComm might dare to question their actions is not merely an insult -- it is cause to disband the ArbComm and permanently hard ban the individual traitors who did not kowtow to their exalted status. -- Sean Barrett | Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareis. sean at epoptic.com | From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 14:36:37 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:36:37 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030806214027371@mail.gmail.com> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030806214027371@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422DB875.7040709@thingy.apana.org.au> Skyring wrote: > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest > wrote: >>As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition >>of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies. > How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary > or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary? > Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the > monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of > government, the form of government is republican and the executive > power is exercised by an appointed official. > Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada, > but the constitutional arrangements are quite different. I notice you have a severe absence of sources to refer to on the point - you know, anything other than your own original research that says the words "Australia is a republic." - d. From skyring at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 14:47:08 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 01:47:08 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <422DB875.7040709@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030806214027371@mail.gmail.com> <422DB875.7040709@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030806476e3b9df7@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:36:37 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > Skyring wrote: > > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest > > wrote: > > >>As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition > >>of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies. > > > How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary > > or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary? > > Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the > > monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of > > government, the form of government is republican and the executive > > power is exercised by an appointed official. > > Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada, > > but the constitutional arrangements are quite different. > > I notice you have a severe absence of sources to refer to on the point - > you know, anything other than your own original research that says > the words "Australia is a republic." Do tell? Have you actually '''read''' [[Talk:Government of Australia]]? You'll get more sources there than you can shake a fist at. Dive in. -- Peter in Canberra From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 15:06:25 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 10:06:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge > >JAY JG wrote: > >>>From: "Charles Matthews" >>> >>>JAY JG wrote >>> >>> > Perhaps the [[Wikipedia:No original research]] page needs to be >>>updated with >>> > examples which make that point that if it really is that simple, >>>someone >>> > else will have done the work for you already, and all you need to do >>>is >>> > quote them. >>> >>>Literally speaking, conversion of temperatures from Fahrenheit to Celsius >>>would fall foul of this. And numerous other things: such as conversion >>>of >>>dates out of one calendar system into another, metrication, currency >>>conversion, inverting family relationships from 'nephew' to 'uncle' ... >> >>No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes original >>research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in >>an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if you were to >>assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive reasoning" that uncles >>were more closely related to nephews than aunts were to nieces, that would >>be original research, and you'd have to find some source which supported >>it. > >That's certainly an extremist view. Ray, labels like this aren't helpful. >It implies that a crackpot theory is acceptable as long as it has >previously been published somewhere else. Nothing of the sort. The "NPOV policy" indicates that extreme minority views need not be presented in an article, so that issue is well covered. >However, if the public thought that the theory was so ridiculous that they >felt it a waste of time to dispute it we would not be allowed to publish a >refutation on the grounds that it was original research. You wouldn't need to refute it, since you wouldn't need to cite it in the first place, as above. >You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten? Jay. From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Mar 8 15:21:57 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:21:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preview? Message-ID: <030820051521.12052.422DC315000160C700002F1422058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > I just clicked on the submit button and it told me I was doing a > preview! Yet the revision got through. What's going on? The same thing happened to me, I guess I wasn't just seeing things. These wikipedia death spirals seem to happen when european editing is near its peak, and the USA and Canada start coming online. Unfortunately, I bet "traffic" jumps whenever wikipedia stops responding. I know, I instantly retry again, when I get a server busy or not responding or page unavailable message, in the hopes that I don't lose the thought or edit, that I just laboriously composed (you don't know how SLOWLY i type). I bet that is the natural response of a lot of people, and so wikipedia non-responsiveness degenerates into a surge of traffic that exacerbates the discussion. Unfortunately, sometimes edits do get lost, perhaps the surge in traffic could be avoided if the button did not make the page go away, but just put up a message, so that it was clear that the edit was still available and could be submitted later. There would need to be feed back when the edit had gotten through, perhaps the new page could come in then? Or perhaps a pop-up would notify of acceptance. Of course would operate differently, but some assurance mechanism that prevented the edit from being lost there would help too. -- Silverback From slimvirgin at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:09:49 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:09:49 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> From: David Gerard >Temporary injunctions are for the specific purpose of keeping the peace. On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:50:10 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > An editor in good standing feeling mistreated is the sort of thing that > makes volunteers fade away, so all this is a matter of concern. Temp > injunctions need to be applied with care. David, one arbitrator has strongly implied that the policy of tempbanning has been adopted in order to discourage editors from seeking arbitration, and not simply to keep the peace. S/he has written of tempbanning: "I strongly encourage you to complain about that practice widely and to discourage others from seeking arbitration. If you can build a consensus against us, we will either change or be replaced," and "[P]lease remember that arbitration is not something that people should want or feel good about doing. It is a serious step that can result in a Wikipedia Death Sentence; if these temporary injunctions make disputants decide to try a little harder to avoid bringing their squabbles before the ArbComm, so much the better." It's a good thing to discourage squabbles from being brought to the arbcom; but not all disputes are simply squabbles, and you may be discouraging genuine disputants too, in cases where the dispute resolution would be for the benefit of Wikipedia. Sarah From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 16:16:18 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:16:18 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4092.194.72.110.12.1110298578.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> > From: David Gerard >>Temporary injunctions are for the specific purpose of keeping the >>peace. > > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:50:10 +0000, David Gerard > wrote: >> An editor in good standing feeling mistreated is the sort of thing >> that makes volunteers fade away, so all this is a matter of concern. >> Temp injunctions need to be applied with care. > > David, one arbitrator has strongly implied that the policy of > tempbanning has been adopted in order to discourage editors from > seeking arbitration, and not simply to keep the peace. S/he has > written of tempbanning: "I strongly encourage you to complain about > that practice widely and to discourage others from seeking > arbitration. If you can build a consensus against us, we will either > change or be replaced," and "[P]lease remember that arbitration is not > something that people should want or feel good about doing. It is a > serious step that can result in a Wikipedia Death Sentence; if these > temporary injunctions make disputants decide to try a little harder to > avoid bringing their squabbles before the ArbComm, so much the > better." > > It's a good thing to discourage squabbles from being brought to the > arbcom; but not all disputes are simply squabbles, and you may be > discouraging genuine disputants too, in cases where the dispute > resolution would be for the benefit of Wikipedia. That doesn't make sense to me. I do understand the argument that tempbans where seen as unjust could drive away good editors, but so can seriously bad behavior. If a week's rest from editing a few articles is *worse* than editing those articles in the presence of the behavior about which one wants to make a complaint, I just don't see that the complaint can be that serious. Suppose somebody says "Tony Sidaway, no editing articles about politics or sex." Well I'd just get on editing articles about the hundred-and-one other major subjects an encyclopedia covers. A sense of proportion: is that something so lacking in Wikipedia editors? From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 8 16:21:37 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:21:37 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> Message-ID: <002c01c523fa$e93359e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jay JG: >> "Deductive reasoning" becomes > > original research when it is used to build a case against a position > > presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if > > you were to assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive > > reasoning" that uncles were more closely related to nephews than aunts > > were to nieces, that would be original research, and you'd have to > > find some source which supported it. Ray Saintonge: > That's certainly an extremist view. It implies that a crackpot theory > is acceptable as long as it has previously been published somewhere > else. I was grateful for the clarification later given by Jay JG. Where I differ, myself, is in not taking "idea" from the policy page to mean any proposition, however concrete or factual, but to have some debatable general or abstract content (e.g. the theory of relativity). Charles From slimvirgin at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:27:42 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:27:42 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4092.194.72.110.12.1110298578.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> <4092.194.72.110.12.1110298578.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030808271275ed45@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:16:18 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway That doesn't make sense to me. I do understand the argument that tempbans > where seen as unjust could drive away good editors, but so can seriously > bad behavior. If a week's rest from editing a few articles is *worse* > than editing those articles in the presence of the behavior about which > one wants to make a complaint, I just don't see that the complaint can be > that serious. Tony, you'd be right if tempbanning were the only problem, but there is a perception (as is clearly shown by this thread) that there is a philosophy of seeking to punish both sides regardless of the issues, in an effort to bend over backwards to be fair - which I argue is actually leading to unfairness in some cases. It is this philosophy that is worrying, and the issue of tempbanning everyone is simply one example of it. Also, in Andy's case, the proposed tempban covered areas not affected by the dispute, and was therefore perceived to be a pre-judgment punishment, not just a peace-keeping measure. In matters of justice, perceptions matter as much as reality. Sarah From theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:32:19 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:32:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030808327f650ecb@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:09:49 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > From: David Gerard > >Temporary injunctions are for the specific purpose of keeping the peace. > > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:50:10 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > > An editor in good standing feeling mistreated is the sort of thing that > > makes volunteers fade away, so all this is a matter of concern. Temp > > injunctions need to be applied with care. > > David, one arbitrator has strongly implied that the policy of > tempbanning has been adopted in order to discourage editors from > seeking arbitration, and not simply to keep the peace. That's not how i feel about temp bans. If I thought that a temp ban was being proposed as a punishment for bring a a case to the AC then I would vote against it. If a case was not worthy of my time, i wouldn't need to punish people for bringing it to my attention, I'd just reject the request and be done with it. Do remember that when an arbitrator speaks on a talk page or in an email they are doing so as an individual, they do not represent the whole of the AC. Theresa From theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:35:03 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:35:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <200503081425.j28EPUoZ022529@orwen.epoptic.com> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <200503081425.j28EPUoZ022529@orwen.epoptic.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05030808354137b9c0@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 06:25:30 -0800, Sean Barrett wrote: > > Are you saying the idea should not have even been *considered*? > > This thread has given me the idea that there are at least a few > Wikipedians who feel that they have the Divine Right of Long-Standing > Editors, and as such are permanently beyond reproach in all things. > That the ArbComm might dare to question their actions is not merely an > insult -- it is cause to disband the ArbComm and permanently hard ban > the individual traitors who did not kowtow to their exalted status. Do behave! No one has said anything even approaching that. Theresa From slimvirgin at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:40:27 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:40:27 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05030808327f650ecb@mail.gmail.com> References: <422D9C29.9030005@thingy.apana.org.au> <11246.194.72.110.12.1110287529.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422DAD92.1010409@thingy.apana.org.au> <4cc603b05030808093decc76c@mail.gmail.com> <1bfe3eb05030808327f650ecb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b050308084049136973@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:32:19 +0000, Theresa Knott wrote: > That's not how i feel about temp bans. If I thought that a temp ban > was being proposed as a punishment for bring a a case to the AC then I > would vote against it. If a case was not worthy of my time, i wouldn't > need to punish people for bringing it to my attention, I'd just reject > the request and be done with it. Do remember that when an arbitrator > speaks on a talk page or in an email they are doing so as an > individual, they do not represent the whole of the AC. Thanks, Theresa, it's helpful to have that clarified. Sarah From theresaknott at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:42:37 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:42:37 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422DAEB8.5060205@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> <422DAEB8.5060205@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050308084217ccc83d@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:55:04 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > > > Interesting idea, however shouldn't we also use a metric to determine > > whether a newbie rapidly gets up to speed on Wikipedia and becomes a > > very good contributor with thousands of edits? > > Can we take this into account? > > So Write The Code (tm). Pleeeeeaassseee!!! (tm) > > The present plan is feasible basically because it's just a matter of > enabling existing code, not writing anything new. Whether it'll fly is > another. > > > > Otherwise - good plan. It's a paint to fixup page moves. And I've > > already pissed off enough developers (hi Brion!) by restoring a moved > > sandbox to try to shift it back during one of Wikipedia's numerous > > downtimes. > > Yeah. Possibly the isNewbie() function needs to be set to the last 2% or > whatever, to minimise collateral inability to move pages. > > The thing is that's not a definite measure, but advertising the metric > on the move page would only encourage Willy on Wheels! to work around it > with account creations and leaving them dormant until it's time for a > move attack. > > Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not > presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves > as an emergency measure. What if we lowered it to 1%. how many people would that affect and for how long roughly? ( I take it that we are still growing exponentially?) Theresa From stacey.nj at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 16:45:33 2005 From: stacey.nj at gmail.com (Stacey Greenstein) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:45:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050305033477e84a7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <000801c5216f$7321ab40$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb050305033477e84a7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <986f04050308084567680aa2@mail.gmail.com> Here's the article: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66814,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2 Too bad Daniel didn't research enough to find out I'm not female..... On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 19:34:31 +0800, Andrew Lih wrote: > On Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:38:18 -0000, Charles Matthews > wrote: > > > > No - Daniel Terdiman has written a few web articles on WP already. > > Right. Daniel Terdiman is a Wired News reporter, not of Wired Magazine. > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From actionforum at comcast.net Tue Mar 8 17:25:20 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:25:20 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... Message-ID: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > > Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not > > presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves > > as an emergency measure. > > What if we lowered it to 1%. how many people would that affect and for > how long roughly? ( I take it that we are still growing > exponentially?) How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it. -- Silverback From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 17:34:12 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 17:34:12 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <40584.194.72.110.12.1110303252.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> > > How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a > sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only > time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the > page, and I think I botched it. I'd not want it disabled, if only because a botched move can be undone relatively easily but a cut-and-paste that subsequently gets edited is a nightmare. Not the least of the problems is that usually you don't even know just by looking at the page and its history that an article *is* a copy-and-paste job from another page. There is no link at all. If we made page-move a sysop-only function we'd probably need to do something about non-sysops improvising copy-and-pastes. I think it *should* be available to nearly all regular logged-in editors. From usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Tue Mar 8 17:34:50 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:34:50 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb050308084217ccc83d@mail.gmail.com> References: <422B0F77.1030704@thingy.apana.org.au> <422DAEB8.5060205@thingy.apana.org.au> <1bfe3eb050308084217ccc83d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422DE23A.7070106@tonal.clara.co.uk> Theresa Knott wrote: >On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:55:04 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > > >> >>>Yeah. Possibly the isNewbie() function needs to be set to the last 2% or >>>whatever, to minimise collateral inability to move pages. >>> >>>The thing is that's not a definite measure, but advertising the metric >>>on the move page would only encourage Willy on Wheels! to work around it >>>with account creations and leaving them dormant until it's time for a >>>move attack. >>> >>>Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not >>>presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves >>>as an emergency measure. >>> >>> > >What if we lowered it to 1%. how many people would that affect and for >how long roughly? ( I take it that we are still growing >exponentially?) > >Theresa > > > About a month per percent, given the current statistics. I also think it's reasonable to work on the assumption that WoW is reading this list. We will still need to rely on soft security in the end. Currently, the technical advantage WoW has is the ability to user a tabbed browser to generate vandalism "bursts" that defeat the normal human processes of reverting and user blocking. (I've tried it, all apart from actually making the edits, and it's very quick to set up a batch of page moves, ready to commit by clicking one after another). Page-move vandals know what they are doing, and deliberately choose that form of vandalism for maximum annoyance: even when done manually, page moves take longer to fix and tidy up after than to commit, so the advantage is to the vandal. Putting in a 2% block will hold off WoW and imitators for at least a month or two, which has got to be a good thing, and gives us time to set up better tools to await the return of the page move vandals. In the longer run, what we need are three things: * one-click page-move reverting for admins * a page move log, working on the same principles as the deletion log * add page-move rate limiting for non-sysops, and you more or less have drawn the teeth of page-move vandals. With these tools, page move vandalism need be no more annoying than any other trivial edit vandalism: simply block the user, call up their page-move history, and click revert as many times as needed. And I agree: we should reserve the right to redefine the heuristics for is_newbie() without notice, to resist any attempts to "game" it. (I can think of several ways right now, but I see no reason to make vandals' lives any easier). -- Neil From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 18:23:42 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:23:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422DEDAE.2030904@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it. Because newbies will do cut'n'paste moves right now instead of going through a nominate for renaming process. - d. From wikimb at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 18:43:03 2005 From: wikimb at gmail.com (Michael Becker) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:43:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you Message-ID: <422DF237.20500@gmail.com> In true wiki fashion he's made a correction "*^1 Correction, 03/08/2005 10:01 AM:* A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Stacey Greenstein. (Return to the corrected text)" On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:45:33 -0500, Stacey Greenstein wrote: > Here's the article: > > http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66814,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2 > > Too bad Daniel didn't research enough to find out I'm not female..... -- Michael Becker From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Mar 8 18:54:04 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:54:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and senior admins Message-ID: I think we should discuss the blocking war, and how it ended. Recall that 172 was blocked and unblocked repeatedly (I gather he even self-unblocked at least once.) I jumped in and removed 172's sysop rights (along with those of three other admins). After some talk on various pages, and some mailing list discussion, I reinstated 172's sysop rights (along with the others). Elapsed time, just about 90 minutes. I'm not saying I was "right" to do this (my '''ability''' to do it no longer remains). But let's look at the consequences. Because this '''could''' set a precedent. I suggest that as a general rule if anyone tries to settle an issue that he is involved in, he should not use sysop, bureacrat or steward power to settle it. Especially when '''his own conduct''' is the issue. We expect higher standards of those who have more power (as Peter Parker said in ''[[Spiderman]]'' :-) If he does, he ought to be curbed in some way. Ordinary users could be blocked for, say 3 to 24 hours. Admins could be de-sysopped for a day or so. (We still need the technical means to permit blocked users to edit TALK pages - at least in the non-article namespace.) While thus curbed, (a) the community will be temporarily free of the nuisance, and (b) the arbcom or others can decide whether to uphold, extend, or remove the curb. Uncle Ed From fredrik.johansson at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 19:01:01 2005 From: fredrik.johansson at gmail.com (Fredrik Johansson) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:01:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422DEDAE.2030904@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422DEDAE.2030904@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <3d0cebfb05030811016331f3@mail.gmail.com> David Gerard wrote: > > How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it. > > Because newbies will do cut'n'paste moves right now instead of > going through a nominate for renaming process. So keep the 'move' button where it is for regular users, but make it a link to a page that explains how to get a page moved properly. - Fredrik From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 19:09:45 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:09:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308190945.56031.qmail@web31301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > > Let's say it how it is shall we? Collaborative > editing? You were > stalking Rick. You were trying o upset him, to > provoke him even, and > now you claim to be being abused? It's a 24 hour > block not the end of > the world. If you feel you want to "collaborate" > with someone, feel > free to stalk me. > > Theresa Thanks for that Theresa, I'm sorry that you think that checking someone's edits is 'stalking'. I can certainly see why Rick would not want anyone examining his behaviour too closely, but are you seriously suggesting that oversight is inapropriate? You want to say that anyone who looks too closely at what another user is doing is 'stalking'? Stalking is a real-world phenomena where someone is followed in multiple ways. Checking someone's contributions to an online encyclopedia is not stalking. It is responsible checking. Yours, The Recycling Troll __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Mar 8 19:04:05 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:04:05 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308135404.0305bd58@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Abe Sokolov wrote: >>Daniel Mayer maveric149 at yahoo.com wrote: >>"There is no need for a new committee. The existing ArbCom just needs to be >>more >>aggressive at enforcing content policies and guidelines. We did not tackle >>these issues at first due to the fact that we did not have clear community >>support and many feared giving us that power. The mood now has changed and I >>think the community has a great deal more trust in the ArbCom and the ArbCom >>itself is better-prepared to deal with this type of issue. > >It would be great if the arbcom would become more aggressive at enforcing >content policies and guidelines. However, there is no evidence that it has >the capacity to give equal weight to content and behavioral policies, >especially considering the slow (but at least increasingly rapid) pace at >which it still handles cases on behavior-- its traditional sphere. A second >committee would mean more capacity and more expertise to handle the policies >that always been difficult for the arbcom to address (No original research, >Cite sources, NPOV, Verifiability, et. al.). >Aside from the issue of capacity, there's also the matter of credibility, >particularly public credibility. Even if the Wikipedia community has more >trust in the arbcom now, we cannot infer based on that observation that >Wikipedia readers or the public will hold it in any high esteem. Frankly, >many people (to say the least) would be highly skeptical of an encyclopedia >whose editorial concerns are officially handled by teenagers. (This isn't >calling into question the abilities of the teenage arbom members; IMO at >least two of them have more sense in them than many of the older members put >together.) Even if public perception is unfounded, Wikipedia still cannot >afford to disregard it. After all, it matters insofar as our work having any >meaning. If Wikipedia editors are the only people taking Wikipedia articles >and processes seriously, then we've all been wasting our time. I don't think this is the time to question the ArbCom's credibility. I understand that this is an issue for several editors, and that along with this discussion over content disputes, there is another discussion over the fairness of the ArbCom. But I think it is important to keep these two discussions separate. My position is this: even if the ArbCom functions flawlessly, I would still argue for a second committee to handle conflicts over content. My main reason is that no committee should have too much power. This is a structural issue -- I am not questioning the integrity of the members of the ArbCom, I just believe that if we are going to institutionalize certain powers in this largely anarchic community, then a separation of powers is a good idea. This is my main reason, but I do agree with 172 that the kind of judgement called for in a committee dealing with content issues is different from that called for in a committee dealing with behavioral issues. Each committee might appeal to different editors who might serve as members; the learning curve would be different, and so on. I respect Mav's opinion and with the exception of this one issue agree with everything he has written on this topic. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From jwales at wikia.com Tue Mar 8 19:16:21 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:16:21 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Message-ID: <20050308191621.GZ6016@wikia.com> Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. I don't know of any real case where there is a genuine strong tension between these two things, either. That is to say, the central core of the community, the people who are really doing the work, are virtually all quite passionate on this point: that we're creating something of extremely high quality, not just goofing around with a game of online community with no purpose. The community does not come before our task, the community is organized *around* our task. The difference is simply that decisions ought to always be made not on the grounds of social expediency or popular majority, but in light of the requirements of the job we have set for ourselves. I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. There may be some cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit their expert articles, but there are many many more cases of completely unqualified people who think the same thing. It doesn't matter: if someone can't work in a friendly helpful way in a social context, that's a problem for them and for us, and we'll always have to make some very complex judgments about what to do about it. I'm 100% committed to a goal of "Britannica or better" quality for Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that. Openness is indispensible for us, but it is our *radical* means to our radical *ends*. --Jimbo From shebs at apple.com Tue Mar 8 19:26:31 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 11:26:31 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >-------------- Original message -------------- > >>>Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not >>>presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves >>>as an emergency measure. >>> >>What if we lowered it to 1%. how many people would that affect and for >>how long roughly? ( I take it that we are still growing >>exponentially?) >> > >How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it. > -- Silverback > Moving is the recommended way of fixing a bad title, so we don't want to discourage its use too much. Has anybody suggested a daily limit, say five per day? Vulnerable to socks of course. I wonder how users would like an automated status increase based on activity; save one's 300th edit, and get a little note on the talk page saying "Congratulations, you are now considered an experienced editor, and have received the following new powers: unlimited page moving and the ability to vote on deletions." Like MMORPGs, always have a little carrot dangling out there. "You have have reached 500,000 edits; you may now hard-ban your foes simply by forming the thought." :-) Stan From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 19:33:22 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 14:33:22 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <98dd099a0503071651381ced60@mail.gmail.com> References: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> <4cc603b05030716154cff1279@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a0503071651381ced60@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd0605030811336cafb119@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 19:51:04 -0500, Fastfission wrote: > On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 17:15:57 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com > wrote: > > It would be acceptable so long as it had been published somewhere > > reputable and credible, and the chances of it being crackpot would > > therefore be low. If the public genuinely thought a theory so > > ridiculous that no one had bothered to challenge it, it almost > > certainly wouldn't have a place in Wikipedia. This is why the NOR, > > NPOV, and cite sources policies should always be considered jointly, > > as each policy serves to illuminate the meaning of the others. > > Jointly, they would be able to deal with the kind of example you > > raise. > > > > Just a few thoughts on this: > > 1. *Who* defines "reputable"? If crackpot is just defined as "not > reputable" then that just shifts the point of discretion somewhere > else; it doesn't resolve it. > 2. "The public" rarely challenges theories. "Pundits", "journalists", > "writers", and "academics" challenge theories. The vast majority of > "the public" is informationally mute. Which again gets back to the > "who?" question. To provide specific context, consider journals such as "Infinite Energy", with a bimonthly distribution of 3000--5000, which are hard to distinguish in any quantitative fashion from 'reputable' journals. However, this journal is devotes itself to publishing papers on free energy, cold fusion, an perpetual motion; and running headlines like "Einstein: Plagiarist of the Century." I think many of us would agree that a paper does not become reputable, or any less original research, for being published in such a journal. -- +sj+ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 19:41:43 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:41:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308194144.77998.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > My position is this: even if the ArbCom functions flawlessly, I would still > argue for a second committee to handle conflicts over content. My main > reason is that no committee should have too much power. This is a > structural issue -- I am not questioning the integrity of the members of > the ArbCom, I just believe that if we are going to institutionalize certain > powers in this largely anarchic community, then a separation of powers is a > good idea. This is my main reason, but I do agree with 172 that the kind > of judgement called for in a committee dealing with content issues is > different from that called for in a committee dealing with behavioral > issues. Each committee might appeal to different editors who might serve > as members; the learning curve would be different, and so on. Violation of our content guidelines and policies are also behavioral issues concerning users. That is the type of thing that the ArbCom can and *is* already taking care of. We just have been focusing on violations of non-content-related policies and guidelines for most of the committee's existence since those issues are easier to deal with. That is changing due to the increased amount of skill and confidence we have in dealing with issues in general. It's not a matter of power, it is a matter of needless duplication. Most cases involve some accusation of breaking content guidelines. It would be absurd to put a person through the current ArbCom for one set of offences, and through this proposed committee for another. -- mav __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 8 20:09:39 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:09:39 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia References: <20050308191621.GZ6016@wikia.com> Message-ID: <006401c5241a$c3c38ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jimbo wrote > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' rings a bell, also. Certainly 'anti-elitist' would be a gross over-simplification of WP's social processes - as would most other descriptions. It is more to the point, I think, to say that those who might want to argue 'from authority' on a given issue may have to find some workaround. Charles From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 20:12:57 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 15:12:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <006401c5241a$c3c38ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050308191621.GZ6016@wikia.com> <006401c5241a$c3c38ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <742dfd06050308121211d41abe@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:09:39 -0000, Charles Matthews wrote: > Jimbo wrote > > > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very > > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any > > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. > > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very > > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than > > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and > > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. > > I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' > rings a bell, also. Attracting, retaining, and measuring specialists. If we can find a good complementary metric for expertise, to go alongside the standard academia metrics, we will be a good part of the way towards meshing with existing reputation systems. -- +sj+ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 8 20:15:45 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:15:45 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: <20050308194144.77998.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006b01c5241b$9e1c9f40$9e7c0450@Galasien> Daniel Mayer wrote > It would be absurd to > put a person through the current ArbCom for one set of offences, and through > this proposed committee for another. Yes, double jeopardy is not so good, viewed in the light of natural justice. If it turns out that expertise in editing behaviour is fairly much a unitary thing (as seems quite plausible), while expertise in evaluating content is more decentralised, then some less tidy or hybrid system may have to be the long-term answer, I suppose. Charles From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 20:16:22 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:16:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308201623.72343.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> --- slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:16:18 -0000 (GMT), Tony > Sidaway That doesn't > make sense to me. I do understand the argument that > tempbans > > where seen as unjust could drive away good > editors, but so can seriously > > bad behavior. If a week's rest from editing a few > articles is *worse* > > than editing those articles in the presence of the > behavior about which > > one wants to make a complaint, I just don't see > that the complaint can be > > that serious. > > Tony, you'd be right if tempbanning were the only > problem, but there > is a perception (as is clearly shown by this thread) > that there is a > philosophy of seeking to punish both sides > regardless of the issues, > in an effort to bend over backwards to be fair - > which I argue is > actually leading to unfairness in some cases. It is > this philosophy > that is worrying, and the issue of tempbanning > everyone is simply one > example of it. Also, in Andy's case, the proposed > tempban covered > areas not affected by the dispute, and was therefore > perceived to be a > pre-judgment punishment, not just a peace-keeping > measure. In matters > of justice, perceptions matter as much as reality. > > Sarah Exactly. When I made my last arbcom case, against Guanaco, Fred Bauder, on his own initiative, brought in other "evidence" which had no bearing on the case under consideration. It was clear that the arbcom, or at least one member, was more interested in trying to punish me than in making a decision based upon the evidence presented to them. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 20:36:20 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:36:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308203620.1933.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > To provide specific context, consider journals such > as "Infinite > Energy", with a bimonthly distribution of > 3000--5000, which are hard > to distinguish in any quantitative fashion from > 'reputable' journals. > However, this journal is devotes itself to > publishing papers on free > energy, cold fusion, an perpetual motion; and > running headlines like > "Einstein: Plagiarist of the Century." I think many > of us would agree > that a paper does not become reputable, or any less > original research, > for being published in such a journal. > > -- > +sj+ However, an article *about* the journal would be encyclopedic. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 20:43:15 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:43:15 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> Message-ID: <1200.192.168.0.9.1110314595.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Stan Shebs said: [...] > I wonder how users would like an automated status increase based > on activity; save one's 300th edit, and get a little note on > the talk page saying "Congratulations, you are now considered an > experienced editor, and have received the following new powers: > unlimited page moving and the ability to vote on deletions." > Like MMORPGs, always have a little carrot dangling out there. > This and the other idea about having the move button go to a page explaining to a newbie how to get things moved are both neat. However they probably involve using extension capabilities that the software doesn't (yet) possess. We can hope that a later version, if we nudge it a bit, will be as versatile as this. Meanwhile our developers are probably busy trying to make Mediawiki more stable under heavy load when running with mysql. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 20:48:38 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:48:38 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422E0FA6.5080802@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >------------- Original message -------------- > > >>Delirium wrote: >> >> >>>Sounds like another POV-pushing PhD holder who's annoyed that everyone >>>doesn't just say "oh, you are an 'expert', do with the articles as you >>>wish". >>> >>>(And anyone who's read any history articles by 172 can attest to the >>>fact that they were highly propagandistic, generally turning into >>>outright apologies, if not screeds, for left-wing dictatorships.) >>> >>>-Mark >>> >>> >>What a load of crap. Ever read the history of Russia? Yeah, that's now a >>FA article. You can't GET FA articles that are POV screeds. >> >>TBSDY >> >> > >Yes, you can get FA articles that are POV, and History of Russia is just such an example. It's POV language was just recently improved and there are many more criticisms/changes such as that which are yet to be made. Selection of material or focus can be a source of POV, and yet can subtlely masquerade as NPOV, because the POV problem is not with the information included, but with the selectivity of what was included and what was left out. Strangely, that article also includes superatives, which should have been a red flag. > >There are very citations of sources within the article which, while making for easier reading, usually indicates that something has limited peer review, perhaps the community interested in the subject shared the same POV, or there was just lack of interest in general, allowing authorial territoriality to achieve free reign. > That sounds like a lot of cowardly bullshit. It can't be that bad if the only thing you can bitch about is what's not there. The length which some anti-communist hyenas will go to to ensure that their POV prevails is amazing. Ec From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Mar 8 20:58:31 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:58:31 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article Message-ID: I've just about used up my quota of reversions at [[Ann Coulter]], where her critics are censoring my explanation of the campaign to discredit her. Michael Moore's blog is using a 30-second excerpt from a lengthy interview with Coulter to promote their view that Coulter makes things up and "refuses correction". I am trying to write a Neutral passage of text that balances two POVs: 1. That Coulter makes things up all the time, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are FALSE, which proves that Coulter has an anti-liberal bias and is not a trustworthy source of info. 2. That Coulter takes liberals to task for distorting history, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are TRUE, which proves that liberals are biased and in need of being set straight. User:Benna reverted my first attempt ("Removed serious pov") and User:Gamaliel reverted my second attempt ("rm blatant pro-Coulter defense). I don't understand the reasoning here. Describing the points of view of anti-Coulter or pro-Coulter advocates is certainly on-topic, for an article on a controversial writer. The fact that my text was ABOUT somebody's point of view doesn't mean it VIOLATES our "Neutral Point Of View" policy. Nor does the fact that PART of my text balances the anti-Coulter criticism with a pro-Coulter defense invalidate its relevance to the article. It smacks of censorship, like all our contributors want to have about Coulter's written or broadcast comments is the anti-Coulter point of view. That would make a very unbalanced article. It might even constitute a [[one-sided argument]] (q.v.) that "Coulter is bad", which would set Wikipedia up as condemning her. I thought Wikipedia wasn't supposed to take sides in ANY controversy. Uncle Ed (cur) (last) 20:03, Mar 8, 2005 Gamaliel (?Coulter's communication style - rm blatant pro-Coulter defense) (cur) (last) 17:36, Mar 8, 2005 Ed Poor (If the POV is serious, why remove it? Please meet me in talk.) (cur) (last) 02:26, Mar 8, 2005 Chocolateboy m (?Criticism of Canada - + colon) (cur) (last) 02:03, Mar 8, 2005 Chocolateboy m (?Criticism of Canada - logical quotation + space) (cur) (last) 01:27, Mar 8, 2005 Benna (Removed serious pov) From kkrueger at whoi.edu Tue Mar 8 21:02:26 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:02:26 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050308210226.GD18521@whoi.edu> On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 01:54:04PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > I suggest that as a general rule if anyone tries to settle an issue that > he is involved in, he should not use sysop, bureacrat or steward power > to settle it. Especially when '''his own conduct''' is the issue. We > expect higher standards of those who have more power (as Peter Parker > said in ''[[Spiderman]]'' :-) "With great power comes great responsibility." :) However, a more direct parallel might be embezzlement, or breach of fiduciary duty. Power is not given to administrators so that they may use it for whatever purpose they see fit. Rather, it is delegated to them for the performance of relatively specific duties. The treasurer of a library has the power to write checks drawing on the library's bank account to buy books, pay the electric bill, and so on. However, this power is not granted so that the treasurer can buy whatever s/he wants (like a new car). It is also not granted so that the treasurer can seize control of the library's acquisition policy, for instance by refusing to purchase books that disagree with him/her politically. The treasurer's power is, rather subject to the library's bylaws as an organization, since it is by dint of those bylaws that the treasurer holds that power legitimately. If the treasurer uses the purchasing power to buy a car, that is embezzlement. If the treasurer uses that power to push his/her own political interests, that is conflict of interest. The treasurer's position is also not a badge of special status. It does not exempt the treasurer from the normal rules of the library. It does not permit him/her to make excessive noise in the library, offending other patrons. It does not permit him/her to steal books. If s/he is fined for not returning books, it certainly does not permit him/her to cancel that fine, or pay it out of the library's treasury. > If he does, he ought to be curbed in some way. Ordinary users could be > blocked for, say 3 to 24 hours. Admins could be de-sysopped for a day or > so. (We still need the technical means to permit blocked users to edit > TALK pages - at least in the non-article namespace.) It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration. (Note that I'm *not* suggesting that any administrator who is accused of wrongdoing should step down -- only one whose case is *accepted* by the A.C. Moreover, the A.C. could specifically state when accepting a case that stepping down would not be necessary.) The accused administrator could ask other administrators to take on specific "mop and bucket" duties that s/he had undertaken. This would also emphasize that administrative functions are procedural and not personal -- countering the attitudes that a few people have shown, that they are personally "too important to the project" to back away, or that removal of administrative power is a "demotion". -- Karl A. Krueger From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 21:10:48 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 21:10:48 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: <20050308210226.GD18521@whoi.edu> References: <20050308210226.GD18521@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <1297.192.168.0.9.1110316248.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Karl A. Krueger said: > On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 01:54:04PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: >> I suggest that as a general rule if anyone tries to settle an issue >> that he is involved in, he should not use sysop, bureacrat or steward >> power to settle it. Especially when '''his own conduct''' is the >> issue. We expect higher standards of those who have more power (as >> Peter Parker said in ''[[Spiderman]]'' :-) > > "With great power comes great responsibility." :) Anybody can play this game. "Come over to the dark side, Luke. I want to be your daddy." From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 21:15:48 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:15:48 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <20050308142353.85500.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050308142353.85500.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422E1604.6090206@telus.net> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>It has nothing to do with trusting the ArbCom. Disciplinary issues need >>to be kept separate from content issues. Otherwise the content will >>develop the appearance of being decided by a cabal. The disciplinary >>role is necessary, and dealing with problem characters often requires >>harsh measures. That mentality can too easily creep into other decisions. >> >> >I'm talking about the ArbCom deciding if a user has violated our content >polices and guidelines. That is very much within the authority of the ArbCom. >We have just moved slowly so far into enforcing those policies. > One then needs to be very careful to distinguish between a violation of content policies and the contents themselves. If something is just a guidleine there should be no enforceability involved. For some of us, "Ignore all rules" is still an important part of the rule set. The only problem with it is that it is rooted in the spirit of the rules rather than the letter of the rules. Some of our colleagues have a great deal of difficulty with that distinction. Ec From kkrueger at whoi.edu Tue Mar 8 21:37:12 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:37:12 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <422E0FA6.5080802@telus.net> References: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422E0FA6.5080802@telus.net> Message-ID: <20050308213712.GF18521@whoi.edu> On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 12:48:38PM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > That sounds like a lot of cowardly bullshit. It can't be that bad if > the only thing you can bitch about is what's not there. > > The length which some anti-communist hyenas will go to to ensure that > their POV prevails is amazing. Personal attacks are not permitted on this mailing list. -- Karl A. Krueger From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 21:31:23 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:31:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: Ray Saintonge >> >> JAY JG wrote: >> >>> No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes >>> original research when it is used to build a case against a position >>> presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now >>> if you were to assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive >>> reasoning" that uncles were more closely related to nephews than >>> aunts were to nieces, that would be original research, and you'd >>> have to find some source which supported it. >> >> That's certainly an extremist view. > > Ray, labels like this aren't helpful. Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already presented. The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment pulled out of imagination. It has no research attached to it at all, original or otherwise; your theory doesn't even define what you mean by "more closely related. So before you complain about the strawmen of others you should stop using them yourself. >> You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. > > I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten? That the purpose was to avoid becoming overrun with loose cannon theories. Ec From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 8 21:47:13 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 21:47:13 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <20050308213712.GF18521@whoi.edu> References: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422E0FA6.5080802@telus.net> <20050308213712.GF18521@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <1457.192.168.0.9.1110318433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Karl A. Krueger said: > > Personal attacks are not permitted on this mailing list. > Spoken like a true running dog of the capitalist-imperialist war-mongering hegemony. From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 21:48:52 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:48:52 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <742dfd0605030811336cafb119@mail.gmail.com> References: <422CE9E7.9080103@telus.net> <4cc603b05030716154cff1279@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a0503071651381ced60@mail.gmail.com> <742dfd0605030811336cafb119@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05030813481fc71c1e@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 14:33:22 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > To provide specific context, consider journals such as "Infinite > Energy", with a bimonthly distribution of 3000--5000, which are hard > to distinguish in any quantitative fashion from 'reputable' journals. > However, this journal is devotes itself to publishing papers on free > energy, cold fusion, an perpetual motion; and running headlines like > "Einstein: Plagiarist of the Century." I think many of us would agree > that a paper does not become reputable, or any less original research, > for being published in such a journal. Well, the problem is that any sort of approach to this question, even the appeal to "many of us," is going to be doing what the anthropologists call "boundary work." Without boundaries, we have no realiability and we have no standards. With boundaries, we will be constantly accused of censorship, bias, etc. Constantly accused, of course, by the people on the other side of the boundaries, who we will have already regulated to the category of "negligible" or "fringe" by our very erection of the boundary. Trying to come up with a "methodological" approach to the boundary definition ("only peer-reviewed journals with circulations of X") will unfortunately just shift the impetus to the interrogation of those standards once again (anybody can claim they work via peer review, but can it be verified? Even all that without getting into the question of the limits of peer review, i.e. the Sokal or Bogdanov affairs). My take on this: There is no easy resolution, no rule which will work rigorously. The answer is just to accept that putting forth some general standards with some amount of flexibility will hopefully work out for the "best." Problems will be solved in a somewhat ad hoc manner and there will be compromise involved over things which ideally ought not need compromise. Some disputes will inevitably occur and some good contributors will inevitably become too frustrated and will leave. So what we have here is a system which often privileges patience over truth. But in this sense Wikipedia is more of a marketplace than a utopia, and perhaps that's for the better in the long run. Again, I think I have maybe elaborated too much, and perhaps my analytic biases are showing... FF From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 21:52:55 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:52:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050308190945.56031.qmail@web31301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Recycling Troll > >Thanks for that Theresa, I'm sorry that you think that >checking someone's edits is 'stalking'. I can >certainly see why Rick would not want anyone examining >his behaviour too closely, but are you seriously >suggesting that oversight is inapropriate? >You want to say that anyone who looks too closely at >what another user is doing is 'stalking'? >Stalking is a real-world phenomena where someone is >followed in multiple ways. Checking someone's >contributions to an online encyclopedia is not >stalking. It is responsible checking. Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose of following someone around and reviewing their edits, and voting against them on VfDs, may not technically be "stalking", but it is not "responsible checking" either. "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable description. Jay. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Mar 8 21:49:24 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:49:24 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308163804.0302edb8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Daniel Mayer wrote: >Violation of our content guidelines and policies are also behavioral issues >concerning users. That is the type of thing that the ArbCom can and *is* >already taking care of. If you say so. Just to be clear -- the reason I made this distinction is first, because our catalogue of policies makes this distinction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines and second, because I see a qualitative difference in the nature of the violations: violation of behavioral guidelines is about the interactions between one editor and another. Violations of content guidelines is about the relationship between one editor and an article. There has been some pretty vigorous debate concerning the way the ArbCom investigates the behavior of the complainant and the "defendant" in ways that often efface the distinction between the two. Although a number of people object to this, I do understand why this is so -- the ArbCom by definition is arbitrating a conflict between two people. Violations of content guidelines, however, are not by definition, and need not involve, conflicts between two users. What is at issue is not how one person treats another, but the appropriateness of the changes an editor is making to an article. These are cases where the committee would investigate only one person. I understand Mav's reasons for wanting to keep it one committee. I do think these are valid considerations, though, Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 21:47:42 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:47:42 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422E1D7E.2030607@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>>Although it's a prominent PITA, the page move vandalism is probably not >>>presently bad enough to disable the last 10% of accounts from page moves >>>as an emergency measure. >>> >>> >>What if we lowered it to 1%. how many people would that affect and for >>how long roughly? ( I take it that we are still growing >>exponentially?) >> >> >How many users have EVER used move? Why not disable it, and make it a sysop only function. I don't think its meaning is intuitive, the only time I ever tried to use it was to reverse a vandal that had moved the page, and I think I botched it. > It's often very useful, especially with non-controversial moves involving something like correcting page titles with wrong capitalizations. Ec From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 21:56:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:56:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <006401c5241a$c3c38ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" > >Jimbo wrote > > > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very > > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any > > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. > > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very > > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than > > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and > > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. > >I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' >rings a bell, also. "Restraining" might also apply. :-O Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 22:36:19 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:36:19 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge >JAY JG wrote: >>>From: Ray Saintonge >>> >>>JAY JG wrote: >>> >>>>No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes original >>>>research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in >>>>an article, not when used to do unit conversions. Now if you were to >>>>assert that based on genetics and "simple deductive reasoning" that >>>>uncles were more closely related to nephews than aunts were to nieces, >>>>that would be original research, and you'd have to find some source >>>>which supported it. >>> >>>That's certainly an extremist view. >> >>Ray, labels like this aren't helpful. > >Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >presented. Easy to do in simple cases; quite complex when the issue is something like politics or international law. And, in the latter case, if done by the editor themselves, generally (and wisely) forbidden as original research as well, as per the No original research policy. >The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment pulled out of >imagination. It has no research attached to it at all, original or >otherwise; your theory doesn't even define what you mean by "more closely >related. So before you complain about the strawmen of others you should >stop using them yourself. Well, I could have used real examples from articles I've seen, but that would have bogged the list down, when it could have been doing more important things like arguing about whether or not 172's contributions were "balanced" or "pro-communist screeds". >>>You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. >> >>I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten? > >That the purpose was to avoid becoming overrun with loose cannon theories. Including those developed and presented by Wikipedia editors. If a particular argument hasn't been published somewhere reputable, then it too is a "loose cannon theory". Jay. From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 22:40:01 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 17:40:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:58:31 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: [snip] > Michael Moore's blog is using a 30-second excerpt from a lengthy interview with Coulter to promote their view that Coulter makes things up and "refuses correction". I am trying to write a Neutral passage of text that balances two POVs: > > 1. That Coulter makes things up all the time, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are FALSE, which proves that Coulter has an anti-liberal bias and is not a trustworthy source of info. > > 2. That Coulter takes liberals to task for distorting history, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are TRUE, which proves that liberals are biased and in need of being set straight. Clearly the government of Canada did not send troops to Vietnam. Clearly also, Canadian citizens fought alongside Americans in the Vietnam. However, I believe the only reasonable neutral interpretation of "Canada sent troops to Vietnam", in the context provided (when talking about the actions of the Canadian government w.r.t. wars) is that the Canadian government sent soldiers from its army to Vietnam. I quite agree that the anti-Coulter arguments deserve balance, and I think it's important to mention that Canadians did serve there (in Coulter's defence). But I also think that suggesting that Canada *did* send troops is an inaccurate characterization of the facts surrounding that particular POV. Steve From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 8 22:33:54 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:33:54 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <20050308194144.77998.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050308194144.77998.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422E2852.3080402@telus.net> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > > >>My position is this: even if the ArbCom functions flawlessly, I would still >>argue for a second committee to handle conflicts over content. My main >>reason is that no committee should have too much power. This is a >>structural issue -- I am not questioning the integrity of the members of >>the ArbCom, I just believe that if we are going to institutionalize certain >>powers in this largely anarchic community, then a separation of powers is a >>good idea. This is my main reason, but I do agree with 172 that the kind >>of judgement called for in a committee dealing with content issues is >>different from that called for in a committee dealing with behavioral >>issues. Each committee might appeal to different editors who might serve >>as members; the learning curve would be different, and so on. >> >> > >Violation of our content guidelines and policies are also behavioral issues >concerning users. That is the type of thing that the ArbCom can and *is* >already taking care of. We just have been focusing on violations of >non-content-related policies and guidelines for most of the committee's >existence since those issues are easier to deal with. That is changing due to >the increased amount of skill and confidence we have in dealing with issues in >general. > >It's not a matter of power, it is a matter of needless duplication. Most cases >involve some accusation of breaking content guidelines. It would be absurd to >put a person through the current ArbCom for one set of offences, and through >this proposed committee for another. > I don't think that what Steven and 172 are getting at is the question of behaviour or offenses. If that were the case I would be more inclined to agree with you. Let's suppose that the ArbCom is seized of an issue involving content, and they make some decision about the parties involved. There may even be all around agreement that they have made the right decision about these people, but we still have the article to deal with. The NPOV rating of the article must remain independent of the participating contributors, because it is what must remain after the warring editors are all gone. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 22:41:04 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:41:04 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Exeunt 172 In-Reply-To: <1457.192.168.0.9.1110318433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <030820051008.11933.422D79920005006C00002E9D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422E0FA6.5080802@telus.net> <20050308213712.GF18521@whoi.edu> <1457.192.168.0.9.1110318433.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Tony Sidaway wrote: > Karl A. Krueger said: > >>Personal attacks are not permitted on this mailing list. >> > > Spoken like a true running dog of the capitalist-imperialist war-mongering > hegemony. Look here you pinko liberal feminist! No personal attacks! TBSDY From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Mar 8 22:58:13 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:58:13 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030808271275ed45@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I think your feedback regarding this matter (and also regarding punishment for personal attacks on users) is now fully before the committee. I will certainly consider it in my decision making. However I continue to maintain that personal attacks by "good" editors on "bad" editors is unacceptable. Fred > From: > Reply-To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia > Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 09:27:42 -0700 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:16:18 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway That doesn't > make sense to me. I do understand the argument that tempbans >> where seen as unjust could drive away good editors, but so can seriously >> bad behavior. If a week's rest from editing a few articles is *worse* >> than editing those articles in the presence of the behavior about which >> one wants to make a complaint, I just don't see that the complaint can be >> that serious. > > Tony, you'd be right if tempbanning were the only problem, but there > is a perception (as is clearly shown by this thread) that there is a > philosophy of seeking to punish both sides regardless of the issues, > in an effort to bend over backwards to be fair - which I argue is > actually leading to unfairness in some cases. It is this philosophy > that is worrying, and the issue of tempbanning everyone is simply one > example of it. Also, in Andy's case, the proposed tempban covered > areas not affected by the dispute, and was therefore perceived to be a > pre-judgment punishment, not just a peace-keeping measure. In matters > of justice, perceptions matter as much as reality. > > Sarah > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 22:51:19 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:51:19 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503071833826e7b6@mail.gmail.com> References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820503071833826e7b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au > wrote: > >>Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general >>who is the Queen's representative. > > > He is only the Queen's representative in a very limited way, as set > out in the Constitution. His constitutional powers, including the > reserve powers, are given to him in his own right. Unlike other > Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Canada, where the > Governor-General merely exercises the Queen's powers. > > >>Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a >>monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". >>Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. > > > And it says that where...? http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=republic >>See http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/q&a/qa_hos.htm - they ARM say that: >> >>Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is >>Australia's Head of State because: >> >>The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a >>Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal >>legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). >> >>The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the >>Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, >>Constitution). >> >>If the ARM can't get this right, then I don't know who can. > > > The ARM quotes the Constitution, but the Constitution doesn't say that > the Queen is head of state, unlike the constitutions of other > Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Papua New Guinea. The ARM > is relying on their own opinion rather than any definitive source. > > The ARM is a partisan organisation promoting a one-sided view. This is > like saying that the Republican Party's views on gay marriage are > definitive. > Interesting, but unimpressive. Find me a commentator who says we are a republic (but don't do it on the mailing list) and then we'll talk. TBSDY From fredbaud at ctelco.net Tue Mar 8 23:06:28 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:06:28 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? In-Reply-To: <20050308201623.72343.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It is not at all clear to me. I continue to consider you a responsible administrator. Bringing this up over and over perhaps serves some purpose in your eyes, but I barely remember what it was all about and agree that expanding the scope of an arbitration case beyond the issues brought up by the parties is ill-advised. Fred > From: Rick > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:16:22 -0800 (PST) > To: slimvirgin at gmail.com, English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] ArbCom - too attached to 'equal treatment'? > > Exactly. When I made my last arbcom case, against > Guanaco, Fred Bauder, on his own initiative, brought > in other "evidence" which had no bearing on the case > under consideration. It was clear that the arbcom, or > at least one member, was more interested in trying to > punish me than in making a decision based upon the > evidence presented to them. > > RickK From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 8 22:57:54 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:57:54 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030806476e3b9df7@mail.gmail.com> References: <030820051254.15686.422DA07C0006589700003D4622007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <2ea1ace505030805594224b7af@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030806214027371@mail.gmail.com> <422DB875.7040709@thingy.apana.org.au> <550ccb8205030806476e3b9df7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:36:37 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > >>Skyring wrote: >> >>>On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:59:49 -0500, Stephen Forrest >>> wrote: >> >>>>As I said before, I am not aware of any commonly accepted definition >>>>of 'republic' which includes constitional monarchies. >> >>>How about the first two definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary >>>or the first two in Australia's Macquarie Dictionary? >>>Australia is a commonwealth, sovereignty resides in the people, the >>>monarch is a powerless figurehead, the monarch is not the head of >>>government, the form of government is republican and the executive >>>power is exercised by an appointed official. >>>Australia may share the same Queen as the UK, New Zealand and Canada, >>>but the constitutional arrangements are quite different. >> >>I notice you have a severe absence of sources to refer to on the point - >>you know, anything other than your own original research that says >>the words "Australia is a republic." > > > Do tell? Have you actually '''read''' [[Talk:Government of > Australia]]? You'll get more sources there than you can shake a fist > at. Dive in. > All refuted or questioned to some degree. I've most definitely read that page. TBSDY From skyring at gmail.com Tue Mar 8 23:14:56 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:14:56 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820503071833826e7b6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb820503081514134027ad@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:51:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Skyring wrote: > > On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 13:00:19 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au > > wrote: > > > >>Interesting. However, all laws must pass through the governor general > >>who is the Queen's representative. > > > > > > He is only the Queen's representative in a very limited way, as set > > out in the Constitution. His constitutional powers, including the > > reserve powers, are given to him in his own right. Unlike other > > Commonwealth realms, such as New Zealand or Canada, where the > > Governor-General merely exercises the Queen's powers. > > > > > >>Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a > >>monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". > >>Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. > > > > > > And it says that where...? > > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=republic Ummm, that merely gives the definition of republic you've already quoted. I wasn't disputing that. What''s your definitive source for saying the Queen is the head of state? -- Peter in Canberra From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Tue Mar 8 23:17:26 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 15:17:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050308231726.74271.qmail@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose of > following someone around > and reviewing their edits, and voting against them > on VfDs, may not > technically be "stalking", but it is not > "responsible checking" either. > "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable description. > > Jay. Take a moment, if you will, to review the situation, and you will see that this is not the case. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight of edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd. The Recycling Troll __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From jayjg at hotmail.com Tue Mar 8 23:34:57 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:34:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050308231726.74271.qmail@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Recycling Troll > > > Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose of > > following someone around > > and reviewing their edits, and voting against them > > on VfDs, may not > > technically be "stalking", but it is not > > "responsible checking" either. > > "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable description. > > > > Jay. > >Take a moment, if you will, to review the situation, >and you will see that this is not the case. I have, and it is. >I cannot >imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight of >edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd. And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to present such a blatantly silly strawman argument. Oh wait, yes I can. Jay. From slimvirgin at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 00:09:56 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 17:09:56 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> >From: Ray Saintonge >> JAY JG wrote: >>No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes >>original research when it is used to build a case against a position >>presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. >Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >presented. The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment >pulled out of imagination. Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not already made in a credible publication. It should not be used to make cases for certain positions; and in particular, editors should not go on to present their conclusions as though they're established facts, which happens a lot. When you're doing a unit conversion, you're just counting, and if your conversion is correct, you'll find it published elsewhere anyway, so it wouldn't be original. Sarah From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 00:00:33 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 19:00:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Skyring writes: >Ummm, that merely gives the definition of republic you've already >quoted. I wasn't disputing that. What''s your definitive source for >saying the Queen is the head of state? Well, as a committed republican I am actually interested in this debate. So I put "Australia constitution" in Google, and went to the Parliament of Australia's web-page, where I found something called "Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act." Now I am no expert on Australia so if this thing -- I mean Parliament or the Act -- have no official standing, please tell me! Anyway, I learned that the Act was itself enacted by HRH >Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with >the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, >in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as >follows:-- I then went to chapter 1, which is about the legistlative branch, and read this: >1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal >Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate, and a House of >Representatives, and which is herein-after called "The Parliament," or >"The Parliament of the Commonwealth. " >2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her Majesty's >representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise in the >Commonwealth during the Queen's pleasure, but subject to this >Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be >pleased to assign to him. I then went to chapter 2 which is about the Executive branch and it starts like this: >61. The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is >exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and >extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the >laws of the Commonwealth. I also learned that there is a republican movement in Australia (which suggests to me that at least some Australians do not think they live in a republic, yet). Well, this movement has a web-page that has a FAQ section. The answer to the question, "Who is Australia's Head of State" is: >Elizabeth II, the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is >Australia's Head of State because: >The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a >Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal legislative >(law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution). >The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the >Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, Constitution). >The Queen has the power to disallow any law within one year of it being >made even after the Governor-General has given his assent (section 59, >Constitution). >The Governor-General only holds office "during the Queen's pleasure" which >means that the he can be dismissed by the Queen at any time (section 2, >Constitution). >Lastly, but probably most importantly in a symbolic sense, is the Schedule >to the Constitution that requires all Federal Parliamentarians to swear an >oath or declare an affirmation of allegiance to the Queen. This oath of >allegiance can only be changed by alteration of the Constitution ? unlike >the Citizenship Oath, which can be changed by an Act of Parliament, or the >Ministerial Oath which can be changed by Proclamation. The "Australian Monarchist League" (motto: protecting Australia's constitution) also seems to think Australia is not a republic. Their web-page has an article by Sir David Smith (I'm not exactly sure what "Sir" means in this context since I happen to live in a republic -- is this "sir" like "Sir Lancelot?"), which begins: >Under our Constitution we have two Heads of State - a symbolic Head of >State in the Sovereign, and a constitutional Head of State in the >Governor-General. So look, I am not a constitutional lawyer. But these few quotes give me the impression that the Queen has some role in that polity called Australia. I am not sure that the Queen is head of state, maybe the Governor-General is the head of state -- but it seems pretty clear that s/he derives this status from the Queen. Soooo ... can someone explain to me why there seems to be some controversy over this matter? Curiously yours, Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 9 00:13:47 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:13:47 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wired News reporter would like to interview you In-Reply-To: <986f04050308084567680aa2@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503041949.j24Jnflq026686@srv2.pmtpa.wmnet> <986f0405030417206d290bc4@mail.gmail.com> <986f0405030420247b1b4382@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb82050305001631bb85b8@mail.gmail.com> <001a01c52165$e5b512f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <000801c5216f$7321ab40$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb050305033477e84a7e@mail.gmail.com> <986f04050308084567680aa2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Stacey Greenstein wrote: > Here's the article: > > http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66814,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2 > > Too bad Daniel didn't research enough to find out I'm not female..... Has been fixed. TBSDY From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 00:23:49 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:23:49 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> Stephen Forrest wrote: >On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:58:31 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > >[snip] > > >>Michael Moore's blog is using a 30-second excerpt from a lengthy interview with Coulter to promote their view that Coulter makes things up and "refuses correction". I am trying to write a Neutral passage of text that balances two POVs: >> >>1. That Coulter makes things up all the time, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are FALSE, which proves that Coulter has an anti-liberal bias and is not a trustworthy source of info. >> >>2. That Coulter takes liberals to task for distorting history, and her remarks about Canada "sending troops" to Vietnam are TRUE, which proves that liberals are biased and in need of being set straight. >> >> > >Clearly the government of Canada did not send troops to Vietnam. >Clearly also, Canadian citizens fought alongside Americans in the >Vietnam. > >However, I believe the only reasonable neutral interpretation of >"Canada sent troops to Vietnam", in the context provided (when talking >about the actions of the Canadian government w.r.t. wars) is that the >Canadian government sent soldiers from its army to Vietnam. > >I quite agree that the anti-Coulter arguments deserve balance, and I >think it's important to mention that Canadians did serve there (in >Coulter's defence). But I also think that suggesting that Canada >*did* send troops is an inaccurate characterization of the facts >surrounding that particular POV. > > You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS) alongside those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 00:54:56 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:54:56 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422E4960.7020803@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: Ray Saintonge >> JAY JG wrote: >> >>>> From: Ray Saintonge >>>> >>>> JAY JG wrote: >>>> >>>>> No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes >>>>> original research when it is used to build a case against a >>>>> position presented in an article, not when used to do unit >>>>> conversions. Now if you were to assert that based on genetics and >>>>> "simple deductive reasoning" that uncles were more closely related >>>>> to nephews than aunts were to nieces, that would be original >>>>> research, and you'd have to find some source which supported it. >>>> >>>> That's certainly an extremist view. >>> >>> Ray, labels like this aren't helpful. >> >> Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >> presented. > > Easy to do in simple cases; quite complex when the issue is something > like politics or international law. And, in the latter case, if done > by the editor themselves, generally (and wisely) forbidden as original > research as well, as per the No original research policy. But your reference was at least stated to be based in genetics. The reference to editors is meaningless since we are all editors. There's very little in the way of original research done here in politics; you're confusing original research with original speculation. >> The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment pulled >> out of imagination. It has no research attached to it at all, >> original or otherwise; your theory doesn't even define what you mean >> by "more closely related. So before you complain about the strawmen >> of others you should stop using them yourself. > > Well, I could have used real examples from articles I've seen, but > that would have bogged the list down, when it could have been doing > more important things like arguing about whether or not 172's > contributions were "balanced" or "pro-communist screeds". "Bogged the list down" = "exposed your ideas to attack". The POV that you push does not need a basis in reality. As for 172, it's a question of his bringing balance to some points by removing the half-truths and innuendos promoted by the anti-communist wolf pack >>>> You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. >>> >>> I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten? >> >> That the purpose was to avoid becoming overrun with loose cannon >> theories. > > Including those developed and presented by Wikipedia editors. If a > particular argument hasn't been published somewhere reputable, then it > too is a "loose cannon theory". Again the reference to Wikipedia editors is menaingless. Are you suggesting yourself as the judge of what is reputable? :-D :-D :-D Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 01:11:53 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:11:53 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: >>From: Ray Saintonge >> >> >>>JAY JG wrote: >>>No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes >>>original research when it is used to build a case against a position >>>presented in an article, not when used to do unit conversions. >>> >>> >>Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >>presented. The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment >>pulled out of imagination. >> >> >Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His >point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a >set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not >already made in a credible publication. > This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think." >It should not be used to make >cases for certain positions; and in particular, editors should not go >on to present their conclusions as though they're established facts, >which happens a lot. > Presenting conclusions as though they were facts is quite another matter, and you're right it does happen a lot. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 9 01:32:50 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:32:50 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> References: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> Message-ID: [snip] > You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the > International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS) alongside > those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974. > > Ec Shouldn't this be on the talk page? TBSDY From delirium at hackish.org Wed Mar 9 01:51:18 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:51:18 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> Message-ID: <422E5696.9090804@hackish.org> Ray Saintonge wrote: >> Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His >> point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a >> set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not >> already made in a credible publication. > > This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think." When it comes to Wikipedia, that's a pretty good commandment. Original thinking on matters of content is beyond the scope of the encyclopedia---we're here just to summarize the thinking that's already been done. We're also particularly ill-equipped to judge novel thinking. If you make a novel historical argument, citing dozens of sources in the process, you should submit it to a history journal to be peer-reviewed, not to us. -Mark From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 9 02:13:11 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:13:11 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503081514134027ad@mail.gmail.com> References: <030420050803.4613.4228163B000D5E2E0000120522007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <550ccb8205030400263a16c3c0@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820503071833826e7b6@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb820503081514134027ad@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: >>>>Also, a republic is a "a form of government whose head of state is not a >>>>monarch; "the head of state in a republic is usually a president". >>>>Despite what you've said, our head of state is the Queen. >>> >>> >>>And it says that where...? >> >>http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=republic > > > Ummm, that merely gives the definition of republic you've already > quoted. I wasn't disputing that. What''s your definitive source for > saying the Queen is the head of state? > Sorry, when you wrote "and it says that where...?" I thought you wanted my source. I've already given you sources for the head of state issue on the talk page of [[Government of Australia]]. And with that, Ta bu shi da yu FLIES to the talk page in eager anticipation of a hotly debated issue of "Is Australia a republic?"! From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 02:16:32 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 21:16:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: <742dfd060503071611177fab16@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050308181665d20070@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 17:27:59 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > ... the biases of scholars > who have an extensive body of published work are not that hard to figure > out. We might require some real names and verification for this. I seem this > as more a committee of thousands than dozens; but that's looking ahead. I'm not sure that anything more than good work would be required for verification. I suppose if you want 'credit' for work produced off-wiki, then off-wiki verification is required. But a group of thousands would be wonderful. SJ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 9 02:21:22 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:21:22 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: steven l. rubenstein wrote: > So look, I am not a constitutional lawyer. But these few quotes give me > the impression that the Queen has some role in that polity called > Australia. I am not sure that the Queen is head of state, maybe the > Governor-General is the head of state -- but it seems pretty clear that > s/he derives this status from the Queen. > > Soooo ... can someone explain to me why there seems to be some > controversy over this matter? > > Curiously yours, > Steve > > > > > > Steven L. Rubenstein > Associate Professor > Department of Sociology and Anthropology > Bentley Annex > Ohio University > Athens, Ohio 45701 We're not a republic, and have never been one. The fact that we needed to have a debate over whether we should become a republic would tend to indicate that we are NOT a republic. If you submitted a Wikipedia article to the Age, in Melbourne, with an assertion that we are a republic, we would never be quoted in that publication again. If you submitted a Wikipedia article to the Australia, with an assertion that we are a republic, we would never be quoted in that publication again. If you submitted a Wikipedia article to the Daily Telegraph, in New South Wales, with an assertion that we are a republic, we would never be quoted in that publication again. If you submitted a Wikipedia article to the Sydney Morning Herald, in Sydney e, with an assertion that we are a republic, we would never be quoted in that publication again. The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. There is only one person of all the Australians on Wikipedia who states we are a republic. One! And we have a locked [[Government of Australia]] page to prove it because of the revert war that was ongoing. Gah! TBSDY From wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Mar 9 02:47:47 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:47:47 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: <20050308212413.441371AC1897@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050308212413.441371AC1897@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> Karl A. Krueger wrote: >It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration >Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a >central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of >administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration. > > The logical corollary of this is that it should be standard procedure for all editors brought before the Arbitration Committee to cease editing for the duration of their case. I think the arbitrators are quite capable of discerning in which cases emergency measures are necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary injunction. --Michael Snow From wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Mar 9 02:50:31 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:50:31 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <20050308224005.A83C41AC1830@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050308224005.A83C41AC1830@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <422E6477.2050008@earthlink.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Charles Matthews" >> >> Jimbo wrote >> >> > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very >> > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any >> > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. >> > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very >> > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than >> > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and >> > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. >> >> I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' >> rings a bell, also. > > "Restraining" might also apply. :-O Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be necessary. --Michael Snow From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 02:56:11 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 18:56:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- JAY JG wrote: > >From: Recycling Troll > > > > > Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose > of > > > following someone around > > > and reviewing their edits, and voting against > them > > > on VfDs, may not > > > technically be "stalking", but it is not > > > "responsible checking" either. > > > "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable > description. > > > > > > Jay. > > > >Take a moment, if you will, to review the > situation, > >and you will see that this is not the case. > > I have, and it is. > > >I cannot > >imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight > of > >edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd. > > And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to > present such a blatantly silly > strawman argument. > > Oh wait, yes I can. > > Jay. Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to suggest that admins need any oversight. Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural justice and let users check other's edits and make subsequent improvements. The Recycling Troll __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 02:58:18 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 18:58:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] New policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309025818.24177.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Some users believe that we should have a new policy of blocking users if they try to scrutinize the actions of admins. I would encourage these people to try to create new policy based on these ideas, rather than blatantly abusing current rules, which do not support this notion. The Recycling Troll __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 9 04:04:29 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:04:29 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy In-Reply-To: <20050309025818.24177.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309025818.24177.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Allow me be the first to call you on this one: which users think this? Please point to specific comments. Thanks. TBSDY Recycling Troll wrote: > Some users believe that we should have a new policy of > blocking users if they try to scrutinize the actions > of admins. I would encourage these people to try to > create new policy based on these ideas, rather than > blatantly abusing current rules, which do not support > this notion. > The Recycling Troll From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 9 04:19:24 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:19:24 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Message-ID: <20050309041924.B00A4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Yay! Thanks for stating this so succinctly. --Cecropia ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" To: wikien-l at wikimedia.org, wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:16:21 -0800 > > Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a > free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single > person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the > community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong > question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. > > I don't know of any real case where there is a genuine strong tension > between these two things, either. That is to say, the central core of > the community, the people who are really doing the work, are virtually > all quite passionate on this point: that we're creating something of > extremely high quality, not just goofing around with a game of online > community with no purpose. > > The community does not come before our task, the community is > organized *around* our task. The difference is simply that decisions > ought to always be made not on the grounds of social expediency or > popular majority, but in light of the requirements of the job we have > set for ourselves. > > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. > > There may be some cases of PhDs who think that no one should edit > their expert articles, but there are many many more cases of > completely unqualified people who think the same thing. It doesn't > matter: if someone can't work in a friendly helpful way in a social > context, that's a problem for them and for us, and we'll always have > to make some very complex judgments about what to do about it. > > I'm 100% committed to a goal of "Britannica or better" quality for > Wikipedia, and all of our social rules should revolve around that. > Openness is indispensible for us, but it is our *radical* means to our > radical *ends*. > > --Jimbo > _______________________________________________ > 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 jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 9 04:34:49 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:34:49 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Message-ID: <20050309043449.96292164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Snow" To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:50:31 -0800 > > JAY JG wrote: > > >> From: "Charles Matthews" > >> > >> Jimbo wrote > >> > >> > I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very > >> > tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any > >> > way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. > >> > That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very > >> > hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than > >> > that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and > >> > retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. > >> > >> I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' > >> rings a bell, also. > > > > "Restraining" might also apply. :-O > > Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by > the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be > necessary. > An amusing comment (though I see no smiley) but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were). As with censorship, when we "restrain" some users, the question is who is to be restrained, who proposes the restraining, who decides on the restraining, and who enforces the restraining. Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject? That's the weakness of Wikipedia. Of course, one will say "that's Cecropia's OPINION that his writing in NPOV." Well yes, and we are too close to our opinions to always catch our own biases. However, most anyone who has ever written more than a church fund-raising recipe for money knows when they are presenting something in a neutral fashion, in an advocacy fashion, in an aggresive fashion, or are writing a puff piece. --Cecropia -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Wed Mar 9 05:00:58 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 23:00:58 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: You're blocked because you're not scrutinizing. You're harassing. You know that you're harassing. We know that you're harassing. So let's call a spade a spade, shall we? -Snowspinner On Mar 8, 2005, at 8:56 PM, Recycling Troll wrote: > > --- JAY JG wrote: > >>> From: Recycling Troll >>> >>>> Setting up a userid specifically for the purpose >> of >>>> following someone around >>>> and reviewing their edits, and voting against >> them >>>> on VfDs, may not >>>> technically be "stalking", but it is not >>>> "responsible checking" either. >>>> "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable >> description. >>>> >>>> Jay. >>> >>> Take a moment, if you will, to review the >> situation, >>> and you will see that this is not the case. >> >> I have, and it is. >> >>> I cannot >>> imagine why anyone would want to prevent oversight >> of >>> edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd. >> >> And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to >> present such a blatantly silly >> strawman argument. >> >> Oh wait, yes I can. >> >> Jay. > > Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the > question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising > what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to > suggest that admins need any oversight. > Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural > justice and let users check other's edits and make > subsequent improvements. > The Recycling Troll > > __________________________________________________ > 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 wikipedia at earthlink.net Wed Mar 9 05:19:20 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 21:19:20 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <20050309050050.00F381AC178F@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050309050050.00F381AC178F@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <422E8758.2080203@earthlink.net> Jim Cecropia wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Michael Snow" >To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org >Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia >Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:50:31 -0800 > > >>JAY JG wrote: >> >> >>>>From: "Charles Matthews" >>>> >>>>Jimbo wrote >>>> >>>> >>>>>I do not endorse the view, a view held as far as I know only by a very >>>>>tiny minority, that Wikipedia is anti-elitist or anti-expert in any >>>>>way. If anything, we are *extremely* elitist but anti-credentialist. >>>>>That is, we seek thoughtful intelligent people willing to do the very >>>>>hard work of getting it right, and we don't accept anything less than >>>>>that. PhDs are valuable evidence of that, and attracting and >>>>>retraining academic specialists is a valid goal. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>I think Jimbo perhaps meant 'retaining', though in my case 'retraining' >>>>rings a bell, also. >>>> >>>> >>>"Restraining" might also apply. :-O >>> >>> >>Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by >>the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be >>necessary. >> >> >An amusing comment (though I see no smiley) > I don't generally use emoticons. For something like this, I figure if people don't see the humor without extra cues, they're welcome to take the statement seriously, because I meant it both ways. > but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were). > > And the weakness is that those on the side of right sometimes lose heart when caught in one of those places where wrong is momentarily surging. Having the long view makes it easier to keep going, and gets you less worked up. --Michael Snow From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 06:17:35 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:17:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309061735.74350.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page of the article in question? RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From christopherlarberg at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 06:24:59 2005 From: christopherlarberg at gmail.com (Christopher Larberg) Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:24:59 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > > I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time. > That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon. > Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it? --Slowking Man From kkrueger at whoi.edu Wed Mar 9 06:47:38 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 01:47:38 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> References: <20050308212413.441371AC1897@mail.wikimedia.org> <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050309064738.GB21588@whoi.edu> On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 06:47:47PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote: > Karl A. Krueger wrote: > >It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration > >Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a > >central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of > >administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration. [non-sequitur snipped] > I think the arbitrators are quite capable of discerning in which cases > emergency measures are necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary > injunction. Fair enough. I just wanted to put it on the table. Call it a different approach to what it might mean to enjoy the trust of the community whilst under review for possible betrayal of that trust. -- Karl A. Krueger From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 07:26:01 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 23:26:01 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: References: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> Message-ID: <422EA509.7040309@telus.net> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > [snip] > >> You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the >> International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS) >> alongside those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974. >> >> Ec > > Shouldn't this be on the talk page? Probably. I was just responding to what was on the mailing list. There are enough political topics that get onto the mailing list to irritate me without my going there and demanding aggrevation for myself. :-) With a calmer subject I might have. The existing articles on the ICC and ICCS are somewhat stubby, but I do not have enough relevant material at my fingertips, so I decline to contribute my ignorance. Ed From james at jdforrester.org Wed Mar 9 07:51:25 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 07:51:25 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: <20050309061735.74350.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200503090751.j297ow3p015841@mail-relay-1.csv.warwick.ac.uk> On Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:18 AM, Rick wrote: > Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page of the article > in question? One imagines for the normal reason - an attempt to rally people to the cause, which more often than not merely causes a low-level argument over an incrediably obscure piece of knowledge to ramble on on the mailing list (the Wrong Place(tm)) rather than the talk page(s) involved (the Right Place(tm)), diverting a great many's attention from other, more pressing things. 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 skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 07:51:41 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take exception to the language: "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing is tolerated. -- Peter in Canberra From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 07:55:57 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 23:55:57 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422E5696.9090804@hackish.org> References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> <422E5696.9090804@hackish.org> Message-ID: <422EAC0D.4080308@telus.net> Delirium wrote: > Ray Saintonge wrote: > >>> Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His >>> point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a >>> set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not >>> already made in a credible publication. >> >> This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not >> think." > > When it comes to Wikipedia, that's a pretty good commandment. > Original thinking on matters of content is beyond the scope of the > encyclopedia---we're here just to summarize the thinking that's > already been done. We're also particularly ill-equipped to judge > novel thinking. If you make a novel historical argument, citing > dozens of sources in the process, you should submit it to a history > journal to be peer-reviewed, not to us. Now you open up the question, "What is novel?" I absolutely agree that we are ill-equipped to judge novel thinking, Too many look at this from the distorted extremist lenses. If the dozens of sources that I use for a historical argument are all "peer reviewed" sources my argument is no longer novel. If we follow the severely restrictive approach to "original research" that some people are proposing our encyclopedia would be full of nothing but dumbed-down pap. Ec From christopherlarberg at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 08:05:27 2005 From: christopherlarberg at gmail.com (Christopher Larberg) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 00:05:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7f0966f05030900052c800c9@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100, Skyring wrote: > I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from > one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community > where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his > comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take > exception to the language: *snip* > To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, > and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing > is tolerated. Have you discussed his behavior with him on his User talk page? If you have, and you still feel his behavior to be an issue, you may file a Request for Comment at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment to gauge others' opinions. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 08:03:27 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:03:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <422EADCF.2080202@telus.net> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head > of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition > of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of > his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. Before something can be Original research it must first be research. Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking. Ec From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 08:17:06 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 08:17:06 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article References: <20050309061735.74350.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001a01c52480$62dde410$9e7c0450@Galasien> > Why was this brought here instead of to the Talk page > of the article in question? > > RickK Presumably because Ed Poor felt outnumbered. His rather verbose apologia for the Coulter lady (hmm - that the right word?) wasn't going down well. Charles From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 08:09:51 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:09:51 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> References: <20050308212413.441371AC1897@mail.wikimedia.org> <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <422EAF4F.1080703@telus.net> Michael Snow wrote: > Karl A. Krueger wrote: > >> It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration >> Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a >> central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of >> administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration. > > The logical corollary of this is that it should be standard procedure > for all editors brought before the Arbitration Committee to cease > editing for the duration of their case. I think the arbitrators are > quite capable of discerning in which cases emergency measures are > necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary injunction. If Karl's approach were to prevail I could see a cabal of POV pushers simultaneously and systematically starting actions against each and every ArbCom member. Where would that put us? Ec From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 08:28:43 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 03:28:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd0605030900285ac725ff@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:24:59 -0800, Christopher Larberg wrote: > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time. > > That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon. > > > > Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would > we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it? I am at that. Not so that kids can put goatse on it. So that non-admins can refresh the content of In the news, or improve on the wikification of the featured article blurb, or update the list of languages. We should find ways to distract and ward off immature kids that do not restrict everyone else -- and we will! -- but in the meantime we should find a compromise that let us stop limiting main page updates to a group of 400 users. -- +sj+ From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 08:59:04 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:59:04 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <20050309043449.96292164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050309043449.96292164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <422EBAD8.2080108@telus.net> Jim Cecropia wrote: >> Though if they've been properly retrained, meaning they abide by >> >>the spirit of Wikipedia's policies, no further restraint should be >>necessary. >> >> >An amusing comment (though I see no smiley) but I think it goes to the core of the problem. The strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, and supposedly the forces of right will outlast the forces of wrong (as it were). > I detect a bit of Miltonian optimism there, perhaps as a form of mainstream Christian theology. I would settle for a good karmic balance. >As with censorship, when we "restrain" some users, the question is who is to be restrained, who proposes the restraining, who decides on the restraining, and who enforces the restraining. > The risk of Juvenal delinquency is always there. >Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject? That's the weakness of Wikipedia. > All editors are equal, but some are more equal than others. >Of course, one will say "that's Cecropia's OPINION that his writing in NPOV." Well yes, and we are too close to our opinions to always catch our own biases. However, most anyone who has ever written more than a church fund-raising recipe for money knows when they are presenting something in a neutral fashion, in an advocacy fashion, in an aggresive fashion, or are writing a puff piece. > This refreshing honesty is hard to drink. I once had a chat with a person who had been in West Africa with Doctors Without Borders. His project was to provide clean drinking water to rural villages. The fresh water was rejected by the inhabitants, It seems that this water was not as sweet as the water from their old dung-polluted wells. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 09:05:08 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:05:08 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422EBC44.2090304@telus.net> Christopher Larberg wrote: >On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > > >>I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time. >>That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon. >> >> >Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would >we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it? > I tried to keep the en:Wiktionary main page available to everybody for a long time. A page move vandal changed my mind. Ec From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 09:50:38 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:50:38 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <422EBC44.2090304@telus.net> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <422EBC44.2090304@telus.net> Message-ID: <742dfd0605030901504adb2d80@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:05:08 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > I tried to keep the en:Wiktionary main page available to everybody for a > long time. A page move vandal changed my mind. One step towards freeing up the main page would be offering admins the intermediate step of move-protection. -- +sj+ From geniice at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 10:02:05 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:02:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <742dfd0605030901504adb2d80@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <422EBC44.2090304@telus.net> <742dfd0605030901504adb2d80@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > One step towards freeing up the main page would be offering admins the > intermediate step of move-protection. Well there certianly is a tick box for it in the protection section. I don't know if it works though. If it does the sandbox is protected against page moves. -- geni From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 10:55:28 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 02:55:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309105529.99416.qmail@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I imagine that the users who have blocked me for this, on multiple occasions think this. The Recycling Troll --- "csherlock at ljh.com.au" wrote: > Allow me be the first to call you on this one: which > users think this? > Please point to specific comments. > > Thanks. > TBSDY > > Recycling Troll wrote: > > Some users believe that we should have a new > policy of > > blocking users if they try to scrutinize the > actions > > of admins. I would encourage these people to try > to > > create new policy based on these ideas, rather > than > > blatantly abusing current rules, which do not > support > > this notion. > > The Recycling Troll > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 10:57:55 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 05:57:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> References: <2ea1ace505030814405c5a771@mail.gmail.com> <422E4215.8000900@telus.net> Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030902574f3ff9da@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:23:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > You fail to take into account the presence of Canadian troops in the > International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICCS) alongside > those from Poland and Indonesia, from 1954 to 1974. It seems there is more of this for me to learn, though I'm surprised this ICCS business wasn't mentioned on [[Canada and the Vietnam War]] or the existing discussion on [[Talk:Ann Coulter]]). Anyway, I quite agree this belongs on the talk page. Sorry for furthering the noise by replying. Steve From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 10:58:04 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 02:58:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309105804.41075.qmail@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Actually no. I am blocked because some admins don't like the idea of users checking what they are doing. Blocking people for constructive editing and checking is harrassment. Let's call that spade a spade. Admins fullfill a public function. If they can't stand that function being scrutinised then they shouldn't do it. It would be like a congressman trying to jail a constituent for watching how they vote and writing letters. It's low down and smacks of censorship. The Recycling Troll --- Phil Sandifer wrote: > You're blocked because you're not scrutinizing. > You're harassing. You > know that you're harassing. We know that you're > harassing. So let's > call a spade a spade, shall we? > > -Snowspinner > > On Mar 8, 2005, at 8:56 PM, Recycling Troll wrote: > > > > > --- JAY JG wrote: > > > >>> From: Recycling Troll > >>> > >>>> Setting up a userid specifically for the > purpose > >> of > >>>> following someone around > >>>> and reviewing their edits, and voting against > >> them > >>>> on VfDs, may not > >>>> technically be "stalking", but it is not > >>>> "responsible checking" either. > >>>> "Harrassment" seems like a reasonable > >> description. > >>>> > >>>> Jay. > >>> > >>> Take a moment, if you will, to review the > >> situation, > >>> and you will see that this is not the case. > >> > >> I have, and it is. > >> > >>> I cannot > >>> imagine why anyone would want to prevent > oversight > >> of > >>> edits, or restrict others' voice on vfd. > >> > >> And I cannot imagine why anyone would want to > >> present such a blatantly silly > >> strawman argument. > >> > >> Oh wait, yes I can. > >> > >> Jay. > > > > Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the > > question of why I am being blocked for > scrutinising > > what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to > > suggest that admins need any oversight. > > Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural > > justice and let users check other's edits and make > > subsequent improvements. > > The Recycling Troll > > > > __________________________________________________ > > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 theresaknott at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 11:17:28 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:17:28 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <742dfd0605030900285ac725ff@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <742dfd0605030900285ac725ff@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0503090317c2830bf@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 03:28:43 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:24:59 -0800, Christopher Larberg > wrote: > > On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 01:02:27 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > I'm sad to see that the Main Page has been frozen now for such a long time. > > > That was not meant to be permanent, and I hope we can unfreeze it again soon. > > > > > > > Are you referring to the English Wikipedia Main Page? If so, why would > > we unprotect that? So immature kids can put goatse on it? > > I am at that. Not so that kids can put goatse on it. So that > non-admins can refresh the content of In the news, or improve on the > wikification of the featured article blurb, or update the list of > languages. Most of these are handled using termplates. We could unprotect [[Template:In the news]] for example and keep the main page protected. This would stop the main page being moved but still allow non admins to make edits. Can templates be moved? it's only page moves that are too difficult to deal with by reverting. > > We should find ways to distract and ward off immature kids that do not > restrict everyone else -- and we will! Practical suggestions please! Theresa From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 11:33:01 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:33:01 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) References: <20050309105804.41075.qmail@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006e01c5249b$c1cfd080$9e7c0450@Galasien> The Recycling Troll wrote >It would be like a congressman trying to jail a > constituent for watching how they vote and writing > letters. It's low down and smacks of censorship. How about you just stop digging this hole you are in? You are going to end up making a case on the highly virtuous nature of stalking. This is unlikely to gain you any friends. No, admin status at most implies use of admin powers should be subject to community review - not some piffle about accountability per edit by vigilantes. Charles From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 9 11:37:25 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 04:37:25 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia In-Reply-To: <20050309043449.96292164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: I am not familiar with your editing nor do I know which articles you edit. I can only encourage you to bring the issues you are speaking of here to the attention of the community through the dispute resolution process. Of which the first step is negotiation on the talk pages and on user talk pages. You do not have to make a bit fuss, just keep a log of your edits, their removal, your talk page comments regarding your edits and their removal, etc. You need to keep this log in terms of dates and diffs, (please get back to me if you don't understand what I mean by diffs). You say you are being reversed by "majority bias". That can mean you are trying to follow the NPOV policy or that you are violating it depending on exactly what is involved. If the majority thinks London is the capital of Japan that's one thing, if they think the United States of America can do no wrong that is another. We need to see it. Now, on your way, don't call other editors assholes (or the equivalent), don't characterize their edits as stupid (or the equivalent) and don't revert over and over (an occasional revert accompanied by changes others might suggest is acceptable). That way you can come to the final steps without fear of the arbitrators turning on you and saying you are the problem yourself, "Get out of here." Following these steps will take some time, perhaps a few months, by the time you get to arbitration you will have built a track record which will reduce that risk. In the meantime you can improve your negotiation and research skills, try out mediation and learn how to marshal evidence. I make these suggestions because the problem you speak of is important and needs to be addressed. I hope you have the patience and courage to pursue the matter. I will conceed that in certain areas the problem you speak of actually exists. However you need to name names and point to specific edits for anyone to do anything about it. We may fail to adequately address the problem, but we are willing to try. Fred > From: "Jim Cecropia" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:34:49 -0400 > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia > > Do not tell me these rules are applied equally. I don't edit certain articles > anymore because I'll research an edit, back it up with sources, and bring the > information down to an NPOV minimum. But how many like me realize that hours > of work will be relentlessly reversed by the majority bias on the subject? > That's the weakness of Wikipedia. From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 11:37:58 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 03:37:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309113759.68272.qmail@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Well, the case that you're making seems to be that admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check their edits, and the important thing is to have 'friends', presumably, who protect you from the rules. If you don't like a peer review process, then a collaborative encyclopedia seems like the wrong project for you. However hard you try to avoid the point, the fact is that checking other people's edits is a GOOD THING, not stalking. The Recycling Troll --- Charles Matthews wrote: > The Recycling Troll wrote > > >It would be like a congressman trying to jail a > > constituent for watching how they vote and writing > > letters. It's low down and smacks of censorship. > > How about you just stop digging this hole you are > in? You are going to end > up making a case on the highly virtuous nature of > stalking. This is > unlikely to gain you any friends. No, admin status > at most implies use of > admin powers should be subject to community review - > not some piffle about > accountability per edit by vigilantes. > > Charles > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 11:54:48 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:54:48 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309113759.68272.qmail@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050309113759.68272.qmail@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20934.194.72.110.12.1110369288.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Recycling Troll said: > Well, the case that you're making seems to be that > admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check their > edits I don't believe that. However we have a guideline of "assume good faith" which your _modus operandi_ of closely shadowing another editor, with your stated objective, may be violating. You seem to be playing this thing out as a game of sociodynamics. If that's what you're interested in doing, you might find that other, less focussed communities are more accommodating. From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 12:05:34 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:05:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309120534.61738.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Actually, I think that you should assume good faith. I am not the one making a fuss about this, I am going about the business of improving the encyclopedia. Closely checking edits of other users is part of that. I really don't understand why you are so afraid of scrutiny. Oh wait, yes I do. The Recycling Troll --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > Recycling Troll said: > > Well, the case that you're making seems to be that > > admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check > their > > edits > > I don't believe that. However we have a guideline > of "assume good faith" > which your _modus operandi_ of closely shadowing > another editor, with your > stated objective, may be violating. You seem to be > playing this thing out > as a game of sociodynamics. If that's what you're > interested in doing, > you might find that other, less focussed communities > are more > accommodating. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 12:17:00 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:17:00 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) References: <20050309120534.61738.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008601c524a1$e6c4f810$9e7c0450@Galasien> >Oh wait, yes I do. > The Recycling Troll There is obviously a case for not recycling trolls, as well as denying them nourishment. I take it they walk out of landfills; perhaps a deep ocean trench, or one of the less popular moons of Saturn. Charles From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 12:19:10 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:19:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309121910.6207.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Well, personal attacks are all very well, but, as usual, you fail to get to the point, which is why are people afraid of scrutiny?? The Recycling Troll --- Charles Matthews wrote: > >Oh wait, yes I do. > > The Recycling Troll > > There is obviously a case for not recycling trolls, > as well as denying them > nourishment. I take it they walk out of landfills; > perhaps a deep ocean > trench, or one of the less popular moons of Saturn. > > Charles > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 12:22:01 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:22:01 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309121910.6207.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050309121910.6207.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6048.194.72.110.12.1110370921.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Recycling Troll said: > why are > people afraid of scrutiny?? All edits on Wikipedia are public and open to scrutiny, so the question is a non sequitur. What you seem to be doing goes beyond that, apparently, and that may be why some people seem to have a problem with your edits. I think it's wrong to describe this kind of thing as "stalking", but it's certainly counter-productive behavior. If you have a problem with someone's behavior why not just use the dispute resolution process instead of your current method? From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 12:26:11 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:26:11 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> Message-ID: <422EEB63.2020901@thingy.apana.org.au> Stan Shebs wrote: > "You have have reached 500,000 edits; you may now hard-ban your > foes simply by forming the thought." :-) By that stage, of course, one is a being of such enlightenment that one assumes good faith for all and thus has no "foes" - only those one has not worked out how to work with yet ;-) - d. From recyclingtroll at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 12:27:41 2005 From: recyclingtroll at yahoo.com (Recycling Troll) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:27:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> What makes you think that I have a problem with anyones behavior? Why do you think it is counter-productive to make a focussed review of someone's edits? Honestly. The only thing that is counter-productive is the continual insistence by some people to block me because I want to review someone's edits. If all edits are open to scrutiny, then there shouldn't be an issue. The Recycling Troll --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > Recycling Troll said: > > why are > > people afraid of scrutiny?? > > All edits on Wikipedia are public and open to > scrutiny, so the question is > a non sequitur. What you seem to be doing goes > beyond that, apparently, > and that may be why some people seem to have a > problem with your edits. I > think it's wrong to describe this kind of thing as > "stalking", but it's > certainly counter-productive behavior. If you have > a problem with > someone's behavior why not just use the dispute > resolution process instead > of your current method? > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 12:28:32 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:28:32 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Page move vandal - there is a feature that can help with it ... In-Reply-To: <422EEB63.2020901@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <030820051725.23050.422DE0000001B77300005A0A22070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <422DFC67.6000005@apple.com> <422EEB63.2020901@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <18123.194.72.110.12.1110371312.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > Stan Shebs wrote: > >> "You have have reached 500,000 edits; you may now hard-ban your >> foes simply by forming the thought." :-) > > > By that stage, of course, one is a being of such enlightenment that one > assumes good faith for all and thus has no "foes" - only those one has > not worked out how to work with yet ;-) > By that time you have (to borrow a usage from Iain Banks' Culture novels) _sublimed_ and ceased all work, upon the realization that you have become the encyclopedia you set out to write. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 12:43:08 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:43:08 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422EEF5C.6020701@thingy.apana.org.au> Recycling Troll wrote: > Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural > justice We are. - d. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 12:39:41 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:39:41 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <40580.194.72.110.12.1110371981.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Recycling Troll said: > What makes you think that I have a problem with > anyones behavior? [...] > The only thing that is counter-productive is > the continual insistence by some people to block me > because I want to review someone's edits. Both of the above statements cannot be true. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 12:46:54 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:46:54 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Admins and senior admins In-Reply-To: <20050309064738.GB21588@whoi.edu> References: <20050308212413.441371AC1897@mail.wikimedia.org> <422E63D3.4080900@earthlink.net> <20050309064738.GB21588@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <422EF03E.1010003@thingy.apana.org.au> Karl A. Krueger wrote: > On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 06:47:47PM -0800, Michael Snow wrote: >>Karl A. Krueger wrote: >>>It seems to me it should be _standard procedure_ that if the Arbitration >>>Committee accepts a case in which wrongdoing by an administrator is a >>>central issue, that the administrator step down (accept removal of >>>administrative powers) for the duration of the arbitration. >>I think the arbitrators are quite capable of discerning in which cases >>emergency measures are necessary and issuing an appropriate temporary >>injunction. > Fair enough. I just wanted to put it on the table. > Call it a different approach to what it might mean to enjoy the trust of > the community whilst under review for possible betrayal of that trust. For a practical example, consider the recent case of Everyking, who was an admin. He came up before the AC and was duly restricted in his editing on certain subjects. But he kept his ops before, during and after, and has them now. Some people said they should be removed, but there was no evidence that they had been abused, so there wasn't any reason to. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 12:48:55 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:48:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422EF0B7.8070809@thingy.apana.org.au> Skyring wrote: > I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from > one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community > where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his > comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take > exception to the language: > "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate > obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious > misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and > egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue > To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, > and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing > is tolerated. That comes under "response to severe provocation", which the AC does not support. Probably the first thing for you do, though, would be to stop insisting on your original research going in. - d. From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 9 12:46:07 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:46:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309124607.48058.qmail@web25002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Recycling Troll wrote: > What makes you think that I have a problem with > anyones behavior? Why do you think it is > counter-productive to make a focussed review of > someone's edits? > Honestly. The only thing that is counter-productive is > the continual insistence by some people to block me > because I want to review someone's edits. > If all edits are open to scrutiny, then there > shouldn't be an issue. > The Recycling Troll Why are we feeding the recycling, erm..., er..., well, you know...? Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From geniice at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 12:47:57 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 12:47:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:27:41 -0800 (PST), Recycling Troll wrote: > What makes you think that I have a problem with > anyones behavior? Why do you think it is > counter-productive to make a focussed review of > someone's edits? Explain exactly how it helps us build an encyolpedia > Honestly. The only thing that is counter-productive is > the continual insistence by some people to block me > because I want to review someone's edits. > If all edits are open to scrutiny, then there > shouldn't be an issue. You don't need to edit to that do you? -- geni From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 13:24:18 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:24:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309121910.6207.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309121910.6207.qmail@web31313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422EF902.6010403@thingy.apana.org.au> Recycling Troll wrote: I've just blocked this querulous troll from wikien-l. Smelling way too much like a reincarnation of 142, or trying to be one. If anyone seriously objects, email me. - d. From brian1954 at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 13:48:44 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 08:48:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: References: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <547b297e050309054830ef1f84@mail.gmail.com> I suspect The Recycling Troll is a troll -- that is, a person who craves attention and who finds it entertaining to annoy and provoke others. His username looks like an announcement that he is, the first step towand getting attention, and there is no reason not to believe him. A non-troll is unlikely to choose that as a username. That said, "being a troll" is not a violation of our policies. Our policies are formulated in terms of behaviours, and we shouldn't be banning people who comply with the policies and norms of the project because we don't like the motivation behind their behaviour. If a troll finds away to get attention and to be provocative without violating our policies, then we should reconsider our policies. We shouldn't be banning people simply because they are thought to be trolls. Concerning, RT's behaviours in this instance, what is wrong with them. In fact, members of Wikipedia are routinely monitored by administrators and other members. There is nothing wrong with it. If A is working on an article and notices that B's edits are questionable (by A's lights), it seems fine with me if A checks other articles that B has worked on, or is working on, to see if he is propagating his supposed errors into other articles. I don't see anything wrong with that, although no doubt B might find it quite annoying to have someone following him around. As long as A's edits are within policy, I don't see that there is any Wikipedia policy that is being violated. Indeed, if B is indeed a "POV-warrior", then A's behaviour might well be hailed as a service to the community. Who decides who can monitor whom? Are administrators immune from being monitored? Presuming that RT is a troll, he has noticed that RickK is a bit excitable, and that he doesn't have the full support of all other administrators, and he has decided to get attention by targetting him. He is doing it in a way that is entirely within policy. The solution is not to make up rules in order to ban him, or to allow him to provoke a reaction from the administrators that will bring discredit upon them rather than him. The solution, as with all trolls is "Do not feed the trolls". In other words, ignore him. An administrator, above all, must be able to do this, because trolls will try to provoke administrators as a favorite target, knowing that provoking an over-reaction from an administrator is the best way to cause dissension and get attention. So, I repeat: ignore him. If he can't get a reaction by being annoying within the the rules of the site, he will either get bored or he will be compelled to break an actual policy of the project, and then he can be blocked without doing violence to the principles underpinning the project. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 9 14:24:17 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 07:24:17 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030823514e9026b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The first thing that is wrong is that I am tempted to click on that link to see who it is and what you might have done. Then if I look at your edits and decide they are indeed "fuckwitted" and the person making the personal attacks is a valuable and popular editor, I might be tempted to excuse him. The policy is No personal attacks. That attack and any other attacks you see on yourself or any other editor may be deleted on sight. We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who make personal attacks. What generally happens is that eventually through the dispute resolution process they come to arbitration. Generally they are put on personal attack parole. Then they can be banned for a short period if they make an attack. Now I will follow the link: Searching for "fuckwit", I find User:Adam Carr, a user who is considered to be a very valuable editor who has a history of making personal attacks but who has yet to be "brought to justice". He was once banned for one day for this but complained vociferously. Obviously a slap on the wrist and several warnings does no more good than a fart in the wind. I will now examine your contributions to see if you are a "bad" editor: The controversy seems to be about who is "head of state" of Australia, you see to be hold a minority view, whatever that is. Adam Carr says: "We have heard your views on these topics ad nauseam. We have decided that we don't agree with you. We are now proceeding to edit the article in accordance with the majority view. That is the way things work here. If you don't like it, feel free to leave. Is that clear enough for you? Adam 06:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)" What I question, without looking at the article, or knowing with certainty what the actual issue is; is why some mechanism using NPOV is not used to somehow express both views. Looking at one of the diffs in the editor war on the article page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_of_Australia&diff=10723 006&oldid=10720075 I see that both views are set forth in full in both your versions, but that while Adam Carr says there IS a convention that the Governor General is head of state of Australia, you say that there IS a contention over the question. Ah Hah, I might say, a "bad editor arguing over nothing", because your generalization that there is a contention is smack dab in the middle of an extended discussion of the different ways one might look at the matter. To extend that point further, is the question of head of state usually argued when candidates stand for election? Anyway, while I find Adam in the right as far as editing is concerned, he is certainly in the wrong with respect to his abusive language and discourtesy. Fred Anyway, please feel free to use Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism, but please don't fall into the sort of behavior we see Adam engaging in here. Don't make personal attacks and be courteous to other editors > From: Skyring > Reply-To: Skyring , English Wikipedia > > Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors > > I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from > one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community > where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his > comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take > exception to the language: > > "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate > obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious > misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and > egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue > > To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, > and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing > is tolerated. > > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 9 14:30:48 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 07:30:48 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Oh, well I see there is more too this in a thread I have not been following: >> of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition >> of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of >> his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. >Before something can be Original research it must first be research. >Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking. >Ec So there is some thought that you might be a very bad editor pushing an eccentric point of view unsupported by reliable authority. This approach is not recommended and can easily result in you being banned from articles which relate to Australian politics. However, our policy remains No personal attacks. Fred > From: Fred Bauder > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 07:24:17 -0700 > To: > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors > > The first thing that is wrong is that I am tempted to click on that link to > see who it is and what you might have done. > > Then if I look at your edits and decide they are indeed "fuckwitted" and the > person making the personal attacks is a valuable and popular editor, I might > be tempted to excuse him. > > The policy is No personal attacks. That attack and any other attacks you see > on yourself or any other editor may be deleted on sight. > > We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who make > personal attacks. What generally happens is that eventually through the > dispute resolution process they come to arbitration. Generally they are put > on personal attack parole. Then they can be banned for a short period if > they make an attack. > > Now I will follow the link: > > Searching for "fuckwit", I find User:Adam Carr, a user who is considered to > be a very valuable editor who has a history of making personal attacks but > who has yet to be "brought to justice". He was once banned for one day for > this but complained vociferously. Obviously a slap on the wrist and several > warnings does no more good than a fart in the wind. > > I will now examine your contributions to see if you are a "bad" editor: > > The controversy seems to be about who is "head of state" of Australia, you > see to be hold a minority view, whatever that is. Adam Carr says: "We have > heard your views on these topics ad nauseam. We have decided that we don't > agree with you. We are now proceeding to edit the article in accordance with > the majority view. That is the way things work here. If you don't like it, > feel free to leave. Is that clear enough for you? Adam 06:48, 9 Mar 2005 > (UTC)" > > What I question, without looking at the article, or knowing with certainty > what the actual issue is; is why some mechanism using NPOV is not used to > somehow express both views. > > Looking at one of the diffs in the editor war on the article page: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_of_Australia&diff=10723 > 006&oldid=10720075 > > I see that both views are set forth in full in both your versions, but that > while Adam Carr says there IS a convention that the Governor General is head > of state of Australia, you say that there IS a contention over the question. > > Ah Hah, I might say, a "bad editor arguing over nothing", because your > generalization that there is a contention is smack dab in the middle of an > extended discussion of the different ways one might look at the matter. To > extend that point further, is the question of head of state usually argued > when candidates stand for election? > > Anyway, while I find Adam in the right as far as editing is concerned, he is > certainly in the wrong with respect to his abusive language and discourtesy. > > Fred > > Anyway, please feel free to use Wikipedia's dispute resolution mechanism, > but please don't fall into the sort of behavior we see Adam engaging in > here. Don't make personal attacks and be courteous to other editors > > > > >> From: Skyring >> Reply-To: Skyring , English Wikipedia >> >> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 18:51:41 +1100 >> To: English Wikipedia >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors >> >> I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from >> one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community >> where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his >> comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take >> exception to the language: >> >> "Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate >> obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious >> misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and >> egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it." >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue >> >> To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, >> and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing >> is tolerated. >> >> -- >> Peter in Canberra >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 9 14:32:56 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 06:32:56 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article Message-ID: > Clearly the government of Canada did not send troops to Vietnam. > Clearly also, Canadian citizens fought alongside Americans in > the Vietnam. > > However, I believe the only reasonable neutral interpretation > of "Canada sent troops to Vietnam", in the context provided > (when talking about the actions of the Canadian government > w.r.t. wars) is that the Canadian government sent soldiers > from its army to Vietnam. > > I quite agree that the anti-Coulter arguments deserve > balance, and I think it's important to mention that Canadians > did serve there (in Coulter's defence). But I also think > that suggesting that Canada > *did* send troops is an inaccurate characterization of the > facts surrounding that particular POV. > > Steve Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I agree that the [[Ann Coulter]] article should mention that (to use exact words): * Canadians did serve there Whether or not _government_ of Canada sent "troops in Canadian uniform" to Vietnam is a another thing. There are three points of view on this sub-point: 1. No Canadian troops *whatsoever* were sent "by the Canadian government" to Vietnam (in any capacity). 2. Some Canadian troops were sent by the Canadian government, and the "served" in Vietnam (but not as combat troops). 3. The Canadian sent substantial number of active duty soldiers (with weapons) to Vietnam, but they never (or hardly ever) shot at North Vietnamese soldiers or Viet Cong fighters. 4. Canada's *government* sent large numbers of combat troops to Vietnam (at least one battalion, i.e., 500 men), and they engaged the enemy. Option one definitely implies that Coulter was 100% wrong. Option two makes Coulter partially wrong, and McKeown partially wrong (but McKeown wins the "gotcha" game). Option three makes Coulter partially right, and McKeown partially wrong (i.e., they both were somewhat mixed up; gotcha game ends in a draw!). Option four makes Coulter 100% right, and McKeown and Moore 100% wrong. I don't think options #1 or #4 are correct, not based on reading [[Canada and Vietnam]] and Ray (Eclecticology)'s recent post. Then there's the other slant: to what extent is a person "wrong" if they say "the country sent troops" (possibly meaning its government) rather than "men from that country fought" (could be either gov't troops or citizens who joined another country's army)? Coulter's slant is that she was wrong (but she seems to regard it as a misstatement more akin to a slip of the tongue or choosing the wrong word. Moore's slant is that she was dead wrong (probably even *knowingly* wrong, i.e., lied on purpose; or possibly just ignorantly wrong, i.e., thought it was the government sending active duty personnel). The anti-Coulter crowd in general (based on blog posts) seems to regard this as Coulter being "exposed" as a deliberate liar. Finally, they have clear, definitive proof that the B###h (or Wh###) just goes around making stuff up even though she really has no case at all. I don't think the Wikipedia should take the side of the anti-Coulter crowd, but I have no objection to letting the article recount or summarize their argument. Ed Poor From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 14:42:41 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 01:42:41 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <550ccb8205030906425f06f9bc@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 07:30:48 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > So there is some thought that you might be a very bad editor pushing an > eccentric point of view unsupported by reliable authority. This approach is > not recommended and can easily result in you being banned from articles > which relate to Australian politics. However, our policy remains No personal > attacks. Yeah, that's what I thought. As for editing, I make sure I have checkable sources, hence my stress on constitutional scholars. Adam tends to fade away when asked to provide sources, or else he finds some partisan site and quotes large chunks of manifesto. -- Peter in Canberra From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 14:51:05 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:51:05 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422E4960.7020803@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge >>>Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >>>presented. >> >>Easy to do in simple cases; quite complex when the issue is something like >>politics or international law. And, in the latter case, if done by the >>editor themselves, generally (and wisely) forbidden as original research >>as well, as per the No original research policy. > >But your reference was at least stated to be based in genetics. The >reference to editors is meaningless since we are all editors. Huh? Of course we're all editors. And editors can't use Wikipedia articles to present novel theses etc. >There's very little in the way of original research done here in politics; >you're confusing original research with original speculation. Hmm, interesting use of a semantic argument, but irrelevant to the No original research policy. >>Well, I could have used real examples from articles I've seen, but that >>would have bogged the list down, when it could have been doing more >>important things like arguing about whether or not 172's contributions >>were "balanced" or "pro-communist screeds". > >"Bogged the list down" = "exposed your ideas to attack". The POV that you >push does not need a basis in reality. Huh? I haven't brought my own ideas or POV here, nor are they "under attack." The No original research policy is clear; whether or not you accept is another matter entirely. >As for 172, it's a question of his bringing balance to some points by >removing the half-truths and innuendos promoted by the anti-communist wolf >pack "Anti-communist wolf pack"? Sheesh! The comment was meant to inject a lighter note into the discussion, though in hindsight I suppose I should have said that the list could return to the more important task of deciding whether or not Australia is a constitutional monarchy or a republic, since this kind of over the top response from you on the 172 debate should have been entirely predictable. >>>>>You seem to forget the original purpose for the rule. >>>> >>>>I don't think so; what do you think I have forgotten? >>> >>>That the purpose was to avoid becoming overrun with loose cannon >>>theories. >> >>Including those developed and presented by Wikipedia editors. If a >>particular argument hasn't been published somewhere reputable, then it too >>is a "loose cannon theory". > >Again the reference to Wikipedia editors is menaingless. Are you >suggesting yourself as the judge of what is reputable? :-D :-D :-D Sorry Ray, you're not making any sense. Original research is research done by Wikipedia editors and presented in Wikipedia articles, as opposed to reasearch published in other reputable venues. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 14:53:20 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:53:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge >slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: >>>From: Ray Saintonge >>>>JAY JG wrote: >>>>No, that's a strawman argument. "Deductive reasoning" becomes original >>>>research when it is used to build a case against a position presented in >>>>an article, not when used to do unit conversions. >>>> >>>> >>>Deductive reason is the application of logic to the facts as already >>>presented. The uncle/nephew vs. aunt/niece is simply a nonsense comment >>>pulled out of imagination. >>> >>Ray - Jay is correct in his description of original research. His >>point is simply that deduction (that is, drawing a conclusion from a >>set of premises) should not be used by editors to make a point not >>already made in a credible publication. >> >This sounds like an argument for the commandment, "Thou shalt not think." No, Ray, it's just the No original research policy, and it allows for plenty of thought. Maybe you should re-read it. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 14:58:01 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:58:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" > >The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head of >state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition of what >is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of his sources, >and none of them state what he thinks they say. Nah, it's just "simple deductive reasoning". I can't believe you're using your POV and extremist interpretation of the No original research rule to try to disallow simple deductive reasoning from Wikipedia articles; you might as well be issuing the commandement "Thou shalt not think." Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 15:04:48 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:04:48 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309025612.85544.qmail@web31302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Recycling Troll > >Erm, you have managed to completely ignore the >question of why I am being blocked for scrutinising >what an admin is doing. Of course, it is taboo to >suggest that admins need any oversight. Sheesh. Please read the [[Strawman]] article on Wikipedia, ok? >Please. Follow policy, common sense, and natural >justice and let users check other's edits and make >subsequent improvements. I'm going to follow common sense from now on and not feed The Recycling Trolls. Jay. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 15:06:23 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:06:23 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62494.194.72.110.12.1110380783.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Poor, Edmund W said: > There are three points of view on this > sub-point: > > 1. No Canadian troops *whatsoever* were sent "by the Canadian > government" to Vietnam (in any capacity). > > 2. Some Canadian troops were sent by the Canadian government, and the > "served" in Vietnam (but not as combat troops). > > 3. The Canadian sent substantial number of active duty soldiers (with > weapons) to Vietnam, but they never (or hardly ever) shot at North > Vietnamese soldiers or Viet Cong fighters. > > 4. Canada's *government* sent large numbers of combat troops to Vietnam > (at least one battalion, i.e., 500 men), and they engaged the enemy. > > Option one definitely implies that Coulter was 100% wrong. > > Option two makes Coulter partially wrong, and McKeown partially wrong > (but McKeown wins the "gotcha" game). > > Option three makes Coulter partially right, and McKeown partially wrong > (i.e., they both were somewhat mixed up; gotcha game ends in a draw!). > > Option four makes Coulter 100% right, and McKeown and Moore 100% wrong. > I'm sure that Canada sent troops as part of the force that was sent to monitor the South Vietnam agreed in the Paris Peace Accord. I'm sure they were armed and almost certain that they occasionally used those arms. Here's a VA-Canada page about the service medal they received. http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?source=collections/cmdp/mainmenu/group06/icmvn However this is clearly not the force that Coulter was talking about (unless she wrongly believed it to be a force sent in aid of the United States) and that McKeown denied existed. Coulter said: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" Note that Coulter specifically was talking about military support for one side (the USA) in a conflict with another country, and asking why this wasn't forthcoming in the current conflict in Iraq. That Coulter misspoke, and McKeown's denial was correct, should be made clear on the Coulter article by those who are editing it. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 9 15:16:13 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language). But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that: * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who make personal attacks. So once again I hereby "place myself on report". I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the rules - such as: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the 415 admins will reverse the block. Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. Uncle Ed From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 9 15:24:26 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 08:24:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I didn't look it up Ed. I don't do a lot of policing myself and have often found myself wrong if I don't carefully examine any policy that becomes an issue. I may once again, in a negative way, sinned by not being fully up to date on what can and cannot be done. Rooting for you though, Fred > From: "Poor, Edmund W" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500 > To: > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors > > I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language). > > But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that: > * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who > make personal attacks. > So once again I hereby "place myself on report". > I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block > signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the > rules - such as: > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock > Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the > 415 admins will reverse the block. > Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. > Uncle Ed > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 15:23:35 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:23:35 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422EAC0D.4080308@telus.net> Message-ID: >From: Ray Saintonge >If we follow the severely restrictive approach to "original research" that >some people are proposing our encyclopedia would be full of nothing but >dumbed-down pap. It's not a proposal, it's an existing policy, and, when applied, it is helping save the encyclopedia from being a repository for crank theories and arguments presented as fact. The notion that it will somehow create an encyclopedia filled with " nothing but dumbed-down pap" is a bald assertion which has no basis in reality. Jay. From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 9 15:29:54 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:29:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309152954.93696.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language). ... > I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block > signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the > rules - such as: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock > Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the > 415 admins will reverse the block. > Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. As far as I know, we don't have any policy to justify blocking over personal attacks. I would suggest unblocking Adam Carr, even though his abusive remarks in this instance are uncalled for and inconsistent with his reputation as a fine editor. I guess everyone blows a fuse now and again. Any chance of making [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] enforceable? -- Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 15:30:36 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:30:36 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors References: Message-ID: <001e01c524bc$f1fcb810$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ed Poor wrote >I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the rules - such as: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] There is a policy about removing personal attacks. That there is policy about 'removing' those doing the attacking is news to me. I wouldn't dream of using admin powers in this way. Ed Poor shoots from hip, once more. Exactly what kind of place would Wiki-en be if say, 100 of our sysops took this line, on a daily basis? I don't want to find out. Others please support me, in saying that Ed is out of line here. Policy can't just be made on the hoof, any more. The scare quotes round "authorized" tell me just about all I need to know. Civility is a big plus on WP, but enforcement of this kind goes way beyond what I would accept. Out of hand bans for vandalism, yes. Charles From brian1954 at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 15:33:21 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:33:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <547b297e050309073337562eb6@mail.gmail.com> Ed, I am sure you know there is a blocking policy at [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy]]. Like most Wikipedia policies, it is weasely, but even so I think you would have to read between the lines to find the right for administrators to block people for personal attacks without a community consensus. Administrators are supposed to be there for doing custodial tasks that require somewhat sensitive privileges that can only be given to people after they have established their trustworthiness. They are supposed to be janitors. They are not cops, and they are certainly not cops and judges rolled into one, even though blocking people for violation of the 3RR and for vandalism blurs this somewhat. For policy enforcement and disciplinary sanctions, there is the RfC/RfAr process. Administrators generally should take their fingers off the banning button, except in the case of obvious vandalism. Let the RfC/RfAr mechanism do what it is supposed to do. That is the mechanism by which the community expresses its consensus about the behaviour of members and administrators should think long and hard before the short-circuit it. On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 10:16:13 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language). > > But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that: > * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who > make personal attacks. > So once again I hereby "place myself on report". > I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block > signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the > rules - such as: > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock > Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the > 415 admins will reverse the block. > Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. > Uncle Ed > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 15:44:47 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:44:47 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: Message-ID: <003001c524be$ed924720$9e7c0450@Galasien> > The notion that it will somehow create an > encyclopedia filled with " nothing but dumbed-down pap" is a bald assertion > which has no basis in reality. > Jay I would agree that Ec overstates the case. The point that seems to need making is that none of the content policies actually _makes for_ brilliant prose, which is one thing we also want. If clumsily or over-insistently applied, any reliability-oriented policy can make for lame writing. Academic books don't read like Tom Clancy. So I say that content policies are also subordinate to the goal of creating awesomeness in the encyclopedia. I like to think in terms of two extremes, Blandopedia and Gonzopedia. The spaced-out stuff has to be squeezed out. But playing safe will only tend to accentuate the bias towards WP's existing strengths. Charles From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 15:48:45 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 07:48:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309154845.38435.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Matt R wrote: > As far as I know, we don't have any policy to justify blocking over personal > attacks. I would suggest unblocking Adam Carr, even though his abusive > remarks in this instance are uncalled for and inconsistent with his reputation as a > fine editor. I guess everyone blows a fuse now and again. All polices are enforceable. Just because a certain one does not specify a specific punishment for violating it, does not mean it is not enforceable. The ArbCom has banned a bunch of users for regularly violating the no personal attacks policy. ASAIK, admins can and should enforce this policy when they see it violated after a warning is given. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 9 15:56:51 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:56:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <030920051556.25585.422F1CC3000BB5A5000063F122069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > > > The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head > > of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition > > of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of > > his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. > > Before something can be Original research it must first be research. > Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking. It certainly is wishful thinking. If only everyone could have a head of state that did as little as the queen does, what a wonderful world this would be. Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the debate becomes more clear. The issue all along has been not whether Austrailia is a republic, but whether it is a democracy. In American english, no it is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally limited form a government, a republic. Therefore, since Austailia is not a democracy, when we translate back to Austrailian english, Austrailia is not a republic. The queen has been irrelevant to the whole issue, just as she is to nearly anything in Austrailia. Now if only, the Austrailian's had used the perfectly good word "democracy", the debate could have been conducted in their english. Somehow, despite "republics" duplication of the meaning of "democracy" in their language, it carries so kind of emotional baggage that does not allow it to be viewed objectively, perhaps because of some meaning bleed, from the other form of english. -- Silverback From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:02:22 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:02:22 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050309154845.38435.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050309154845.38435.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050309080210ccc10@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 07:48:45 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Matt R wrote: > > As far as I know, we don't have any policy to justify blocking over personal > > attacks. I would suggest unblocking Adam Carr, even though his abusive > > remarks in this instance are uncalled for and inconsistent with his > reputation as a > > fine editor. I guess everyone blows a fuse now and again. > > All polices are enforceable. Just because a certain one does not specify a > specific punishment for violating it, does not mean it is not enforceable. The > ArbCom has banned a bunch of users for regularly violating the no personal > attacks policy. ASAIK, admins can and should enforce this policy when they see > it violated after a warning is given. I'm kind of new here, but my feeling is that Adam will just take this as more evidence of animosity. I don't want to have him stop editing, because he IS a good editor, but I don't want him making personal attacks on me (or anyone else). It gets in the way of constructive discussion, quite apart from it being annoying. -- Peter in Canberra From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:09:33 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:09:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050309154845.38435.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050309154845.38435.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422F1FBD.1000905@thingy.apana.org.au> Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Matt R wrote: >>As far as I know, we don't have any policy to justify blocking over personal >>attacks. I would suggest unblocking Adam Carr, even though his abusive >>remarks in this instance are uncalled for and inconsistent with his reputation as a >>fine editor. I guess everyone blows a fuse now and again. > All polices are enforceable. Just because a certain one does not specify a > specific punishment for violating it, does not mean it is not enforceable. The > ArbCom has banned a bunch of users for regularly violating the no personal > attacks policy. ASAIK, admins can and should enforce this policy when they see > it violated after a warning is given. There is the fact that a specific vote on whether admins could block people for personal attacks failed to achieve consensus a few months ago (a real pity, in my opinion). As such, it's dicey ground. (Note that we do have IPs being blocked for personal attacks, and accounts evidently created just for personal attacks being blocked indefinitely. But those aren't the same as a logged-in proper editor.) - d. From theresaknott at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:06:28 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:06:28 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <547b297e050309054830ef1f84@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050309122741.40987.qmail@web31311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <547b297e050309054830ef1f84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050309080661511b85@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 08:48:44 -0500, Brian M wrote: > > Our > policies are formulated in terms of behaviours, and we shouldn't be > banning people who comply with the policies and norms of the project > because we don't like the motivation behind their behaviour. I disagree. Let's not forget that we are here to write an encylopedia. Our policies are a means to that end. Anyone here who is not trying to write an encylopedia shouldn't be put up with. We are not an experiment in social anarchy. I'm all for not biting newbies, I'm all for not allowing admins to block people for emotional reasons, or to win an edit war. I'm all for bending over backwards to accomodate anyone who is here in good faith even if they are a complete jerk, idiot, or a combination of both. But if they are not here in good faith. if they are not trying to write an encylopedia, then let's deal with 'em. If a > troll finds away to get attention and to be provocative without > violating our policies, then we should reconsider our policies. We > shouldn't be banning people simply because they are thought to be > trolls. Why not? I mean I know there is a danger of someone being blocked who is not trolling, but there are plenty of admins around to undo an overzelous block. We should of course try to educate editors before blocking them, we should be very careful not to block people who have a different view than us, but in cases like this, where there is no doubt that a user is a troll, then why not block them? > > Concerning, RT's behaviours in this instance, what is wrong with them. > In fact, members of Wikipedia are routinely monitored by > administrators and other members. There is nothing wrong with it. > If A is working on an article and notices that B's edits are > questionable (by A's lights), it seems fine with me if A checks other > articles that B has worked on, or is working on, to see if he is > propagating his supposed errors into other articles. I don't see > anything wrong with that, although no doubt B might find it quite > annoying to have someone following him around. I agree. There's nothing wrong with checking other people's edits. I've checked plenty of people's edits in the past. I'm sure we all have, and I'm sure plenty of people have checked mine. What I haven't done, is stalk people. I haven't edited every article they edit, just after them, to let them know I am watching them. He said he noticed the articles needed improving. He's lying. We all know he's lying. He's trying to provoke RickK into doing something stupid. >As long as A's edits > are within policy, I don't see that there is any Wikipedia policy that > is being violated. Indeed, if B is indeed a "POV-warrior", then A's > behaviour might well be hailed as a service to the community. That's not what is happening here. The user was stalking, not checking edits. Who > decides who can monitor whom? Are administrators immune from being > monitored? Nope. But he wasn't monitoring, he was stalking. He was not acting in good faith. > > The solution, as with all trolls is "Do not feed the trolls". In > other words, ignore him. If we did that, we would be saying "it's ok to stalk people" >An administrator, above all, must be able to > do this, because trolls will try to provoke administrators as a > favorite target, knowing that provoking an over-reaction from an > administrator is the best way to cause dissension and get attention. So let's not argue. Let's all agree that TRT is a troll, is not acting in good faith, is not valuable to wikipedia and block him. > > So, I repeat: ignore him. What do we do in the meantime if RickK loses it and decides to leave? We can't ignore him. SDo let's block him instead. Theresa From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:13:30 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:13:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <003001c524be$ed924720$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" >I would agree that Ec overstates the case. The point that seems to need >making is that none of the content policies actually _makes for_ brilliant >prose, which is one thing we also want. If clumsily or over-insistently >applied, any reliability-oriented policy can make for lame writing. >Academic books don't read like Tom Clancy. > >So I say that content policies are also subordinate to the goal of creating >awesomeness in the encyclopedia. I like to think in terms of two extremes, >Blandopedia and Gonzopedia. The spaced-out stuff has to be squeezed out. >But playing safe will only tend to accentuate the bias towards WP's >existing >strengths. Do we really want "brilliant prose"? Is that even possible in an Encyclopedia? What would "brillaint prose" look like in the context of an Encyclopedia; do we have any articles which contain examples? I would have thought that "clear and concise" would have been more of the kind of things we are aiming for as regards prose, though I'm not stating that as an adamant point. Jay. From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 9 16:17:15 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:17:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > There is the fact that a specific vote on whether admins could block people > for personal attacks failed to achieve consensus a few months ago (a real > pity, in my opinion). As such, it's dicey ground. (Do you know where I could find the page where this vote took place?) I think something like a 24-hour block for clear outbursts of of personal abuse would be a very sensible policy for Wikipedia to adopt. When users become stressed out enough to lash out at others, it's probably as good for them as for the project to take a time-out. -- Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 16:26:29 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:26:29 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: Message-ID: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> Jay JG wrote > Do we really want "brilliant prose"? Used to. > Is that even possible in an > Encyclopedia? What would "brillaint prose" look like in the context of an > Encyclopedia; do we have any articles which contain examples? I would have > thought that "clear and concise" would have been more of the kind of things > we are aiming for as regards prose, though I'm not stating that as an > adamant point. I don't want brilliant prose in an article on heart disease. Decent writing always helps popular science (cf. New Scientist). In current affairs it is far from useless (cf. The Economist); we can't use the Economist's style book unrevised, but there is a lot in having it crisp and articulate. ''Clear and concise" is more the idealised civil servant's style - pretty good if the point is to get succinct versions of arguments written without distortion. I think most of the style books make points about keeping vitality in the prose, not just conforming to 'rules'. Charles From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:35:54 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 09:35:54 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <001e01c524bc$f1fcb810$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <001e01c524bc$f1fcb810$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <422F25EA.9040505@sprintmail.com> Charles Matthews wrote: >I don't want to find out. Others please support me, in saying that Ed is >out of line here. Policy can't just be made on the hoof, any more. The >scare quotes round "authorized" tell me just about all I need to know. >Civility is a big plus on WP, but enforcement of this kind goes way beyond >what I would accept. Out of hand bans for vandalism, yes. > > I support you. Speaking from personal experience, I find my admin privileges largely useless. Outright vandalism is quite rare, and good civility constrains me from protecting pages, blocking users, and doing outright reverts almost always. I suspect this is as it should be. It is very unfortunate that for some people, losing control amounts to inexcusable outbursts like that. But escalating the situation is unlikely to to any good, and definitely constitutes an abuse of force. Tom Haws From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 16:29:21 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:29:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Peter in Canberra wrote: >I've just copped the latest in a long line of personal attacks from >one particular editor who stands out for his attitude in a community >where tolerance and restraint is generally the norm. I don't think his >comments are justified, but even if they were, I would still take >exception to the language: > >"Well I'm upset (really pissed off actually) by your deliberate >obfuscation and timewasting, your dishonesty, your malicious >misrepresentation of other people arguments, your rampant vanity and >egotism and your general obnoxious fuckwittedness, so get used to it." >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia#The_real_issue > >To my mind this is no way to conduct any sort of productive debate, >and as a rather new editor I wonder just how much this sort of thing >is tolerated. I think this is a great example of a situation where conflicts over content intersect with personal attacks. Since we have been talking about both, I think that it is worth talking about how the various views expressed by different people on the list-serve might apply to this case. For starts, I will present two extreme approaches -- but I hope others will suggest more nuanced approaches. I am not suggesting we of the list-serve formally intervene in this situation. I am suggesting that if we consider different hypothetical interventions, it might help us arrive at a clearer understanding of current policy, or might suggest new policies. First approach: No personal attacks, period. In this particular exchange, Peter in Canberra (Skyring) has not said anything that would constitute a personal attack. If this went to arbitration, Adam Carr would certainly be sanctioned in some way, and Skyring might not be sanctioned at all. Second approach: We rely on the community to police the quality of the contents of articles. Adam Carr tried to, in a reasonable fashion: From the article's talk page: >Skyring has repeatedly accused me of deliberately misquoting the >Constitution. Here is section 2 of the Constitution, cut-and-pasted from >the Parliamentary website >(http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/chapter1.htm). >2. A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her Majesty's >representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise in the >Commonwealth during the Queen's pleasure, but subject to this >Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be >pleased to assign to him. >Now: does Skyring dispute that this is indeed the text of the >Constitution? Does he deny that the Constitution says that (a) the Queen >appoints the Governor-General and (b) the Governor-General is the Queen's >representative? Given these two things, in what capacity does the Queen >appoint the GG? And in what capacity is the Queen represented by the GG? >If Skyring wants to deny that it is the capacity of head of state, he has >to tell us what other capacity could it possibly be. Adam 01:11, 9 Mar >2005 (UTC) Skyring's response is, in my opinion, bizarre: >You stated that the Constitution says something it clearly does not. You >said "the fact is that the Constitution says the GG is the Queen's >representative". This is not a fact. It is incorrect. (Skyring) Now, I do not consider myself partisan in this matter -- but yesterday I did some checking and provided the list-serve with evidence that suggest that this claim, "the fact is the constitution says the CG is the Queen's representative." Skyring did not respond to me; TBSDY did respond, but only to confirm my sense that Australia is not a republic. Now, it seems to me that at this juncture the discussion can no longer be reasonable. Adam Carr is not doing original research. He is providing verifiable information and providing his source, the Australian constitution. Skyring is not claiming that Adam Carr has violated our NPOV policy, nor our NOR, verifiability, or cite sources policies. Skyring is simply saying that Adam Carr is wrong -- immediately after Adam Carr provided evidence. Michael Snow suggested (at this point) that Adam Carr is giving a reasonable paraphrase of the constitution; Skyring repeats that the Australian constitution does not say what Adam Carr says it says. So there are two ways to understand Skyring's position: either evidence does not matter, or paraphrasing is impermissible. I believe that either one of these positions does damage to the quality of Wikipedia articles. Skyring won't budge, though. So what is Adam Carr to do now? From my own experience, mediation would not help -- when CheeseDream and I went into mediation, the mediator made it clear that he wasn't judging content but rather trying to help us work together. But the problem here is not that Adam Carr and Skyring cannot get along or work together harmoniously -- that this may appear to be the case is only a side-effect of the real problem: Skyring is a problem editor who disregards evidence and flat-out rejects the edits of an editor who is following all of our policies. Adam Carr becomes hostile: >"SHALL BE HER MAJESTY'S REPRESENTATIVE" WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? CAN'T >YOU UNDERSTAND PLAIN ENGLISH? Adam 02:02, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) Now, here is a crucial moment in the argument: Skyring does not respond with anything that would be considered a "personal attack." But he continues to misconstrue Adam's position, and continues to insist on absurd principles: >Calm down, Adam. Please. You misquoted the constitution, as I pointed out >above. I've quoted the exact words you used. In the same breath you >accused me of circular arguments, and I asked you to provide examples, >none of which have been provided. However, none of this seems to be >getting us anywhere. Others have provided useful directions on how to >proceed, and frankly I think you should either keep out of the discussion >for a while or try to aim for a more professional manner. Skyring 03:18, 9 >Mar 2005 (UTC) And it is at this point that Adam makes the personal attack of which Skyring complains. So here is the second -- admittedly extreme -- position: (1) from the perspective of "content," what Skyring has written is as offensive, if not more offensive (since the whole point of Wikipedia is to develop a high-quality encyclopedia) than any personal attack, and (2) what appears to be a personal attack on the part of Adam Carr is simply an example of how members of the community, acting in their anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the quality of articles after reasonable, polite efforts have failed. I believe that both positions I have hypothesized are extreme. I hope members of the list-serve can present alternatives, and discuss this case as a means for clarifying our ideas about policies and procedures. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 16:49:31 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:49:31 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <422F291B.5060706@thingy.apana.org.au> Charles Matthews wrote: > Jay JG wrote >>Do we really want "brilliant prose"? > Used to. Specifically, [[Wikipedia:Brilliant prose]] was the old name for what is now [[Wikipedia:Featured articles]]. >>Is that even possible in an >>Encyclopedia? What would "brillaint prose" look like in the context of an >>Encyclopedia; do we have any articles which contain examples? I would have >>thought that "clear and concise" would have been more of the kind of things >>we are aiming for as regards prose, though I'm not stating that as an >>adamant point. > I don't want brilliant prose in an article on heart disease. Decent writing > always helps popular science (cf. New Scientist). I think "clear and concise" probably constitutes "brilliant prose" for our purposes. > In current affairs it is > far from useless (cf. The Economist); we can't use the Economist's style > book unrevised, but there is a lot in having it crisp and articulate. I'm a BIG fan of The Economist's incredibly tight writing style, though they happily put in POVs and unsupported evaluations (though that's fine for what they do rather than what we do). I consciously emulate their tightness when writing for Wikipedia. > ''Clear and concise" is more the idealised civil servant's style - pretty > good if the point is to get succinct versions of arguments written without > distortion. Yep. > I think most of the style books make points about keeping vitality in the > prose, not just conforming to 'rules'. Indeed. Excellence in writing should not be a focal point for suspicion. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:00:42 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:00:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> Matt R wrote: > --- David Gerard wrote: >>There is the fact that a specific vote on whether admins could block people >>for personal attacks failed to achieve consensus a few months ago (a real >>pity, in my opinion). As such, it's dicey ground. > (Do you know where I could find the page where this vote took place?) [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks (old)]] has the vote. The vote came out 36 for, 26 against, 5 neutral - simple majority, but not enough of one to indicate consensus. As far as I can tell, the objections are that it's too subjective. The instructive recent case of Skyring versus Adam Carr (a coupla messages ago) shows one obvious hole: Skyring belittling or ignoring all attempts at reason until the editor attempting to reason with him blows his top at the intransigent POV-pusher. (In recent cases like this, the ArbCom has tended to admonish to caution the editor in question not to respond in kind even to severe provocation, rather than giving blocks per se, and the provocative editor has typically been strongly sanctioned. Note however the AC uses precedent as a guide, not a bounding.) - d. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:03:40 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:03:40 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <422F2C6C.4030403@sprintmail.com> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > I believe that both positions I have hypothesized are extreme. I hope > members of the list-serve can present alternatives, and discuss this > case as a means for clarifying our ideas about policies and procedures. > Steve, Your "First aproach: No personal attacks, period" is both extreme and correct. That in it's pure form must always be our policy. Yesterday, for example, I was guilty of saying at [[Talk:Human]], "It is clear that the editors currently present are not interested in talking first and shooting later." My personal attack required an apology. If Adam Carr had believed in the primacy of that rule, he would have directed his frustration toward finding acceptable solutions instead of taking the easy and ineffective way out of blowing his top at Peter in Canberra (Skyring). He needed to search deeper for solutions to the Peter Problem. Tom Haws From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 17:06:17 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:06:17 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards References: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> <422F291B.5060706@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <006001c524ca$50127db0$9e7c0450@Galasien> David Gerard wrote > I'm a BIG fan of The Economist's incredibly tight writing style, though they > happily put in POVs and unsupported evaluations (though that's fine for what > they do rather than what we do). Me too. The content can be rubbish (classic example: surrogate motherhood treated effectively as free market in babies). Charles From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 17:08:00 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:08:00 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> David Gerard said: > > [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks (old)]] has the vote. The > vote came out 36 for, 26 against, 5 neutral - simple majority, but not > enough of one to indicate consensus. As far as I can tell, the > objections are that it's too subjective. > > The instructive recent case of Skyring versus Adam Carr (a coupla > messages ago) shows one obvious hole: Skyring belittling or ignoring > all attempts at reason until the editor attempting to reason with him > blows his top at the intransigent POV-pusher. This is the killer for me. Some people have lower boiling points than others and can easily be provoked. Enforcing "No personal attacks" by blocking throws those, relatively vulnerable people into the firing line of the subtler trolls. I support "Remove personal attacks" as a reasonable way of dealing with personal attacks. Although it's equally subjective, it's open and accountable and throws the onus on the person perceiving a personal attack while making it hard for such attacks to derail discussion. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 17:12:55 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:12:55 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <006b01c524cb$3d9abfc0$9e7c0450@Galasien> David Gerard wrote > The instructive recent case of Skyring versus Adam Carr (a coupla messages > ago) shows one obvious hole [ ... ] Indeed. Why dice with death and take the moral low ground in revert wars, when there is the more satisfying approach of the uber-troll: get yourself personally-attacked on the Talk page, and get your opponent (if briefly) thrown off the wiki? Chales From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:15:09 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:15:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >From: "steven l. rubenstein" > >So what is Adam Carr to do now? From my own experience, mediation would >not help -- when CheeseDream and I went into mediation, the mediator made >it clear that he wasn't judging content but rather trying to help us work >together. That was actually something I noted about the attempted mediation between Cheese Dreams and Steven, and found bizarre. The mediator was quite clear that article accuracy was not a preferred goal; far more important was that everyone compromised. Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said Jesus was born in 100 BCE, and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the mediator would have insisted that they should both compromise and say that Jesus was born in 52 BCE. Jay. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:14:03 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:14:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Some people have lower boiling points than >others and can easily be provoked. > This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. We can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the policy is clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." Tom Haws From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 17:16:06 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 09:16:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb050309080661511b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050309171606.47868.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Theresa Knott wrote: > What do we do in the meantime if RickK loses it and > decides to leave? > We can't ignore him. SDo let's block him instead. Well, I'm not going to do that over this stupid troll, unless he does something really outrageous. All I've done up to this point is to point out his behavior. RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 9 17:17:07 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:17:07 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <030920051717.12946.422F2F92000EC8030000329222058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- Steven I. Rubinstein wrote: > Michael Snow suggested (at this point) that Adam Carr is giving a > reasonable paraphrase of the constitution; Skyring repeats that the > Australian constitution does not say what Adam Carr says it says. So there > are two ways to understand Skyring's position: either evidence does not > matter, or paraphrasing is impermissible. I believe that either one of > these positions does damage to the quality of Wikipedia articles. Skyring > won't budge, though. In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, new words, or reason. Yes, we have a lot of these on wikipedia, but it required a community that was tolerant. I am currently in a dispute with an editor, who wants to include a quite logical (and I think arguably correct) refutation of a statement that an outside authority has made. I don't think it belongs in there because it refutes a minor peripheral point, so it is making more of a credibility attack upon the outside source, than contributing to the substance of the article. Frankly, I think I can easily "win" this editing conflict, by insisting on the NOR standards, but I have not pressed this point, because that is not my actual objection to text. In the case at hand, there is no excuse for the personal attacks. However, the source of their problem is that they have not agreed to a definition of terms and then applied them to the situation. A possible reason for that, is that the NOR clause would preclude them from applying their agreed upon definitions and including them in the article. Probably both sides are quite right as long as they keep their own definitions in mind, and they know this for a fact, so why should they give an inch, because it becomes a matter of principle. Austrailia is a "republic", to the extent that American overtones of republic have some validity in Austrailia, and is NOT a republic in the predominate (but not exclusive) non-technical sense in which it is used in Austrailia. Of course in an encyclopedia, where one is trying to be precise, it is natural to prefer the more technical sense, because words are being chosen for the information or distinctions they provide. -- Silverback From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 9 17:18:46 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 09:18:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309171846.48663.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tom Haws wrote: >Speaking from personal experience, I > find my admin > privileges largely useless. Outright vandalism is > quite rare Are you reading the same Wikipedia that I am? RickK __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 17:22:08 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:22:08 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Tom Haws said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > >>Some people have lower boiling points than >>others and can easily be provoked. >> > This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. We > can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the policy is > clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." > Absolutely. I completely agree with this. However I was pointing out that an undesired side-effect of enforcing "no personal attacks" with blocking could be, paradoxically, to give some people an incentive to provoke _more_ personal attacks. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:24:48 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:24:48 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422F3160.80503@sprintmail.com> JAY JG wrote: > Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said Jesus was born in 100 > BCE, and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the mediator would have > insisted that they should both compromise and say that Jesus was born > in 52 BCE. > More often than not, a root of the problem is the POV-pusher (and often the valiant defender) has not read [[WP:NPOV]] at all, or maybe has only read it quickly once. In your example above, both editors could be sentenced to read it twice and do a report on it. Then they might com up with the singularly NPOV idea that P-ists says P and Q-ists say Q. These disputes are usually not all that difficult; the combatants simply lack a common framework, and they spend all their time digging in against each other instead of finding common ground. Adam Carr in this case could have done much better at winning over Peter as a true Wikipedia ally. Tom Haws From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:27:21 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:27:21 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <422F31F9.6010903@sprintmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: >I was pointing out that an undesired side-effect of enforcing "no >personal attacks" with blocking could be, paradoxically, to give some >people an incentive to provoke _more_ personal attacks. > 100% correct, Tony. Enforcement is a poor bandaid for bad diplomacy (hmm, international implications here?) From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 17:36:30 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:36:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Charles Matthews wrote: >Indeed. Why dice with death and take the moral low ground in revert wars, >when there is the more satisfying approach of the uber-troll: get yourself >personally-attacked on the Talk page, and get your opponent (if briefly) >thrown off the wiki? Perhaps Charles is being facetious. But if this is a serious position that anyone holds, I must express my profound opposition to this approach. I do not believe that those editors who care about the quality of the content of articles -- that is, all editors -- should have to wait, or stoop to manipulating another editor, until the other editor makes a personal attack, to then get that editor thrown off Wikipedia. We should not be relying on the no personal attack policy as a way of enforcing quality content. If an editor is obstructing improvement of the article, or is damaging the article, we need an effective mechanism to deal with that problem, directly. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 17:48:37 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:48:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123731.03296600@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Silverback wrote: >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, >new words, or reason. This is plain wrong. Paraphrasing is not "research" so it cannot be "original research." There is nothing in the NOR policy that requires this position, and I am pretty confident that most editors do not consider paraphrasing to violate NOR policy. Either you really misunderstand the NOR policy, or you have some agenda for misrepresenting it. I am not judging your motives because whatever they are, I cannot understand them. But whatever your motives, this statement is false, unnecessary, and unhelpful. This claim is also wrong: >Probably both sides are quite right as long as they keep their own >definitions in mind, and they know this for a fact, so why should they >give an inch, because it becomes a matter of principle. Austrailia is a >"republic", to the extent that American overtones of republic have some >validity in Austrailia, and is NOT a republic in the predominate (but not >exclusive) non-technical sense in which it is used in Austrailia Here you actually do violate NOR as well as NPOV. Articles are simply not the place for advocating our own views. So it doesn't matter how the two sides personally, subjectively, define their terms, and it is not for us to invent an argument for why Australia is or is not a republic. Period. The only way to handle this is to say something like this (consider this a model, not a real proposal): Australian nationals, politicians, and political theorists are divided over the nature of the Australian state. The dominant view, held by a, b, and c, is that Australia is an "X," defining X as ... A major competing view, held by d, e, and f, is that Australia is a "Y," defining Y as ... Some (such as g and h) argue that Australia is an "X" but they define X as ... Some (such as i and j) argue that Australia is a "Y," but define Y as ... And of course have verifiable sources for each claim ("Australia is X" and "X is ...") Steve Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 9 17:57:38 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:57:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050309175738.13025.qmail@web25002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- "steven l. rubenstein" wrote: > ...2) what appears to be a personal attack on the part of Adam Carr > is simply an example of how members of the community, acting in their > anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the quality of articles > after reasonable, polite efforts have failed. (..merging two posts...) > If an editor is obstructing improvement of the article, or is damaging the > article, we need an effective mechanism to deal with that problem, directly. Would none of the measures in [[Wikipedia:Resolving disputes]] have been appropriate in this instance? For example, quantifying consensus via a vote, requesting sanctions against a user who flouts consensus...etc. I'm not convinced Adam Carr was placed in a situation where he had no other choice but to be rude in order to maintain the quality of the article. In any case, becoming abusive is a completely ineffectual tactic in these situations -- it's only likely to exacerbate the situation. Moreover, for third parties, it muddies the waters about who is in the "right" in a dispute: at first glance, it's very tempting to favour the side of whoever sounds calm, measured and rational, regardless of the substance of the debate itself. --Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 17:57:13 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 10:57:13 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <422F38F9.7010606@sprintmail.com> > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> Indeed. Why dice with death and take the moral low ground in revert >> wars, >> when there is the more satisfying approach of the uber-troll: get >> yourself >> personally-attacked on the Talk page, and get your opponent (if briefly) >> thrown off the wiki? > Charles, as humor this is fine. But the serious sentiment behind it troubles me. Our unambiguous position at Wikipedia is that personal violence against trolls is unacceptable. If editors choose to see this as an unfair advantage for the trolls, that is their choice. If they choose to let it spur them toward greater creativity and diplomacy, that is a better choice. Tom Haws From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 18:07:59 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:07:59 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <030920051717.12946.422F2F92000EC8030000329222058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, >new words, or reason. Why do you think so? I see nothing in the policy which indicates that. Jay. From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Wed Mar 9 18:19:16 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:19:16 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422F3E24.4020000@tiscali.co.uk> David Gerard wrote: > [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy/Personal attacks (old)]] has the vote. The vote > came out 36 for, 26 against, 5 neutral - simple majority, but not enough of > one to indicate consensus. As far as I can tell, the objections are that > it's too subjective. > > The instructive recent case of Skyring versus Adam Carr (a coupla messages > ago) shows one obvious hole: Skyring belittling or ignoring all attempts at > reason until the editor attempting to reason with him blows his top at the > intransigent POV-pusher. I have seen editors respond to "I think you are wrong here" with allegations of a "virulent and aggressive personal attack". At it's most extreme, it's obviously ignored. But, in a couple of cases, I've seen sensible, good editors fall into this sort of misinterpretation. Considering how subjective a straightforward rule like the 3RR turned out to be, I'm a bit dubious about this one actually /reducing/ the amount of conflict around. --sannse From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Wed Mar 9 17:43:57 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:43:57 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Bad Adam. Don't bite the fuckwits. (There. Situation resolved.) -Snowspinner From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 18:26:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:26:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F3160.80503@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Tom Haws > >JAY JG wrote: > >>Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said Jesus was born in 100 BCE, >>and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the mediator would have insisted >>that they should both compromise and say that Jesus was born in 52 BCE. >> >More often than not, a root of the problem is the POV-pusher (and often the >valiant defender) has not read [[WP:NPOV]] at all, or maybe has only read >it quickly once. In your example above, both editors could be sentenced to >read it twice and do a report on it. Then they might com up with the >singularly NPOV idea that P-ists says P and Q-ists say Q. Well, in this case the problem was compounded by the fact that Cheese Dreams refused to bring any sources for her claims, and the arbitrator didn't think that sources were important anyway, just compromise. >These disputes are usually not all that difficult; the combatants simply >lack a common framework, and they spend all their time digging in against >each other instead of finding common ground. Adam Carr in this case could >have done much better at winning over Peter as a true Wikipedia ally. Maybe in that case, maybe not. Armchair quarterbacks have an easy time hypothetically solving other people's disputes. However, in the real Wikipedia (the one, by the way, which is also inundated by vandals), there are real trolls who are not amenable to any sort of reason. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 18:38:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:38:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123731.03296600@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >From: "steven l. rubenstein" > >Silverback wrote: > >>In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, >>new words, or reason. > >This is plain wrong. Paraphrasing is not "research" so it cannot be >"original research." There is nothing in the NOR policy that requires this >position, and I am pretty confident that most editors do not consider >paraphrasing to violate NOR policy. > >Either you really misunderstand the NOR policy, or you have some agenda for >misrepresenting it. I am not judging your motives because whatever they >are, I cannot understand them. But whatever your motives, this statement >is false, unnecessary, and unhelpful. Exactly so. Jay. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 9 18:44:19 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:44:19 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422F4403.6080609@sprintmail.com> JAY JG wrote: > Maybe in that case, maybe not. Armchair quarterbacks have an easy > time hypothetically solving other people's disputes. However, in the > real Wikipedia (the one, by the way, which is also inundated by > vandals), there are real trolls who are not amenable to any sort of > reason. > "Armchair quarterbacks": Don't forget we ALL are in the trenches. I don't know of any armchair quarterbacks here. "Real Trolls": Of course you are right. Surgery is sometimes required (hopefully with attendant anesthesia). Tom Haws From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 9 19:21:32 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:21:32 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <030920051921.19851.422F4CBB000BBFCD00004D8B22058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, > >new words, or reason. > > This is plain wrong. Paraphrasing is not "research" so it cannot be > "original research." There is nothing in the NOR policy that requires this > position, and I am pretty confident that most editors do not consider > paraphrasing to violate NOR policy. People paraphrase for a reason, the paraphrase most likely has some difference in meaning or more likely emphasis. I agree with your solution of presenting both sides below. But I have seen people insist that such nuances, compromises, disputes and caveats are not appropriate for introductions, which is probably the real estate most of the fights are over. I do not agree with you that because one has taken a position it is not NPOV. In the case at hand, it would be interesting to see which side in the dispute can best present the case for both sides and demonstrate that the position they take is an informed one. I bet the text itself, would be a good compromise. -- Silverback > Either you really misunderstand the NOR policy, or you have some agenda for > misrepresenting it. I am not judging your motives because whatever they > are, I cannot understand them. But whatever your motives, this statement > is false, unnecessary, and unhelpful. > > This claim is also wrong: > >Probably both sides are quite right as long as they keep their own > >definitions in mind, and they know this for a fact, so why should they > >give an inch, because it becomes a matter of principle. Austrailia is a > >"republic", to the extent that American overtones of republic have some > >validity in Austrailia, and is NOT a republic in the predominate (but not > >exclusive) non-technical sense in which it is used in Austrailia > > Here you actually do violate NOR as well as NPOV. Articles are simply not > the place for advocating our own views. So it doesn't matter how the two > sides personally, subjectively, define their terms, and it is not for us to > invent an argument for why Australia is or is not a republic. Period. The > only way to handle this is to say something like this (consider this a > model, not a real proposal): > Australian nationals, politicians, and political theorists are divided over > the nature of the Australian state. > The dominant view, held by a, b, and c, is that Australia is an "X," > defining X as ... > A major competing view, held by d, e, and f, is that Australia is a "Y," > defining Y as ... > Some (such as g and h) argue that Australia is an "X" but they define X as ... > Some (such as i and j) argue that Australia is a "Y," but define Y as ... > And of course have verifiable sources for each claim ("Australia is X" and > "X is ...") > > Steve > > > 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 rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 19:14:45 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:14:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309141001.032770d8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Tom Haws wrote: >More often than not, a root of the problem is the POV-pusher (and often >the valiant defender) has not read [[WP:NPOV]] at all, or maybe has only >read it quickly once. Tom, you are missing the point (mine and JAYJG's) This case has nothing to do with the NPOV policy. The issue here (such as it is, it is a hypothetical reenactment) is that I did research and was providing a date held by many historians, and CheeseDreams had done no research. In this hypothetical case, CheeseDreams' claim that Jesus was born 100 BCE is not a legitimate view to which NPOV can apply -- because it is solely her view, and not held by anyone else. My claim is not that Jesus was born 4BCE (because my view of when Jesus was born is as irrelevant as CheeseDreams). My claim is that several historians claim that Jesus was born 4 BCE and I am providing verifiable sources. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 9 19:36:49 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 19:36:49 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <030920051936.27414.422F5051000BB40700006B1622058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, > >new words, or reason. > > Why do you think so? I see nothing in the policy which indicates that. I agree, I said "in practice". Look how many disputes are over single words or phrases. If you use exacly the same words, then it isn't a paraphrase, if you use different words, it is a paraphrase, but it is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else has used those very same words in subject at hand. -- Silverback From delirium at hackish.org Wed Mar 9 19:54:37 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:54:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422EAC0D.4080308@telus.net> References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> <422E5696.9090804@hackish.org> <422EAC0D.4080308@telus.net> Message-ID: <422F547D.9080504@hackish.org> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Now you open up the question, "What is novel?" I absolutely agree > that we are ill-equipped to judge novel thinking, Too many look at > this from the distorted extremist lenses. If the dozens of sources > that I use for a historical argument are all "peer reviewed" sources > my argument is no longer novel. If we follow the severely restrictive > approach to "original research" that some people are proposing our > encyclopedia would be full of nothing but dumbed-down pap. I suppose I'd define "novel" as "making a substantial claim that hasn't been made before", which is obviously subjective, but I don't think it's possible to make a clear-cut definition. For example, one of the culinary articles (which I forget at the moment) had a section on the etymology of a word that was essentially a reconstruction of the word's history personally done by a Wikipedian, through a combination of primary and secondary sources. That, to me, is original etymological research and not appropriate for first publication in Wikipedia. We instead should cite only published etymologies, such as "the OED claims this, but some other guy in his book _Blah_ claims this other thing." -Mark From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 19:46:46 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:46:46 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <001e01c524bc$f1fcb810$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <001e01c524bc$f1fcb810$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <422F52A6.8000901@telus.net> Charles Matthews wrote: >Ed Poor wrote > > >>I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block >> >> >signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the >rules - such as: >[[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > >There is a policy about removing personal attacks. That there is policy >about 'removing' those doing the attacking is news to me. I wouldn't dream >of using admin powers in this way. > >Ed Poor shoots from hip, once more. Exactly what kind of place would >Wiki-en be if say, 100 of our sysops took this line, on a daily basis? > >I don't want to find out. Others please support me, in saying that Ed is >out of line here. Policy can't just be made on the hoof, any more. The >scare quotes round "authorized" tell me just about all I need to know. >Civility is a big plus on WP, but enforcement of this kind goes way beyond >what I would accept. Out of hand bans for vandalism, yes. > If I were to judge Ed solely by many of the substantive positions that he takes, we should be bitter enemies. :'( Ed does indeed shoot from the hip, but with one big difference. When he realizes that he has made a mistake he is quicker than most to admit it. Yes, Ed was out of line, but so what? I do not support making policy on the hoof, there is already far too much of that. Ed did not do that; he enforced what he believed to be policy, and did his best to undo the damage when he found his mistake. His actions are perfectly understandable when you see the unending parade of shifting policies. Nobody but policy geeks can keep up with it, and policy geeks are notorious for losing sight of project goals. I don't see any need for further action on this. Ed's repentance tells me all I need to know. Unless we take a forgiving attitude towards this kind of error how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves when the tables are turned. Ec From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 20:03:01 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:03:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <030920051921.19851.422F4CBB000BBFCD00004D8B22058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >Sliverback wrote: > >People paraphrase for a reason, the paraphrase most likely has some >difference in meaning or more likely emphasis. People paraphrase for purposes of concision (at least when doing it properly), not to change meaning or emphasis. Jay. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 9 20:11:41 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 20:11:41 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309123200.032761a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <422F38F9.7010606@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <00b101c524e4$367ef300$9e7c0450@Galasien> Tom Haws wrote > > Charles Matthews wrote: > > > >> Indeed. Why dice with death and take the moral low ground in revert > >> wars, > >> when there is the more satisfying approach of the uber-troll: get > >> yourself > >> personally-attacked on the Talk page, and get your opponent (if briefly) > >> thrown off the wiki? > Charles, as humor this is fine. But the serious sentiment behind it > troubles me. Our unambiguous position at Wikipedia is that personal > violence against trolls is unacceptable. Off Wikipedia too, I hope. That was presumably intended as 'personal abuse'. > If editors choose to see this > as an unfair advantage for the trolls, that is their choice. If they > choose to let it spur them toward greater creativity and diplomacy, that > is a better choice. The underlying point is that editors have to take the long term into account. Reverting and being a loudmouth are a kind of territorial behaviour; what we need are people who see clearly that they have to outlast, rather than simply see off, the detrimentals. Charles From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 20:12:10 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:12:10 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <030920051936.27414.422F5051000BB40700006B1622058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From: actionforum at comcast.net > > >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow >paraphrases, > > >new words, or reason. > > > > Why do you think so? I see nothing in the policy which indicates that. > >I agree, I said "in practice". Look how many disputes are over single >words or phrases. If you use >exacly the same words, then it isn't a paraphrase, if you use different >words, it is a paraphrase, but it >is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else has used >those very same >words in subject at hand. Word debates are usually about POV, not Original research. A paraphrase is typically a way of briefly summarizing something lengthy; if done correctly, it exactly reflects the original. Accurate summaries are not considered original research, either in theory or in practice. Jay. From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 20:46:42 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 07:46:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <550ccb820503091246744df96e@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 11:29:21 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Skyring's response is, in my opinion, bizarre: Yikes! It appears that way, doesn't it? If you were to go back through the history of that particular talk page, you would see that Adam at one stage misquoted a line of the Constitution, substituting "is" for "shall be", at the same time using boldface to emphasise his opinion that it was a fact that the Constitution said it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10919875] I corrected him and there was some discussion, Adam quoting the correct text and apparently unable to detect the misquotation I'd pointed out. He then began a new section, divorcing his argument from the misquotation I'd complained about: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10942255] There was some more discussion, and then Adam deleted most of the discussion page. I presume he added it to the existing archive though I have not checked. This edit made his original misquotation vanish from ready gaze: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10949293] I responded, and then Adam made the comments to which I earlier objected: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10950314] In between Adam's generally distracting contributions, it is a pleasure to see the discussion from other editors proceed smoothly towards consensus, where we agreed that stating baldly that Australia is a republic is not going to fly, but that using sourced quotes from the Prime Minister that he considers Australia to be "a crowned republic" is appropriate. -- Peter in Canberra From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 20:50:41 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 20:50:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <030920051936.27414.422F5051000BB40700006B1622058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030920051936.27414.422F5051000BB40700006B1622058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422F61A1.9060004@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>>In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, >>>new words, or reason. >>Why do you think so? I see nothing in the policy which indicates that. > I agree, I said "in practice". Look how many disputes are over single words or phrases. If you use exacly the same words, then it isn't a paraphrase, if you use different words, it is a paraphrase, but it is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else has used those very same words in subject at hand. In practice, this is sorted out with editorial judgement, which ultimately we have to apply. Are you thinking of cases you've been involved in? - d. From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 21:05:26 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:05:26 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:22:08 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway wrote: > Tom Haws said: > > Tony Sidaway wrote: > > > >>Some people have lower boiling points than > >>others and can easily be provoked. > >> > > This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. We > > can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the policy is > > clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." > > > > Absolutely. I completely agree with this. > > However I was pointing out that an undesired side-effect of enforcing "no > personal attacks" with blocking could be, paradoxically, to give some > people an incentive to provoke _more_ personal attacks. You are completely correct, but may I state (again) that this was not my intention. Adam is a good and well-respected editor, and I did not think that he would be blocked. I merely want to be able to explore opposing views without being subjected to personal attacks which are upsetting and distracting. I guess I want him to be aware of the community view on such things, as my own requests for him to moderate his behaviour seem only to enrage him further. I find that Adam was unblocked a few minutes later, and I support this, though I also note that blocks on Adam don't seem to last long in any case. -- Peter in Canberra From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 9 20:57:40 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:57:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309155410.032aebb8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Silverback wrote: >but it is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else >has used those very same words in subject at hand. This is still completely wrong. There is no requirement that someone else has used the very same words. To follow this understanding of NOR would mean that editors can't write anything, but can only edit together collages of quotes -- this makes a mockery of the NOR policy. Paraphrasing does not violate NOR. Period. Your position here will have only one consequence: to make it harder to write good articles. Why would you want to do that? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 9 21:11:23 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:11:23 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1473.192.168.0.9.1110402683.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Skyring said: > On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:22:08 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway > wrote: >> Tom Haws said: >> > Tony Sidaway wrote: >> > >> >>Some people have lower boiling points than >> >>others and can easily be provoked. >> >> >> > This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. >> > We can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the >> > policy is clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." >> > >> >> Absolutely. I completely agree with this. >> >> However I was pointing out that an undesired side-effect of enforcing >> "no personal attacks" with blocking could be, paradoxically, to give >> some people an incentive to provoke _more_ personal attacks. > > You are completely correct, but may I state (again) that this was not > my intention. Absolutely. I want to dissociate myself from any implication that I could be commenting on a concrete instance. I'm just talking about the social dynamics that I think should be taken into consideration in any proposal to enforce "No personal attacks" by blocking. From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 21:12:18 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:12:18 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: <030920051921.19851.422F4CBB000BBFCD00004D8B22058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <550ccb82050309131274ea11e1@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:03:01 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > >Sliverback wrote: > > > >People paraphrase for a reason, the paraphrase most likely has some > >difference in meaning or more likely emphasis. > > People paraphrase for purposes of concision (at least when doing it > properly), not to change meaning or emphasis. In this case Adam changed "shall be" to "is". That changes the meaning and saves only a few letters. Nor did he use any commonly-used form of words to indicate a paraphrase. He used boldface to indicate that he thought it was a factual statement. -- Peter in Canberra From slimvirgin at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 21:34:43 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 14:34:43 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05030913347b857b54@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:05:26 +1100, Skyring wrote: Adam is a good and well-respected editor, and I did not > think that he would be blocked. I merely want to be able to explore > opposing views without being subjected to personal attacks which are > upsetting and distracting. I guess I want him to be aware of the > community view on such things, as my own requests for him to moderate > his behaviour seem only to enrage him further. Peter, your comments cannot be allowed to stand. I can't get inside your head, but judging by your behavior, you goaded Adam into attacking you. He shouldn't have let you, it's true. Nevertheless, as he has to take responsibility for his actions, so should you for yours. You have gone round and round in circles with him and several others, using sophistry in place of argument; attempting to replace fact with your personal opinion; and replying to each question with a question of your own, rather than an answer. You have accused Adam of misrepresenting the constitution, when he was paraphrasing it very precisely. (Your subsequent claim that "shall be" and "is" have different meanings in this context is false, and you have offered no reason for your view.) You've been told repeatedly what the community consensus is on the issue, both here and on the talk page of the article. The page has had to be protected because of the dispute. Slrubenstein and Ta bu shi da yu have both written excellent e-mails to this list refuting or questioning your position, yet you haven't addressed their concerns, offered additional source material, or withdrawn your argument. As for your claim that you didn't wish to see Adam blocked, you have, I believe, reported him twice on the admin noticeboard, and also, I believe, twice on this list. That's an odd way to behave if you harbor no desire to see him blocked. Sarah From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 21:44:58 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 16:44:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Censorship campaign: Ann Coulter article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030913444ec0b527@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 06:32:56 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Whether or not _government_ of Canada sent "troops in Canadian uniform" > to Vietnam is a another thing. There are three points of view on this > sub-point: > > 1. No Canadian troops *whatsoever* were sent "by the Canadian > government" to Vietnam (in any capacity). > > 2. Some Canadian troops were sent by the Canadian government, and the > "served" in Vietnam (but not as combat troops). > > 3. The Canadian sent substantial number of active duty soldiers (with > weapons) to Vietnam, but they never (or hardly ever) shot at North > Vietnamese soldiers or Viet Cong fighters. I agree with your breakdown of the various interpretations on this matter. I also agree that 1) and 4) appear to be false. I don't think 3) is true either, since the only deployment I know of, from web searches anyway, is this ICCS thing (Operation Gallant), which Tony Sidaway has also commented on. But these were non-aligned peacekeepers, which I presume is exclusive from active duty soldiers. To me, Coulter's context unambiguously suggests that the troops provided were provided to fight alongside the Americans. So, as far as I can tell, there seem to have been no troops sent by the Canadian government to Vietnam to assist the American side. To me, this makes Coulter's claim unambiguously wrong. The article should note this. However, it should also mention the possible charitable explanations for her false claim, by mentioning Canadians who enlisted in the U.S. army and the peacekeeping Operation Gallant, or possibly just providing a link to the relevant section of [[Canada and the Vietnam War]], since much of the content would be the same. We should of course also mention how this claim is interpreted by her critics. > Coulter's slant is that she was wrong (but she seems to regard it as a > misstatement more akin to a slip of the tongue or choosing the wrong > word. Yes, that seems to be her take on things. > Moore's slant is that she was dead wrong (probably even *knowingly* > wrong, i.e., lied on purpose; or possibly just ignorantly wrong, i.e., > thought it was the government sending active duty personnel). I do not this incident or any of the facts about Vietnam and Canada suffice to prove that Coulter is or is not a deliberate liar. (My personal conclusion is that, like many claims she has made before, she was simply pulling facts from memory and hoping they were right, or at least not challenged.) Steve From actionforum at comcast.net Wed Mar 9 22:51:28 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 22:51:28 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <030920052251.28327.422F7DF0000ACAB000006EA722058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- Steven L. Rubenstein: > > Silverback wrote: > > >but it is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else > >has used those very same words in subject at hand. > > This is still completely wrong. There is no requirement that someone else > has used the very same words. To follow this understanding of NOR would > mean that editors can't write anything, but can only edit together collages > of quotes -- this makes a mockery of the NOR policy. Paraphrasing does not > violate NOR. Period. Your position here will have only one consequence: > to make it harder to write good articles. Why would you want to do that? I agree if you are referring to the intent of NOR. But in practice people can be very pickyune. BTW, it is not my position, quite the opposite, I oppose the position, it is just my observation of practice. Note that poor skyring, has not been allowed to use the word "republic" himself, but had to find a quote in order to use the word. Unfortunately a local consensus can take owership of a word, select a less common definition of the word, label it POV, and deny its usage. A good example is the word "regime" on the Iraq pages, if you are familiar with that dispute. -- Silverback From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 9 22:52:49 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:52:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "JAY JG" >That was actually something I noted about the attempted mediation between >Cheese Dreams and Steven, and found bizarre. The mediator was quite clear >that article accuracy was not a preferred goal; far more important was that >everyone compromised. Thus, hypothetically, if Cheese Dreams had said >Jesus was born in 100 BCE, and Steven had insisted it was 4 BCE, the >mediator would have insisted that they should both compromise and say that >Jesus was born in 52 BCE. > >Jay. It has come to my attention that in this case I have confused someone who was attempting to act as an unofficial mediator with someone who was acting as an official mediator. I apologize for any insult that might have resulted to the official mediator. Jay. From christopherlarberg at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 23:12:12 2005 From: christopherlarberg at gmail.com (Christopher Larberg) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:12:12 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb0503090317c2830bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <742dfd0605030900285ac725ff@mail.gmail.com> <1bfe3eb0503090317c2830bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7f0966f05030915121b3824aa@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:17:28 +0000, Theresa Knott wrote: > > Most of these are handled using termplates. We could unprotect > [[Template:In the news]] for example and keep the main page protected. > This would stop the main page being moved but still allow non admins > to make edits. Can templates be moved? it's only page moves that are > too difficult to deal with by reverting. > That's how the situation was, until the goatse vandal struck a month or so ago. He inserted the image into one of the templates and used XHTML to force it to display over the whole Main Page. This occurred during a server slowdown, to boot, so the image was in the Squids for almost a half-hour before an admin's revert got through. Afterwards, Raul654 protected all the templates and images linked on the Main Page. --Slowking Man From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 23:34:50 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:34:50 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <030920051556.25585.422F1CC3000BB5A5000063F122069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030920051556.25585.422F1CC3000BB5A5000063F122069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422F881A.3050300@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >-------------- Original message -------------- > > >>csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: >> >> >> >>>The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head >>>of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition >>>of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of >>>his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. >>> >>> >>Before something can be Original research it must first be research. >>Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking. >> >> >It certainly is wishful thinking. If only everyone could have a head of state that did as little as the queen does, what a wonderful world this would be. > >Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the debate becomes more clear. The issue all along has been not whether Austrailia is a republic, but whether it is a democracy. In American english, no it is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally limited form a government, a republic. Therefore, since Austailia is not a democracy, when we translate back to Austrailian english, Austrailia is not a republic. The queen has been irrelevant to the whole issue, just as she is to nearly anything in Austrailia. > >Now if only, the Austrailian's had used the perfectly good word "democracy", the debate could have been conducted in their english. Somehow, despite "republics" duplication of the meaning of "democracy" in their language, it carries so kind of emotional baggage that does not allow it to be viewed objectively, perhaps because of some meaning bleed, from the other form of english. > Strange comments. The best analysis of the situation so far on this mailing list has been Steven's. He is by all appearances an American, and in this issue citizens of non-Commonwealth countries are in a better position to look at the issue dispassionately. Bringing questions of "American English" or "democracy" only serve to create confusion. When it comes to playing in words I'm sure that there are some who consider "Democratic Republics" as anything but democratic. I wonder if I'm just feeding a troll. :-) Ec From skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 23:44:48 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:44:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309155410.032aebb8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309155410.032aebb8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030915447ae0b748@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:57:40 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > > Silverback wrote: > > >but it is banned by NOR, unless a cite can be provided where someone else > >has used those very same words in subject at hand. > > This is still completely wrong. There is no requirement that someone else > has used the very same words. To follow this understanding of NOR would > mean that editors can't write anything, but can only edit together collages > of quotes -- this makes a mockery of the NOR policy. Paraphrasing does not > violate NOR. Period. Your position here will have only one consequence: > to make it harder to write good articles. Why would you want to do that? A paraphrase of a significant document such as the Constitution should be labelled as such using one of the conventional forms. Stating it is a fact that it says something it actually does not is misleading, to be charitable. -- Peter in Canberra From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Mar 9 23:49:30 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:19:30 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030915447ae0b748@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309155410.032aebb8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <550ccb8205030915447ae0b748@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <422F8B8A.8030904@gmail.com> Skyring wrote: >A paraphrase of a significant document such as the Constitution should >be labelled as such using one of the conventional forms. Stating it is >a fact that it says something it actually does not is misleading, to >be charitable. > What's the copyright on the Constitution? Is it on the Wiki anywhere? [[en:User:Alphax]] From dpbsmith at verizon.net Wed Mar 9 23:54:49 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:54:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia running nicely today, at least for me... In-Reply-To: <20050309231222.D4C281AC19B5@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050309231222.D4C281AC19B5@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: Just for the record, and fully aware of the jinx factor... Today Wikipedia seemed to be operating like a sleek, well-oiled machine, with histories, diffs, watchlists, edits, and the Votes for Deletion page loading promptly and smoothly. Comparable to Slashdot, or Yahoo mail, to name a couple of consistently good-performing sites. My thanks to those responsible. -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 9 23:55:34 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 15:55:34 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <422F8CF6.2000403@telus.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Charles Matthews" >> I would agree that Ec overstates the case. The point that seems to need >> making is that none of the content policies actually _makes for_ >> brilliant >> prose, which is one thing we also want. If clumsily or over-insistently >> applied, any reliability-oriented policy can make for lame writing. >> Academic books don't read like Tom Clancy. >> >> So I say that content policies are also subordinate to the goal of >> creating >> awesomeness in the encyclopedia. I like to think in terms of two >> extremes, >> Blandopedia and Gonzopedia. The spaced-out stuff has to be squeezed >> out. >> But playing safe will only tend to accentuate the bias towards WP's >> existing >> strengths. > > Do we really want "brilliant prose"? Is that even possible in an > Encyclopedia? What would "brillaint prose" look like in the context > of an Encyclopedia; do we have any articles which contain examples? I > would have thought that "clear and concise" would have been more of > the kind of things we are aiming for as regards prose, though I'm not > stating that as an adamant point. I'm sure that a lot of authors of software manuals live with the illusion that their writing is clear and concise. Brilliant prose keeps the reader engaged. When a writing needs to deal with opposing views on a subject coherent narative prose is even more important. If each sentence must immediately be followed by a sentence expressing the alternate POV it will be much less readable than if the pros and cons can be expressed in two separate paragraphs. Awkward prose chases readers away. Ec From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 00:09:58 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:09:58 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05030913347b857b54@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030913347b857b54@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205030916097a6942f7@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 14:34:43 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:05:26 +1100, Skyring wrote: > Adam is a good and well-respected editor, and I did not > > think that he would be blocked. I merely want to be able to explore > > opposing views without being subjected to personal attacks which are > > upsetting and distracting. I guess I want him to be aware of the > > community view on such things, as my own requests for him to moderate > > his behaviour seem only to enrage him further. > > Peter, your comments cannot be allowed to stand. I can't get inside > your head, but judging by your behavior, you goaded Adam into > attacking you. He shouldn't have let you, it's true. Judging by Adam's history on Wikipedia, he lets himself be goaded by quite a few of people. You are hardly suggesting that this is an isolated instance, are you? > Nevertheless, as > he has to take responsibility for his actions, so should you for > yours. You have gone round and round in circles with him and several > others, using sophistry in place of argument; attempting to replace > fact with your personal opinion; and replying to each question with a > question of your own, rather than an answer. This is simply not true. I grew tired of responding to Adam's questions when he so often evaded my own. Fair's fair. My opinions are backed up with checkable quotes. I note on checking the discussion page that you have provided just one quote - the text of a link I myself provided. You accurately pointed out that it dated from a time when John Howard was not Prime Minister, so I provided one from when he was. Adam's sources are generally an appeal to popular opinion, some partisan site such as the ARM, or his own individual interpretation of the Constitution, unsupported by expert opinion. > You have accused Adam of > misrepresenting the constitution, when he was paraphrasing it very > precisely. (Your subsequent claim that "shall be" and "is" have > different meanings in this context is false, and you have offered no > reason for your view.) Again, this is simply not true. Several times I have pointed out the similar wording in s101 where "shall be" cannot be equated to "is". By saying that the Constitution says that the Governor-General is the representative of the Queen Adam is downplaying the historical aspect of the text, and my point, expressed several times, is that we have moved on. The Governor-General is no longer quite the representative of the Queen and her government that he was at Federation. The role in this respect has diminished and his role as representative of the people rather than the government has increased. > You've been told repeatedly what the community > consensus is on the issue, both here and on the talk page of the > article. The page has had to be protected because of the dispute. > Slrubenstein and Ta bu shi da yu have both written excellent e-mails > to this list refuting or questioning your position, yet you haven't > addressed their concerns, offered additional source material, or > withdrawn your argument. Perhaps they should direct argument on this subject to the discussion page. I am addressing your points here because you seem to insist on it. > > As for your claim that you didn't wish to see Adam blocked, you have, > I believe, reported him twice on the admin noticeboard, and also, I > believe, twice on this list. That's an odd way to behave if you harbor > no desire to see him blocked. I reject your interpretation. I have repeatedly asked Adam to moderate his behaviour and this only served to provoke further abuse, as can readily be seen. By making the issue public my intention was to get others to ask him to calm down. I hope that this has had an effect. I also note that blocks on Adam don't seem to last long, as he can always find a willing admin. -- Peter in Canberra From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 00:16:22 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:16:22 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422F291B.5060706@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> <422F291B.5060706@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <422F91D6.7060403@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> Jay JG wrote > > > In current affairs it is > >> far from useless (cf. The Economist); we can't use the Economist's style >> book unrevised, but there is a lot in having it crisp and articulate. > > I'm a BIG fan of The Economist's incredibly tight writing style, > though they > happily put in POVs and unsupported evaluations (though that's fine > for what > they do rather than what we do). I consciously emulate their tightness > when > writing for Wikipedia. What this proves is that we are talking about two mutually independent characteristics. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 00:37:42 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:37:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <422EADCF.2080202@telus.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <422EADCF.2080202@telus.net> Message-ID: Ray Saintonge wrote: > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > >> The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head >> of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition >> of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of >> his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. > > > Before something can be Original research it must first be research. > Please learn the difference between research and wishful thinking. > > Ec Ouch! TBSDY From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 00:31:24 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 16:31:24 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <006001c524ca$50127db0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <004701c524c4$c0990190$9e7c0450@Galasien> <422F291B.5060706@thingy.apana.org.au> <006001c524ca$50127db0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <422F955C.1000604@telus.net> Charles Matthews wrote: >David Gerard wrote > > >>I'm a BIG fan of The Economist's incredibly tight writing style, though >> >> >they happily put in POVs and unsupported evaluations (though that's fine for > > >what they do rather than what we do). > > > >Me too. The content can be rubbish (classic example: surrogate motherhood >treated effectively as free market in babies). > That sounds like a reasonable position on their part to be criticizing this kind of prostitution. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 00:38:57 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:38:57 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: JAY JG wrote: >> From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" >> >> >> The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head >> of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition >> of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of >> his sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. > > > Nah, it's just "simple deductive reasoning". I can't believe you're > using your POV and extremist interpretation of the No original research > rule to try to disallow simple deductive reasoning from Wikipedia > articles; you might as well be issuing the commandement "Thou shalt not > think." > > Jay. Er... my sarcasm detection mechanism must be on the blink today... is this a serious comment? TBSDY From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 00:55:49 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:55:49 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <550ccb820503091655ceb56c9@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 13:21:22 +1100, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head of > state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition of > what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of his > sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. This is simply not true, and I welcome the opportunity to spit out the words you cram into my mouth. Far from insisting anything, I merely pass on the opinions of constitutional scholars. The view that we have but one head of state is a minority position amongst these folk, and if there is any consensus it is that we have two heads of state, usually expressed as a formal or symbolic head of state in the Queen and an effective or defacto head of state in the Governor-General. TBSDY's interpretation of a source that states that we have two heads of state as meaning that we have but one is one that he really should explain further. For example, Professor George Winterton, one of the scholars I cite, says: "An objective assessment can lead to only one conclusion: Australia's legal or formal head of state is the Queen. The governor-general is the effective or de facto head of state of the Commonwealth, but not of Australia." http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=927 By Australia, Winterton means the Commonwealth and the six State governments, each of which have their own constitution and Governor. Naturally, the Governor-General has no role in the government of a State. Professor Winterton says we have how many heads of state? A. None B. One C. Two -- Peter in Canberra From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:04:52 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:04:52 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <030920051556.25585.422F1CC3000BB5A5000063F122069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030920051556.25585.422F1CC3000BB5A5000063F122069997359B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > -------------- Original message -------------- > >> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: >> >> >>> The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our >>> head of state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the >>> definition of what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I >>> have read some of his sources, and none of them state what he >>> thinks they say. >> >> Before something can be Original research it must first be >> research. Please learn the difference between research and wishful >> thinking. > > > It certainly is wishful thinking. If only everyone could have a head > of state that did as little as the queen does, what a wonderful > world this would be. > > Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the > debate becomes more clear. The issue all along has been not whether > Austrailia is a republic, but whether it is a democracy. In > American english, no it is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally > limited form a government, a republic. Therefore, since Austailia is > not a democracy, when we translate back to Austrailian english, > Austrailia is not a republic. The queen has been irrelevant to the > whole issue, just as she is to nearly anything in Austrailia. > > Now if only, the Austrailian's had used the perfectly good word > "democracy", the debate could have been conducted in their english. > Somehow, despite "republics" duplication of the meaning of > "democracy" in their language, it carries so kind of emotional > baggage that does not allow it to be viewed objectively, perhaps > because of some meaning bleed, from the other form of english. > > -- Silverback Sorry... I'm totally confused. We have a constitution, we elect our government (the populace elects them), in fact we MUST elect our government as this is compulsory and we have equality before the law and due process under the rule of law! So in what way are we *not* a democracy? Is there some weird American definition of democracy I'm not aware of? May I suggest looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#.22Democracy.22_versus_.22republic.22 and if necessary update it? TBSDY From stephen.forrest at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 01:08:39 2005 From: stephen.forrest at gmail.com (Stephen Forrest) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 20:08:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503091655ceb56c9@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050308184310.031d63a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <550ccb820503091655ceb56c9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ea1ace505030917081c3f0713@mail.gmail.com> Could you please leave this incredibly tedious discussion on the technical interpretation of Australia's constitution to the appropriate talk page? Anyone who cares enough one way or the other can be trusted to go there. I know I've been guilty of posting to this thread, simply because I didn't consider the issue controversial. But for whatever reason, it continues to go on. It shouldn't, not here. Steve From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:13:44 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:13:44 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050309113759.68272.qmail@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309113759.68272.qmail@web31315.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Recycling Troll wrote: > Well, the case that you're making seems to be that > admins are never wrong, it is an afront to check their > edits, and the important thing is to have 'friends', > presumably, who protect you from the rules. > > If you don't like a peer review process, then a > collaborative encyclopedia seems like the wrong > project for you. However hard you try to avoid the > point, the fact is that checking other people's edits > is a GOOD THING, not stalking. > > The Recycling Troll > I have no idea what you are doing as I haven't looked into your editing very carefully, but I DO know that I haven't seen an RFC filed by you on any admins. If you have a problem with what they are doing there are two ways of discussing it: * [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard]]. I set this up last year for discussion amongst admins about admin duties, but anyone is free to edit here. If you have an informal complaint or question about admining decisions, this is the place to ask. * [[WP:RFC]]. If you have serious issues against admins, you should file them under this article in the admin section. This will be commented on thoroughly and if necessary something will be done about the admin. Mind you, if you make a friviolous RFC, you'll be pretty quickly shot down. I wouldn't advise you use this feature lightly. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that we have many thousands of reasonable editors on Wikipedia, none of whom seem to be having major problems that required the use of the block feature. That you did suggests to me that you need to modify the way you edit on Wikipedia. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:19:05 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:19:05 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <422EBC44.2090304@telus.net> <742dfd0605030901504adb2d80@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: geni wrote: >>One step towards freeing up the main page would be offering admins the >>intermediate step of move-protection. > > > > Well there certianly is a tick box for it in the protection section. I > don't know if it works though. If it does the sandbox is protected > against page moves. > It does. I vaguely remember that someone tested this when I was on IRC, but I've tried to forget that little incident as I got into an argument (and lost) with a developer. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:32:13 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:32:13 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: New policy In-Reply-To: <20050309105529.99416.qmail@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20050309105529.99416.qmail@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: How did you go about "scutinizing" their behaviour? TBSDY Recycling Troll wrote: > I imagine that the users who have blocked me for this, > on multiple occasions think this. > The Recycling Troll > > --- "csherlock at ljh.com.au" > wrote: > >>Allow me be the first to call you on this one: which >>users think this? >>Please point to specific comments. >> >>Thanks. >>TBSDY >> >>Recycling Troll wrote: >> >>>Some users believe that we should have a new >> >>policy of >> >>>blocking users if they try to scrutinize the >> >>actions >> >>>of admins. I would encourage these people to try >> >>to >> >>>create new policy based on these ideas, rather >> >>than >> >>>blatantly abusing current rules, which do not >> >>support >> >>>this notion. >>>The Recycling Troll From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:33:31 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:33:31 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Poor, Edmund W wrote: > I gave Adam Carr a 15-hour block (for abusive language). > > But then I read Fred Bauder's remark that: > * We do not provide for automatic blocking or banning of persons who > make personal attacks. > So once again I hereby "place myself on report". > I had thought that any of the 415 admins, having the "ability" to block > signed-in users, were "authorized" to use that ability to enforce the > rules - such as: > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > If I'm wrong, then I hope the first thing the arbcom will do is unblock > Adam Carr. In fact, if I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong, than I guess ANY ONE of the > 415 admins will reverse the block. > Hmm. This is interesting. Let's see what happens. > Uncle Ed I have done it myself on a totally unreasonable editor. In this case there should have been an RFC, I feel. Please consider the circumstances of this case. Incidently, I don't condone the language that Adam used. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:46:07 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:46:07 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb820503091246744df96e@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050309105352.0303efb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <550ccb820503091246744df96e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: [snip] > In between Adam's generally distracting contributions, it is a > pleasure to see the discussion from other editors proceed smoothly > towards consensus, where we agreed that stating baldly that Australia > is a republic is not going to fly, but that using sourced quotes from > the Prime Minister that he considers Australia to be "a crowned > republic" is appropriate. OK, I'll admit the matter needed some further clarifying. It has been handled admirably in the current revision... I hope this little storm in a teacup is satisfactorally over :) TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 01:47:47 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:47:47 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: Tom Haws wrote: > Tony Sidaway wrote: > >> Some people have lower boiling points than >> others and can easily be provoked. >> > This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. We > can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the policy is > clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." > > Tom Haws 100% agreed. I don't want someone who thinks I'm a troll making a discussion devolve into a personal attack when I argue a point forcefully. We get nowhere when this happens. TBSDY From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 02:39:22 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 02:39:22 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <031020050239.25559.422FB35A00011382000063D722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > Sorry... I'm totally confused. We have a constitution, we elect our > government (the populace elects them), in fact we MUST elect our > government as this is compulsory and we have equality before the law and > due process under the rule of law! So in what way are we *not* a democracy? > > Is there some weird American definition of democracy I'm not aware of? > May I suggest looking at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#.22Democracy.22_versus_.22republic.22 > and if necessary update it? Sorry, I was under the impression that you did not consider Austrailia a republic, and that republic meant "democracy" in Austrailian english. It was the discussions on [[Austrailia]] and the far more substantial article on [[republicanism]] that gave me this impression. The short blurb you point to on in the Democracy article, says the head of state must be elected. This appears at odds with the republicanism article which states only that he must serve a limited term, but also talks about many other issues, including the sovereignty lying with the people. Now I have heard people argue that a representative democracy is not a democracy, but I don't take that position. -- Silverback From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Thu Mar 10 02:53:50 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 20:53:50 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <52d837db5fdc5c54e982e2a1928c5b80@sbcglobal.net> I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. -Snowspinner On Mar 9, 2005, at 7:47 PM, csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Tom Haws wrote: >> Tony Sidaway wrote: >>> Some people have lower boiling points than >>> others and can easily be provoked. >>> >> This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. >> We can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the >> policy is clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." >> Tom Haws > > 100% agreed. I don't want someone who thinks I'm a troll making a > discussion devolve into a personal attack when I argue a point > forcefully. We get nowhere when this happens. > > TBSDY > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 02:59:40 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 02:59:40 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors Message-ID: <031020050259.17102.422FB81B000D4D59000042CE22007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal > attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. > > -Snowspinner Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. -- Silverback From cunctator at kband.com Thu Mar 10 03:06:54 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 22:06:54 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <422F52A6.8000901@telus.net> Message-ID: On 3/9/05 2:46 PM, "Ray Saintonge" wrote: > If I were to judge Ed solely by many of the substantive positions that > he takes, we should be bitter enemies. :'( Ed does indeed shoot from the > hip, but with one big difference. When he realizes that he has made a > mistake he is quicker than most to admit it. Yes, Ed was out of line, > but so what? I do not support making policy on the hoof, there is > already far too much of that. Ed did not do that; he enforced what he > believed to be policy, and did his best to undo the damage when he found > his mistake. His actions are perfectly understandable when you see the > unending parade of shifting policies. Nobody but policy geeks can keep > up with it, and policy geeks are notorious for losing sight of project > goals. > > I don't see any need for further action on this. Ed's repentance tells > me all I need to know. Unless we take a forgiving attitude towards this > kind of error how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves when the tables > are turned. > My problem with this response is that Ed has done this repeatedly. 1. He screws up royally by abusing the privileges he's been given 2. He professes that he had no idea that he screwed up 3. After numerous people explain carefully how he screwed up, he apologizes. Contritely. And professes earnestly his deep, abiding good faith and his intention never to screw up again. 4. People cheer Ed's contrition and praise his good works. He is not punished and his privileges are not removed. 5. After a few weeks have passed, Ed has forgotten any mistakes he's ever made and is happy to announce that he's always been successful in any actions he's taken to help Wikipedia. Rinse, wash, repeat. From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 03:13:28 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:13:28 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] POV featured articles? Message-ID: <031020050313.776.422FBB580005D06A0000030822007358349B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> I noticed that an article I considered POV just became a featured article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union I've marked it NPOV, and have made several improvements, including a couple I made before it achieved featured article status. How do articles become featured articles? I've read Wikipedia:Featured articles, and it talks about standards but not how the actual decision about the status is made. I looked at the nomination page, and there were only 5 supporting votes, and zero opposing votes, before mine which I have just added after the fact. I am not criticising those reviewers, they may not be sensitive to some of the selection biases that can occur within articles or may have been unfamiliar with the subject. I am however surprised that an article can become featured without far wider review that hopefully would catch incompleteness or biases such as this. I had seen contributions to featured articles cited as feathers in ones cap, so I thought the review must have been high. Is there a minimum number of supporting votes that are required? -- Silverback From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 03:39:15 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:39:15 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <031020050239.25559.422FB35A00011382000063D722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031020050239.25559.422FB35A00011382000063D722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > ------------- Original message -------------- > > >> Sorry... I'm totally confused. We have a constitution, we elect our >> government (the populace elects them), in fact we MUST elect our >> government as this is compulsory and we have equality before the >> law and due process under the rule of law! So in what way are we >> *not* a democracy? >> >> Is there some weird American definition of democracy I'm not aware >> of? May I suggest looking at >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy#.22Democracy.22_versus_.22republic.22 >> and if necessary update it? > > > Sorry, I was under the impression that you did not consider > Austrailia a republic, and that republic meant "democracy" in > Austrailian english. It was the discussions on [[Austrailia]] and > the far more substantial article on [[republicanism]] that gave me > this impression. The short blurb you point to on in the Democracy > article, says the head of state must be elected. This appears at > odds with the republicanism article which states only that he must > serve a limited term, but also talks about many other issues, > including the sovereignty lying with the people. > > Now I have heard people argue that a representative democracy is not > a democracy, but I don't take that position. > > -- Silverback Ummm... no. Don't know about the talk page of [[Australia]], but most Australians realise that a republic is a democracy, but other forms of govt like, for instance, constitutional monarchies, can also be democracies. After all, we do live in one! AFAICS, the person who argued that point on [[Talk:Australia]] (now in the archives) was talking up a VERY odd viewpoint. This is NOT how Australians view republics! It seems to me that this person was a person who spent quite a bit of time around academics who like to argue strange positions. As Skylaw shows us, sometimes academics argue against general opinion, as http://www.quadrant.org.au/php/archive_details_list.php?article_id=927 shows: "This changed when Prime Minister Paul Keating's policy for the 1996 general election included a proposal to conduct an indicative plebiscite on the question of whether Australia should have an Australian head of state, obviously intending thereby to enquire whether Australians wished to abolish their links with the monarchy and become a republic. The question was based on the premise that our present head of state is the Queen, who is British. Thereupon, several monarchists, led by Sir David Smith, developed the argument that Australia did not need a republic to achieve an Australian head of state; it already had one - the governor-general. Initially, Sir David argued that "we have two heads of state - a symbolic head of state in the Sovereign, and a constitutional head of state in the Governor-General". But, as the republic debate intensified, the Queen's role was increasingly diminished until she was virtually invisible. (Even Australians for Constitutional Monarchy became the "no republic" group, as reflected in the address of their website.) Now the Queen has been relegated to being merely "the sovereign". Monarchists - especially Sir David Smith and David Flint - have pursued this argument unceasingly since 1996, refusing to acknowledge any doubt on the subject. "Since republicans wish to abolish Australia's constitutional links with the monarchy, whether or not the monarch is "head of state", debate over the identity of Australia's head of state is an arid and ultimately irrelevant battle over nomenclature. However, since it forms part of the nationally important republican debate, it is appropriate to enquire as to who actually is our head of state, an issue on which the Constitution is silent." As you can see, academics can argue interesting and novel viewpoints to try to force a point through to win a larger argument. Incidently, I note that the person arguing that we are a republic never signed their comments (it's now in an archive). Many MANY people disagreed with them, and told them he/she was wrong. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 03:44:50 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:44:50 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <52d837db5fdc5c54e982e2a1928c5b80@sbcglobal.net> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <52d837db5fdc5c54e982e2a1928c5b80@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Sorry to play Devil's advocate here, but how can you tell that someone is doing this when they can appeal to [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]]? TBSDY Phil Sandifer wrote: > I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal > attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. > > -Snowspinner > > On Mar 9, 2005, at 7:47 PM, > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > >> Tom Haws wrote: >> >>> Tony Sidaway wrote: >>> >>>> Some people have lower boiling points than >>>> others and can easily be provoked. >>>> >>> This is not to my knowledge a terminal condition or a good excuse. >>> We can all learn to boil slowly and gently. The message of the >>> policy is clear. "Take responsibility for your own temper." >>> Tom Haws >> >> >> 100% agreed. I don't want someone who thinks I'm a troll making a >> discussion devolve into a personal attack when I argue a point >> forcefully. We get nowhere when this happens. >> >> TBSDY From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 04:10:44 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 23:10:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Pulling even with NYT, breaking 100 In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb0503090317c2830bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd06050307220217eb5d20@mail.gmail.com> <7f0966f050308222435a3774c@mail.gmail.com> <742dfd0605030900285ac725ff@mail.gmail.com> <1bfe3eb0503090317c2830bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd0605030920101ec34146@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:17:28 +0000, Theresa Knott wrote: > Most of these are handled using termplates. We could unprotect > [[Template:In the news]] for example and keep the main page protected. > This would stop the main page being moved but still allow non admins > to make edits. Can templates be moved? it's only page moves that are > too difficult to deal with by reverting. As Slowking Man noted, the recent protection of those templates followed a 15-minute-long goatsification of the main page. > > We should find ways to distract and ward off immature kids that do not > > restrict everyone else -- and we will! > > Practical suggestions please! Sure thing. My thought at the time was, that we could use some of the following bits of code: * an 'emergency mode' that redirects all visitors to a static read-only snapshot of the site taken once a day ** or a text-only mode that only produces text * a one-click or option for removing images. [Maybe 2 clicks, with some kind of pop-up confirmation (javascript widget?) that doesn't require rendering another whole WP-page]. That way, even when the site is very slow, evil images can be deleted in under 15 minutes Or, more generally, Code + Image Policy: ++ Add an IMAGE REVIEW step that imposes a time delay (or requires user approval) before any image can be displayed live on a page. Until the delay is over, the image would simply be linked to. http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-February/018903.html -- +sj+ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 04:28:52 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:28:52 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <031020050259.17102.422FB81B000D4D59000042CE22007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031020050259.17102.422FB81B000D4D59000042CE22007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > -------------- Original message -------------- > >>I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal >>attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. >> >>-Snowspinner > > > Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. > > -- Silverback Sorry, I'm a little dense today. Please spell out the point you are trying to make. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 04:35:20 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:35:20 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: POV featured articles? In-Reply-To: <031020050313.776.422FBB580005D06A0000030822007358349B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031020050313.776.422FBB580005D06A0000030822007358349B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > I noticed that an article I considered POV just became a featured article: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union > > I've marked it NPOV, and have made several improvements, including a couple I made before it achieved featured article status. > > How do articles become featured articles? I've read Wikipedia:Featured articles, > and it talks about standards but not how the actual decision about the status is > made. I looked at the nomination page, and there were only 5 supporting votes, > and zero opposing votes, before mine which I have just added after the fact. > > I am not criticising those reviewers, they may not be sensitive to some of the > selection biases that can occur within articles or may have been unfamiliar > with the subject. > > I am however surprised that an article can become featured without far wider > review that hopefully would catch incompleteness or biases such as this. I had > seen contributions to featured articles cited as feathers in ones cap, so I thought > the review must have been high. Is there a minimum number of supporting > votes that are required? > -- Silverback May I suggest you put it on [[WP:FARC]] and then put it on [[WP:PR]]. However, the method that is used is that the article is submitted to [[WP:FAC]], who object or support the nomination. They cannot object with an non-actionable objection like the "topic is too obscure", because noone can actually do anything about such an objectionable. You might also want to see [[Wikipedia:What is a featured article]]. TBSDY From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 10 05:34:04 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Thomas Haws) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 22:34:04 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors Message-ID: <6267118.1110432845197.JavaMail.root@donald.psp.pas.earthlink.net> >> I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal >> attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. >> >> -Snowspinner > >Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. > > -- Silverback In other words, baiting is most definitely not worse than abusing. True that both are bad, but pointing fingers merely is a tactic for deflecting blame. Thou shalt not escalate. - Tom Haws From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 05:59:39 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:59:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310055939.18208.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Matt R wrote: > --- "steven l. rubenstein" > wrote: > > ...2) what appears to be a personal attack on the > part of Adam Carr > > is simply an example of how members of the > community, acting in their > > anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the > quality of articles > > after reasonable, polite efforts have failed. > (..merging two posts...) > > If an editor is obstructing improvement of the > article, or is damaging the > > article, we need an effective mechanism to deal > with that problem, directly. > > Would none of the measures in [[Wikipedia:Resolving > disputes]] have been > appropriate in this instance? For example, > quantifying consensus via a vote, > requesting sanctions against a user who flouts > consensus...etc. I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are afraid to request sanctions against other users because of the perceived (and real) threat that the arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the case. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From redgum46 at lycos.com Thu Mar 10 06:20:44 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:20:44 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. Message-ID: <20050310062044.DE1BACA06F@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> This is really gone out of control. What seems to have very much happened that the wikien-l has become a tool for pushing a false view about Australia and in persecuting a long-time contributor who lost his temper at a person who persistantly pursued that view in defiance of all objective evidence to the contrary (eg quotes from the Australian Constitution). Other tactics seem to include the vexatious use of the no personal attacks rule, and general donning and brandishing of a martyr's cloak that its user was certainly not entitled to wear. This is meant to be an encyclopedia, one that is frequently copied across to other sites. Its facts need to be reliable and objective at all times. This principle has become dormant in this whole affair. What he went through was disgraceful, and if Dr Carr leaves this site in protest, I can hardly blame him. If there is a disagreement on this matter , clearly sources have to be quoted and discussed objectively. This has not happened in this matter. I stand reminded of a certain user named Plautus Satire who would not stop arguing that everything was made of plasma or that the space shuttle was shot down by a laser, regardless of a lack of evidence to back these views. A similar insanity occurred here. Its time it came to an end. Its certainly wasted enough space on wikien-l. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Haws" To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 22:34:04 -0700 (GMT-07:00) > > >> I think it's important to note that baiting users into making > >> personal attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that > >> ensue, however. -Snowspinner > > > > Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. > > > > -- Silverback > > In other words, baiting is most definitely not worse than abusing. > True that both are bad, but pointing fingers merely is a tactic for > deflecting blame. Thou shalt not escalate. > > - Tom Haws > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From redgum46 at lycos.com Thu Mar 10 06:21:54 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:21:54 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <20050310062154.9C156CA06F@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> I agree, Rick, I agree. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:59:39 -0800 (PST) > > > --- Matt R wrote: > > --- "steven l. rubenstein" > > wrote: > > > ...2) what appears to be a personal attack on the > > part of Adam Carr > is simply an example of how members of the > > community, acting in their > > > anarchic, unregulated way, try to protect the > > quality of articles > after reasonable, polite efforts have failed. > > (..merging two posts...) > > > If an editor is obstructing improvement of the > > article, or is damaging the > article, we need an effective mechanism to deal > > with that problem, directly. > > > > Would none of the measures in [[Wikipedia:Resolving > > disputes]] have been > > appropriate in this instance? For example, > > quantifying consensus via a vote, > > requesting sanctions against a user who flouts > > consensus...etc. > > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > afraid to request sanctions against other users > because of the perceived (and real) threat that the > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the > case. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 06:38:09 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 22:38:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <030920051717.12946.422F2F92000EC8030000329222058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <030920051717.12946.422F2F92000EC8030000329222058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <422FEB51.408@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >-------------- Original message -------------- >Steven I. Rubinstein wrote: > > >>Michael Snow suggested (at this point) that Adam Carr is giving a >>reasonable paraphrase of the constitution; Skyring repeats that the >>Australian constitution does not say what Adam Carr says it says. So there >>are two ways to understand Skyring's position: either evidence does not >>matter, or paraphrasing is impermissible. I believe that either one of >>these positions does damage to the quality of Wikipedia articles. Skyring >>won't budge, though. >> >> > >In practice, the no original research clause, does not allow paraphrases, new words, or reason. Yes, we have a lot of these on wikipedia, but it required a community that was tolerant. I am currently in a dispute with an editor, who wants to include a quite logical (and I think arguably correct) refutation of a statement that an outside authority has made. I don't think it belongs in there because it refutes a minor peripheral point, so it is making more of a credibility attack upon the outside source, than contributing to the substance of the article. Frankly, I think I can easily "win" this editing conflict, by insisting on the NOR standards, but I have not pressed this point, because that is not my actual objection to text. > If the alleged original research policy allows no paraphrase, and copyright policy does not allow the actual material, and the cite your sources policy requires that we must say where things come from there's not much left that we can say. If we believe you we're not even allowed to reason. That madness strongly suggests that some aspects of policy need serious rethinking. Even intimating that you can "win" an argument by invoking questionable standards leads one to conclude that winning is more important to you than achieving NPOV, but I'm afraid that you may question my argument because it involves the application of reason. >In the case at hand, there is no excuse for the personal attacks. However, the source of their problem is that they have not agreed to a definition of terms and then applied them to the situation. A possible reason for that, is that the NOR clause would preclude them from applying their agreed upon definitions and including them in the article. Probably both sides are quite right as long as they keep their own definitions in mind, and they know this for a fact, so why should they give an inch, because it becomes a matter of principle. Austrailia is a "republic", to the extent that American overtones of republic have some validity in Austrailia, and is NOT a republic in the predominate (but not exclusive) non-technical sense in which it is used in Austrailia. Of course in an encyclopedia, where one is trying to be precise, it is natural to prefer the more technical sense, because words are being chosen for the information or distinctions they provide. > This is the Alice in Wonderland argument where the words mean exactly what you intend them to mean - nothing more, nothing less. This has nothing to do with the fact that others use words to communicate. So now that it is clear that your proposition that Australia is a republic was meant to be a joke I would do just as well to continue laughing about it like everyone else. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 07:55:45 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:55:45 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards In-Reply-To: <422F547D.9080504@hackish.org> References: <422E19AB.70200@telus.net> <4cc603b05030816094b661143@mail.gmail.com> <422E4D59.7030509@telus.net> <422E5696.9090804@hackish.org> <422EAC0D.4080308@telus.net> <422F547D.9080504@hackish.org> Message-ID: <422FFD81.6050507@telus.net> Delirium wrote: > Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> Now you open up the question, "What is novel?" I absolutely agree >> that we are ill-equipped to judge novel thinking, Too many look at >> this from the distorted extremist lenses. If the dozens of sources >> that I use for a historical argument are all "peer reviewed" sources >> my argument is no longer novel. If we follow the severely >> restrictive approach to "original research" that some people are >> proposing our encyclopedia would be full of nothing but dumbed-down pap. > > I suppose I'd define "novel" as "making a substantial claim that > hasn't been made before", which is obviously subjective, but I don't > think it's possible to make a clear-cut definition. > > For example, one of the culinary articles (which I forget at the > moment) had a section on the etymology of a word that was essentially > a reconstruction of the word's history personally done by a > Wikipedian, through a combination of primary and secondary sources. > That, to me, is original etymological research and not appropriate for > first publication in Wikipedia. We instead should cite only published > etymologies, such as "the OED claims this, but some other guy in his > book _Blah_ claims this other thing." On Wiktionary if someone were to present such etymological research I would be inclined to say, "Well done!" I would usually not consider it as "original" but as a synthesis of existing sources. The OED is a well-respected source, but it's not the only one that I use. More often than not the difference between the OED and other etymologies is a matter of detail and degree, and not of completely contradictory views. I also regard the secondary sources as published etymologies. As yet, I know of no rule that confines us to a set of select orthodox etymologies. I read the term "published etymology" as any published work that deals in whole or in part with etymology no matter when it was published. Ec From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 10 08:23:55 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:23:55 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors References: Message-ID: <003201c5254a$81b41ec0$9e7c0450@Galasien> The Cunctator wrote > Rinse, wash, repeat. Basically I agree. Unless there is some connection of which I am unaware between the double-oh in Ed Poor and that in James Bond 007, Ed is not licensed to do drive-by bannings. He persists. Charles From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 08:46:45 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:46:45 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <20050310062044.DE1BACA06F@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050310062044.DE1BACA06F@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:20:44 +0600, Arno M wrote: > > If there is a disagreement on this matter , clearly sources have to be > quoted and discussed objectively. This has not happened in this matter. Hear, hear! I have presented bucketloads of reputable, verifiable sources, and yet Adam Carr relies almost entirely on his own opinion. On 14 Feb 2005 I stated in [[Talk:Government of Australi]] "I intend to remove all references to head of state until someone can come up with a definitive source, that isn't clearly opinion." Since then, Adam has provided a total of two sources apart from himself: One newspaper article written by Allison Henry who is the National Director of the Australian Republican Movement, a partisan organisation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=prev&oldid=10713451] One link to a paper issed by the Parliamentary Research Office. This paper was described by another editor and Adam found the link. The paper gives opinions for the Queen as head of state and the Governor-General as head of state. It does not favour one or the other. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=prev&oldid=10665087] Adam's argument is not based on checkable sources. It is based on abuse, threats and personal opinion, as anybody may see for themselves by following the chain of edits on the discussion page for the article, beginning at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10232643] Along the way, the number and quality of my own sources may be noted: Link to ACM website, disproving Adam's statement of their definition of republic. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10611555] Link to Australian National Opinion Poll site showing poor level of community awareness on constitutional matters. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10614518 Quote from Federation-era constitutional scholars Quick and Garran showing their opinion that the brand new Constitution places sovereignty in the hands of the Australian people. Quote from Macquarie Dictionary showing that definition of republic includes Australia. Both at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10629502] Link to ARM article quoting Professor Brian Galligan stating that Australia is a republic. Link to Australian Politics site quoting Prime Minister John Howard describing the Governor-General as "effectively Australia's head of state". Link to Melbourne University site quoting former Governor Sir Richard McGarvie stating that the Governor-General performs the functions of the head of state. Link to ARM article quoting Professor George Winterton stating that Australia has two heads of state. I point out that the ARM material comprises quotes from Galligan's book and a copy of Winterton's article published in Quadrant, a scholarly magazine. All at [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10749531] Link to ACM site rebutting TBSDY's allegation that ACM and ARM have the same opinion on who is the head of state. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10908870] Links to constitutions of Japan and Sweden. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10933565] Four links to statements by constitutional authorities using the term "crowned republic" [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=prev&oldid=10938280] Link to John Howard as Prime Minister using the term "crowned republic". [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10942836] I don't mind criticism, bu when it is so far off the mark, I really must protest! -- Peter in Canberra From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 08:48:40 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:48:40 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205030916097a6942f7@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050309161715.88365.qmail@web25005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <422F2BBA.4040701@thingy.apana.org.au> <47267.194.72.110.12.1110388080.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <422F2EDB.6050305@sprintmail.com> <61514.194.72.110.12.1110388928.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <550ccb820503091305479a4b86@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b05030913347b857b54@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205030916097a6942f7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423009E8.8090609@telus.net> Skyring wrote: > wrote: > > >>You have accused Adam of >>misrepresenting the constitution, when he was paraphrasing it very >>precisely. (Your subsequent claim that "shall be" and "is" have >>different meanings in this context is false, and you have offered no >>reason for your view.) >> >> >Again, this is simply not true. Several times I have pointed out the >similar wording in s101 where "shall be" cannot be equated to "is". By >saying that the Constitution says that the Governor-General is the >representative of the Queen Adam is downplaying the historical aspect >of the text, and my point, expressed several times, is that we have >moved on. The Governor-General is no longer quite the representative >of the Queen and her government that he was at Federation. The role in >this respect has diminished and his role as representative of the >people rather than the government has increased. > The principle that the law is always speaking would allow for some degree of interchangeability between the present and future tense. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 10 09:18:43 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 01:18:43 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423010F3.2060801@telus.net> The Cunctator wrote: >On 3/9/05 2:46 PM, "Ray Saintonge" wrote: > > >>If I were to judge Ed solely by many of the substantive positions that >>he takes, we should be bitter enemies. :'( Ed does indeed shoot from the >>hip, but with one big difference. When he realizes that he has made a >>mistake he is quicker than most to admit it. Yes, Ed was out of line, >>but so what? I do not support making policy on the hoof, there is >>already far too much of that. Ed did not do that; he enforced what he >>believed to be policy, and did his best to undo the damage when he found >>his mistake. His actions are perfectly understandable when you see the >>unending parade of shifting policies. Nobody but policy geeks can keep >>up with it, and policy geeks are notorious for losing sight of project >>goals. >> >>I don't see any need for further action on this. Ed's repentance tells >>me all I need to know. Unless we take a forgiving attitude towards this >>kind of error how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves when the tables >>are turned. >> >> >> >My problem with this response is that Ed has done this repeatedly. > >1. He screws up royally by abusing the privileges he's been given >2. He professes that he had no idea that he screwed up >3. After numerous people explain carefully how he screwed up, he apologizes. >Contritely. And professes earnestly his deep, abiding good faith and his >intention never to screw up again. >4. People cheer Ed's contrition and praise his good works. He is not >punished and his privileges are not removed. >5. After a few weeks have passed, Ed has forgotten any mistakes he's ever >made and is happy to announce that he's always been successful in any >actions he's taken to help Wikipedia. > >Rinse, wash, repeat. > > Yeah, that's Ed alright! He's a known quantity, and he's been like that for the entire three years that I've been here. The funny thing is that there are others toward whom I do not feel as tolerant. Ec From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 11:03:46 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:03:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors Message-ID: <031020051103.7757.423029920003CA8C00001E4D22007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > -------------- Original message -------------- > > > >>I think it's important to note that baiting users into making personal > >>attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. > >> > >>-Snowspinner > > > > > > Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. > > > > -- Silverback > > Sorry, I'm a little dense today. Please spell out the point you are > trying to make. The idea of name callers blaming the victim for "baiting" them is analogous to spousal abusers who claim the spouse "egged them on", "was asking for it" or committed some other stupid oversight or offense. The spousal abuse victim, often will defend the abuser claiming it was their fault, they weren't perfect in some way. Of course, namecallers think their victims deserved it, egged them on, baited them, or was being unreasonable, or refused to acknowledge that the namecaller was right. Somehow, just as a lot of people manage to avoid abusing their spouses, a lot of people refrain from namecalling. The difference is more in the abuser or namecaller than in the victim or provocature. -- Silverback -- Silverback From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Mar 10 11:50:03 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 04:50:03 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <20050310062044.DE1BACA06F@ws7-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: The discussion was hardly a waste of time. We have explored a number of questions and obtained feedback. But not enough to change the policy regarding personal attacks or to back off from the principle that putting one's eccentric views into an article is unacceptable. We have also explored the possibility that the community wishes to give "good" editors license to abuse "bad editors"; that anyone who disciplines or complains about such a "good" editor will be responsible for "driving them away" and that someone who complains about a "good" editor is probably a "bad" editor. Fred > From: "Arno M" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:20:44 +0600 > To: "Thomas Haws" , "English Wikipedia" > > Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. > > This is really gone out of control. > > What seems to have very much happened that the wikien-l > has become a tool for pushing a false view about Australia > and in persecuting a long-time contributor who lost his temper > at a person who persistantly pursued that view in defiance > of all objective evidence to the contrary (eg quotes from the > Australian Constitution). Other tactics seem to include the > vexatious use of the no personal attacks rule, and general > donning and brandishing of a martyr's cloak that its user was > certainly not entitled to wear. > > This is meant to be an encyclopedia, one that is frequently copied > across to other sites. Its facts need to be reliable and objective > at all times. > > This principle has become dormant in this whole affair. What he went > through was disgraceful, and if Dr Carr leaves this site in protest, > I can hardly blame him. > > If there is a disagreement on this matter , clearly sources have to be > quoted and discussed objectively. This has not happened in this matter. > > I stand reminded of a certain user named Plautus Satire who would not stop > arguing > that everything was made of plasma or that the space shuttle was shot down by > a laser, regardless of a lack of evidence to back these views. A similar > insanity > occurred here. > > Its time it came to an end. Its certainly wasted enough space on wikien-l. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Thomas Haws" > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors > Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 22:34:04 -0700 (GMT-07:00) > >> >>>> I think it's important to note that baiting users into making >>>> personal attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that >>>> ensue, however. -Snowspinner >>> >>> Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe them. >>> >>> -- Silverback >> >> In other words, baiting is most definitely not worse than abusing. >> True that both are bad, but pointing fingers merely is a tactic for >> deflecting blame. Thou shalt not escalate. >> >> - Tom Haws >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > -- > _______________________________________________ > NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at > once. > http://datingsearch.lycos.com > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Thu Mar 10 12:32:38 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:32:38 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <031020051103.7757.423029920003CA8C00001E4D22007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031020051103.7757.423029920003CA8C00001E4D22007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <3fd0bc0f59921dd4c0d5053b407a8925@sbcglobal.net> I think you're misrepresenting how this goes. Let's take, say, Adam Carr and Skyring. Or Slrubenstein and Xed. Here is generally how it goes. User 1: Forcefully stated idea User 2: Polite disagreement User 1: Hostility at disagreement User 2: Continued efforts at disagreement User 1: Increasing hostility. Some abuse. User 2: Bewildered suggestion of a compromise User 1: Rejection of compromise. Hostility. Claim to being willing to compromise. (We're about a month into the cycle now) User 3: Protection of article. Next month, on a new article... User 1: Forcefully stated idea User 2: Wincing, disagreement. User 1: Accusation that User 2 is biased and shouldn't edit this article. Other abuse. User 2: Stubbornness, some reluctance to discuss this again. User 1: Repeated statement to be willing to compromise, coupled with complete lack of compromise offered and streams of abuse. User 2: Requests for page to be protected. User 3: Protects page. Next month, on yet another article User 1: Forcefully stated idea User 2: Pointing out that to date, nobody has agreed with User 1. User 1: Accusation of a cabal. User 2: Mild personal attack. User 1: Arbcoms User 2. User 1 should be run out of Wikipedia. User 2 should be slapped on the wrist and solemnly told "Don't do that again." Then privately thanked for opposing the stupid. -Snowspinner On Mar 10, 2005, at 5:03 AM, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > -------------- Original message -------------- >> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>> -------------- Original message -------------- >>> >>>> I think it's important to note that baiting users into making >>>> personal >>>> attacks is even worse than the personal attacks that ensue, however. >>>> >>>> -Snowspinner >>> >>> >>> Abusers often blame the victim. Sadly, sometimes the victims believe >>> them. >>> >>> -- Silverback >> >> Sorry, I'm a little dense today. Please spell out the point you are >> trying to make. > > The idea of name callers blaming the victim for "baiting" them is > analogous to spousal abusers who claim the spouse "egged them on", > "was asking for it" or committed some other stupid oversight or > offense. The spousal abuse victim, often will defend the abuser > claiming it was their fault, they weren't perfect in some way. > > Of course, namecallers think their victims deserved it, egged them on, > baited them, or was being unreasonable, or refused to acknowledge that > the namecaller was right. > > Somehow, just as a lot of people manage to avoid abusing their > spouses, a lot of people refrain from namecalling. The difference > is more in the abuser or namecaller than in the victim or provocature. > -- Silverback > -- Silverback > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 13:28:28 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 05:28:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310132828.78898.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rick wrote: > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > afraid to request sanctions against other users > because of the perceived (and real) threat that the > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the > case. Name a case where that happened. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 13:40:58 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 05:40:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310134059.45873.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Rick wrote: > > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > > afraid to request sanctions against other users > > because of the perceived (and real) threat that the > > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the > > case. > > Name a case where that happened. I should have added, name a case where that happened where the person bringing the case was in fact innocent and then wrongfully sanctioned. It would be absurd to only look at the accused and not the accuser. That would encourage bad actors to request frivolous arbitrations. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Mar 10 13:50:09 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:50:09 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The problem is that you are arguing over a generalization, not over particulars, one can cite authority for a number of propositions and that is good but insisting on an overarching generalization is a violation of Wikipedia policy. There is also a problem of obsession involved here. With respect to generalizations: it is inappropriate to try to insert into the George W. Bush article that he is a "fool" or that he is "courageous". One can cite a number of things he did or said which might support one conclusion or another but the overarching generalization that gathers all the threads of a complex life up and sums up his character are inappropriate in an encyclopedia. Likewise, characterizing Australia as a republic when its title is Commonwealth or the Soviet Union as a dictatorship when its title is republic is problematic. Both characterizations seek to cut through the verbiage and express the essence of the matter, the truth. However they cannot take the place of the proper sort of NPOV information which explores the different ways the situation is looked at and described. As to obsession, we recently had a case of obsession with Ashley Simpson; other editors have fallen into the same sort of pattern. Like Ashley Simpson whether Australia is fairly characterized as a republic and the debate over the matter in Australia are significant, but not properly a matter of great concern. Constant churning over of the matter eventually becomes a disruption of Wikipedia and a violation of policy. Fred > From: Skyring > Reply-To: Skyring , English Wikipedia > > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:46:45 +1100 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. > > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:20:44 +0600, Arno M wrote: >> >> If there is a disagreement on this matter , clearly sources have to be >> quoted and discussed objectively. This has not happened in this matter. > > Hear, hear! I have presented bucketloads of reputable, verifiable > sources, and yet Adam Carr relies almost entirely on his own opinion. > > On 14 Feb 2005 I stated in [[Talk:Government of Australi]] "I intend > to remove all references to head of state until someone can come up > with a definitive source, that isn't clearly opinion." > > Since then, Adam has provided a total of two sources apart from himself: > > One newspaper article written by Allison Henry who is the National > Director of the Australian Republican Movement, a partisan > organisation. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=p > rev&oldid=10713451] > > One link to a paper issed by the Parliamentary Research Office. This > paper was described by another editor and Adam found the link. The > paper gives opinions for the Queen as head of state and the > Governor-General as head of state. It does not favour one or the > other. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=p > rev&oldid=10665087] > > Adam's argument is not based on checkable sources. It is based on > abuse, threats and personal opinion, as anybody may see for themselves > by following the chain of edits on the discussion page for the > article, beginning at > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10232643] > > Along the way, the number and quality of my own sources may be noted: > Link to ACM website, disproving Adam's statement of their definition > of republic. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10611555] > > Link to Australian National Opinion Poll site showing poor level of > community awareness on constitutional matters. > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=ne > xt&oldid=10614518 > > Quote from Federation-era constitutional scholars Quick and Garran > showing their opinion that the brand new Constitution places > sovereignty in the hands of the Australian people. > > Quote from Macquarie Dictionary showing that definition of republic > includes Australia. Both at > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10629502] > > Link to ARM article quoting Professor Brian Galligan stating that > Australia is a republic. > Link to Australian Politics site quoting Prime Minister John Howard > describing the Governor-General as "effectively Australia's head of > state". > Link to Melbourne University site quoting former Governor Sir Richard > McGarvie stating that the Governor-General performs the functions of > the head of state. > Link to ARM article quoting Professor George Winterton stating that > Australia has two heads of state. I point out that the ARM material > comprises quotes from Galligan's book and a copy of Winterton's > article published in Quadrant, a scholarly magazine. All at > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10749531] > > Link to ACM site rebutting TBSDY's allegation that ACM and ARM have > the same opinion on who is the head of state. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10908870] > > Links to constitutions of Japan and Sweden. > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10933565] > > Four links to statements by constitutional authorities using the term > "crowned republic" > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=p > rev&oldid=10938280] > > Link to John Howard as Prime Minister using the term "crowned > republic". > [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=n > ext&oldid=10942836] > > I don't mind criticism, bu when it is so far off the mark, I really > must protest! > -- > Peter in Canberra > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Mar 10 14:04:24 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 07:04:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] POV featured articles? In-Reply-To: <031020050313.776.422FBB580005D06A0000030822007358349B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: I think this occurs because the bias in the article is subtle and not readily apparent to a casual reader. It looks good on its face and very detailed. Fred > From: actionforum at comcast.net > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:13:28 +0000 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: [WikiEN-l] POV featured articles? > > I noticed that an article I considered POV just became a featured article: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union > > I've marked it NPOV, and have made several improvements, including a couple I > made before it achieved featured article status. > > How do articles become featured articles? I've read Wikipedia:Featured > articles, > and it talks about standards but not how the actual decision about the status > is > made. I looked at the nomination page, and there were only 5 supporting > votes, > and zero opposing votes, before mine which I have just added after the fact. > > I am not criticising those reviewers, they may not be sensitive to some of the > selection biases that can occur within articles or may have been unfamiliar > with the subject. > > I am however surprised that an article can become featured without far wider > review that hopefully would catch incompleteness or biases such as this. I > had > seen contributions to featured articles cited as feathers in ones cap, so I > thought > the review must have been high. Is there a minimum number of supporting > votes that are required? > -- Silverback > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Mar 10 15:11:09 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:11:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia running nicely today, at least for me... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: dpbsmith at verizon.net >Just for the record, and fully aware of the jinx factor... > >Today Wikipedia seemed to be operating like a sleek, well-oiled machine, >with histories, diffs, watchlists, edits, and the Votes for Deletion page >loading promptly and smoothly. Comparable to Slashdot, or Yahoo mail, to >name a couple of consistently good-performing sites. Yes it did, and your e-mail appears to have jinxed it already. :-( Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Mar 10 15:35:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:35:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" >JAY JG wrote: >>>From: "csherlock at ljh.com.au" >>> >>>The controversy has come about because Skyring insists that our head of >>>state is not the monarchy, therefore we fall inside the definition of >>>what is a republic. This is ORIGINAL RESEARCH. I have read some of his >>>sources, and none of them state what he thinks they say. >> >> >>Nah, it's just "simple deductive reasoning". I can't believe you're using >>your POV and extremist interpretation of the No original research rule to >>try to disallow simple deductive reasoning from Wikipedia articles; you >>might as well be issuing the commandement "Thou shalt not think." >> >>Jay. > >Er... my sarcasm detection mechanism must be on the blink today... is this >a serious comment? No, it was sarcasm. Jay. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Thu Mar 10 15:31:04 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:31:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050310101140.03062a40@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> I am glad that Silverback and I are in agreement as to principles. However, Skyring and Silverback are still either misrepresenting or misunderstanding the issues in this particular case. Skyring wrote: >In this case Adam changed "shall be" to "is". That changes the meaning >and saves only a few letters. Nor did he use any commonly-used form of >words to indicate a paraphrase. He used boldface to indicate that he >thought it was a factual statement. First, your claim that changing "shall be" to "is" is a change in meaning is absurd. The Constitution is using the subjunctive because guess what, constitutions are written before they are instituted. But once the constitution is instituted, events actually come to pass, and the subjunctive should not be used for ongoing or actual events. Adam Carr's change in grammar, from the subjunctive to the present tense, is completely appropriate. The basic meaning is unchanged -- what you call a change is a trivial function of the passage of time. In fact, to say that the Governor "shall be" when there actually is a governor would be incorrect and inaccurate. You say that Adam's use of the word "is" in boldface signals that he thought that he is making an factual statement -- but that is because he really is making a factual statement. Second, you say that he did not do anything to signal he was paraphrasing. Well, this is again proper usage of English. We are not supposed do to anything to signal we are paraphrasing. On the contrary, it is when we are not paraphrasing that we must do something extra. In writing, you should know that in the English language, we use these things called "quotation marks" to signal that something is not a paraphrase but rather the precise words originally used (in speech, you have to use a phrase like ", and I quote," to signal that you aren't paraphrasing. Again, Skyring is being disingenuous, manipulative, and obstructionist -- but I observe that he is not making any personal attacks. As a community, we really have to come up with reliable procedures for dealing with this. The old strategy -- just keep rewriting to undo the damage -- just does not work in some cases, because the person damaging the article, or at least obstructing any improvement to the article, does not just go away. As Skyring's posting to the list-serve proves, he will simply go on making silly arguments and wasting people's time. Even if we don't condone Adam's temper-tantrum, surely every good editor here can appreciate his high level of frustration in having to deal with this stuff. and Silverback wrote: >BTW, it is not my position, quite the opposite, I oppose the position, it >is just my observation of practice. Note that poor skyring, has not been >allowed to use the word "republic" himself, but had to find a quote in >order to use the word. As I said, I am glad we are in general agreement. However, the observation Silverback makes here is another misrepresentation of the situation. Adam Carr does not need to provide a quote that uses the word "is" because he is accurately paraphrasing a cited text. "Poor" Skyring does have to find a quote in order to use the word "republic" because he is not paraphrasing, but rather making a substantive claim. These two instances are not comparable. Period. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From rubenste at ohiou.edu Thu Mar 10 15:58:38 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:58:38 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050310104214.031dc818@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Silverback wrote >Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the debate >becomes more clear. The issue all along has been not whether Austrailia >is a republic, but whether it is a democracy. In American english, no it >is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally limited form a government, a >republic. Therefore, since Austailia is not a democracy, when we >translate back to Austrailian english, Austrailia is not a republic. The >queen has been irrelevant to the whole issue, just as she is to nearly >anything in Austrailia. This strikes me as perfect evidence of how people who have done no research and yet who try to participate in discussions only waste other people's time. The phrase, "In American english, no it is note a democracy" manages to be both ignorant and irrelevant. Americans have many different ways of using "democracy," and most Americans would say Australia is a democracy. But so what? Why does it matter what Americans think? Here is the problem, in a nutshell. Sometime conflicts at Wikipedia are over semantics, and sometimes they are substantive. Constructive editors are able to sort out which is what. Unconstructive, obstructionist editors systematically confuse one source of conflict for the other. For example, the conflict between Adam and Skyring owes to the fact that Skyring does not understand proper English grammar and usage ("proper" regardless of which English speaking country you live in) -- he doesn't understand the meaning of "shall be" and "is," nor the meaning of "paraphrase." Skyring insists that this is a substantive problem, that Adam is making factually false claims -- and as long as Skyring insists that this is a conflict over meaning rather than proper grammar, he will continue to obstruct progress on the article. Silverback is doing the reverse. He is suggesting that the conflict over "republic" is semantic, because Australians and Americans use words differently. He is as wrong as Skyring. Political Scientists as well as your average Yankee will call both Australia and the US "democracies," and both groups understand that neither is a pure democracy. For one thing, neither country makes decisions through the direct participation of all citizens -- they have what is called "representative democracy." Moreover, modern "liberal" political theory -- meaning, theory of modern liberal states -- also argue that democracy is and should be limited by rule of law. Since some notion of law (e.g. "inalienable rights" limits the powers of the majority, no country with rule of law can be a pure democracy. Silverback suggests that this is what "republic" means. I am not a political scientist, nor am I very knowledgeable about Australia (although as a kid I loved this TV show called "Skippy"), but I do not think this is what "republic" means. And we aren't going to resolve this by each of us coming up with our own definition. Let Adam, Silverback, and Skyring do research into Australian constitutional law and political theory, compare sources, and provide quotes OR paraphrases -- it really doesn't matter which, as long as they come from verifiable sources. My point is, that this argument isn't going to be solved by speculations about what we think words mean -- it will be solved by people doing research on how political scientists and politicians have used words, and perhaps how usage has changed over time. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 17:34:33 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:34:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <031020051734.26279.4230852900078D80000066A722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Silverback wrote > > >Now if only the debate could be conducted in American english, the debate > >becomes more clear. The issue all along has been not whether Austrailia > >is a republic, but whether it is a democracy. In American english, no it > >is not a democracy, it has a constitutionally limited form a government, a > >republic. Therefore, since Austailia is not a democracy, when we > >translate back to Austrailian english, Austrailia is not a republic. The > >queen has been irrelevant to the whole issue, just as she is to nearly > >anything in Austrailia. > > > This strikes me as perfect evidence of how people who have done no research > and yet who try to participate in discussions only waste other people's > time. The phrase, "In American english, no it is note a democracy" manages > to be both ignorant and irrelevant. Americans have many different ways of > using "democracy," and most Americans would say Australia is a > democracy. But so what? Why does it matter what Americans think? I'm not saying it did matter, but it might have mattered, because translating into "American" is an abstraction. No, it is not quite like abstracting to predicate logic, but it is abstracting away from the emotion laden usages of the words in the Austrailian discussion. Perhaps people could listen a bit more because, since it was the American words being used, they would feel less of an immediate need to be defensive. But it is an abstraction in another sense. The Americans have an ideological tradition starting with some of the founders and kept alive by conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals, which made a specific point that the US was not a democracy, but a republic. By republic they meant the rule of law, constitutional law, that could not be overridden by the majority. So, while Americans can be as sloppy in its use of democracy and as happy to call itself a democracy as the rest of the English speaking world, when democracy is drawn in opposition to republic, not only is the word republic understood in this context, but a less common definition of democracy is. So, by abstracting to American english, not only is emotional distancing achieved, so are more precisely defined and accepted meanings. In American, we know whether or not Austrailia is a republic, by the American definition. By introducing reasoning in American english into the discussion, there are two hopes. One is that the editors will be given new tools to refine their thinking, perhaps reaching agreement in a less emotional laden setting, and agreement they would then have to translate back into their Austrailian if possible. The second is that even if they can't resolve their dispute, perhaps they will take a fancy to the American distinctions, and we can have a common language once again. On another of your points was that people who are going to interject themselves should study and become familiar with the Austrailian constitution, etc. I disagree, in my experience, if the parties in their discussion cannot explain the issues clearly to a third party unfamiliar with the issues, then they probably don't understand the issues themselves. A third party who doesn't understand can often be an impetous to clearer explanations and understandings on their parts. -- Silverback From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 19:07:14 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:07:14 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II In-Reply-To: <031020051734.26279.4230852900078D80000066A722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031020051734.26279.4230852900078D80000066A722069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <550ccb82050310110754b7ae13@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:34:33 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > But it is an abstraction in another sense. The Americans have an ideological tradition starting with some of the founders and kept alive by conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals, which made a specific point that the US was not a democracy, but a republic. By republic they meant the rule of law, constitutional law, that could not be overridden by the majority. So, while Americans can be as sloppy in its use of democracy and as happy to call itself a democracy as the rest of the English speaking world, when democracy is drawn in opposition to republic, not only is the word republic understood in this context, but a less common definition of democracy is. So, by abstracting to American english, not only is emotional distancing achieved, so are more precisely defined and accepted meanings. In American, we know whether or not Austrailia is a republic, by the American definition. It is incorrect to equate a republic with democracy in Australia. Australia has been a democracy since Federation in 1901, but only a few constitutional scholars considered it to be a republic. This is still the case, the great majority of Australians thinking that because the Queen's head is on the coins, we cannot possibly be a republic. But the fundamental constitutional situation remains the same as a century ago. The Constitution is the primary law, it cannot be over-riddden by normal legislation, and if it is to be changed, Parliament and the people, including a majority of people in a majority of the six States, must all agree. All power stems from the people and there is no external source. -- Peter in Canberra From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 19:11:22 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:11:22 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <3fd0bc0f59921dd4c0d5053b407a8925@sbcglobal.net> References: <031020051103.7757.423029920003CA8C00001E4D22007374789B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <3fd0bc0f59921dd4c0d5053b407a8925@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <550ccb820503101111317b6f8d@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:32:38 -0600, Phil Sandifer wrote: > I think you're misrepresenting how this goes. Let's take, say, Adam > Carr and Skyring. Or Slrubenstein and Xed. Here is generally how it > goes. > > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Polite disagreement > User 1: Hostility at disagreement > User 2: Continued efforts at disagreement > User 1: Increasing hostility. Some abuse. > User 2: Bewildered suggestion of a compromise > User 1: Rejection of compromise. Hostility. Claim to being willing to > compromise. (We're about a month into the cycle now) > User 3: Protection of article. > > Next month, on a new article... > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Wincing, disagreement. > User 1: Accusation that User 2 is biased and shouldn't edit this > article. Other abuse. > User 2: Stubbornness, some reluctance to discuss this again. > User 1: Repeated statement to be willing to compromise, coupled with > complete lack of compromise offered and streams of abuse. > User 2: Requests for page to be protected. > User 3: Protects page. > > Next month, on yet another article > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Pointing out that to date, nobody has agreed with User 1. > User 1: Accusation of a cabal. > User 2: Mild personal attack. > User 1: Arbcoms User 2. > > User 1 should be run out of Wikipedia. User 2 should be slapped on the > wrist and solemnly told "Don't do that again." Then privately thanked > for opposing the stupid. That's silly. How are we to correct errors if we follow your reasoning? -- Peter in Canberra From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 10 19:22:39 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:22:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Australia problem - in a nutshell Message-ID: Steve has come up with both a cogent analysis and an effective solution: << Here is the problem, in a nutshell. Sometime conflicts at Wikipedia are over semantics, and sometimes they are substantive. Constructive editors are able to sort out which is what. Unconstructive, obstructionist editors systematically confuse one source of conflict for the other. For example, the conflict between Adam and Skyring owes to the fact that Skyring does not understand proper English grammar and usage ("proper" regardless of which English speaking country you live in) -- he doesn't understand the meaning of "shall be" and "is," nor the meaning of "paraphrase." Skyring insists that this is a substantive problem, that Adam is making factually false claims -- and as long as Skyring insists that this is a conflict over meaning rather than proper grammar, he will continue to obstruct progress on the article. Silverback is doing the reverse. He is suggesting that the conflict over "republic" is semantic, because Australians and Americans use words differently. He is as wrong as Skyring. Political Scientists as well as your average Yankee will call both Australia and the US "democracies," and both groups understand that neither is a pure democracy. For one thing, neither country makes decisions through the direct participation of all citizens -- they have what is called "representative democracy." Moreover, modern "liberal" political theory -- meaning, theory of modern liberal states -- also argue that democracy is and should be limited by rule of law. Since some notion of law (e.g. "inalienable rights" limits the powers of the majority, no country with rule of law can be a pure democracy. Silverback suggests that this is what "republic" means. I am not a political scientist, nor am I very knowledgeable about Australia (although as a kid I loved this TV show called "Skippy"), but I do not think this is what "republic" means. And we aren't going to resolve this by each of us coming up with our own definition. Let Adam, Silverback, and Skyring do research into Australian constitutional law and political theory, compare sources, and provide quotes OR paraphrases -- it really doesn't matter which, as long as they come from verifiable sources. My point is, that this argument isn't going to be solved by speculations about what we think words mean -- it will be solved by people doing research on how political scientists and politicians have used words, and perhaps how usage has changed over time. >> Those who wish my assistance with this article, please contact me (either here or on my talk page). Uncle Ed From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 10 19:34:45 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:34:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors Message-ID: > From: Phil Sandifer > I think you're misrepresenting how this goes. Let's take, say, Adam > Carr and Skyring. Or Slrubenstein and Xed. Here is generally how it > goes. > > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Polite disagreement > User 1: Hostility at disagreement > User 2: Continued efforts at disagreement > User 1: Increasing hostility. Some abuse. > User 2: Bewildered suggestion of a compromise > User 1: Rejection of compromise. Hostility. Claim to being willing to > compromise. (We're about a month into the cycle now) > User 3: Protection of article. > > Next month, on a new article... > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Wincing, disagreement. > User 1: Accusation that User 2 is biased and shouldn't edit this > article. Other abuse. > User 2: Stubbornness, some reluctance to discuss this again. > User 1: Repeated statement to be willing to compromise, coupled with > complete lack of compromise offered and streams of abuse. > User 2: Requests for page to be protected. > User 3: Protects page. > > Next month, on yet another article > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Pointing out that to date, nobody has agreed with > User 1. User 1: Accusation of a cabal. User 2: Mild personal > attack. User 1: Arbcoms User 2. User 1 should be asked to be polite after "some abuse", then requested to review "no personal attacks" after "Hostility". User 1 should be referred to arbcom for "Other abuse", and will make the committee's job easier if he offers "streams of abuse" just as they're beginning to look into it all. No need to slap User 2 (either on wrist or back). Arbcom should intervene earlier and set User 1 straight, before he tempts his victims to take matters into their own hands. Uncle Ed From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 19:43:22 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:43:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310194322.43910.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Phil Sandifer wrote: > I think you're misrepresenting how this goes. Let's > take, say, Adam > Carr and Skyring. Or Slrubenstein and Xed. Here is > generally how it > goes. > > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Polite disagreement > User 1: Hostility at disagreement > User 2: Continued efforts at disagreement > User 1: Increasing hostility. Some abuse. > User 2: Bewildered suggestion of a compromise > User 1: Rejection of compromise. Hostility. Claim to > being willing to > compromise. (We're about a month into the cycle now) > User 3: Protection of article. > > Next month, on a new article... > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Wincing, disagreement. > User 1: Accusation that User 2 is biased and > shouldn't edit this > article. Other abuse. > User 2: Stubbornness, some reluctance to discuss > this again. > User 1: Repeated statement to be willing to > compromise, coupled with > complete lack of compromise offered and streams of > abuse. > User 2: Requests for page to be protected. > User 3: Protects page. > > Next month, on yet another article > User 1: Forcefully stated idea > User 2: Pointing out that to date, nobody has agreed > with User 1. > User 1: Accusation of a cabal. > User 2: Mild personal attack. > User 1: Arbcoms User 2. Yout left out how User 1 accuses User 2 AND User 3 of being members of the cabal out to get him. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 19:44:35 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:44:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310194435.44367.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Rick wrote: > > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > > afraid to request sanctions against other users > > because of the perceived (and real) threat that > the > > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing > the > > case. > > Name a case where that happened. Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 19:45:44 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:45:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310194544.99258.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > > --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > > --- Rick wrote: > > > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people > are > > > afraid to request sanctions against other users > > > because of the perceived (and real) threat that > the > > > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing > the > > > case. > > > > Name a case where that happened. > > I should have added, name a case where that happened > where the person bringing > the case was in fact innocent and then wrongfully > sanctioned. It would be > absurd to only look at the accused and not the > accuser. That would encourage > bad actors to request frivolous arbitrations. > > -- mav All right then. Me vs. Guanaco. Me vs. Wik. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From fredbaud at ctelco.net Thu Mar 10 19:48:56 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:48:56 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The problem here is that we do not intervene. We accept some case which have gone through the dispute resolution process. If there is to be intervention it will have to be by administrators (after a policy allowing it is established). Fred > From: "Poor, Edmund W" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:34:45 -0500 > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors > > User 1 should be asked to be polite after "some abuse", then requested > to review "no personal attacks" after "Hostility". > > User 1 should be referred to arbcom for "Other abuse", and will make the > committee's job easier if he offers "streams of abuse" just as they're > beginning to look into it all. > > No need to slap User 2 (either on wrist or back). Arbcom should > intervene earlier and set User 1 straight, before he tempts his victims > to take matters into their own hands. > > Uncle Ed From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 10 20:10:41 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 12:10:41 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's in a (country's) name? Message-ID: Relating to the Coulter-Canada thing: Consider four countries, A, B, C and D. Each has a government and a bunch of ordinary citizens. Now let's talk about money. The government keeps its money in the Treasury. The ordinary citizens keep their money in their pockets. Disaster strikes abroand, and money begins to flow from these four lands to help victims overseas. Reporters covering the story from every conceivable angle hit upon the idea of ranking the countries in terms of how much money each has sent (or promised to send) for relief efforts. They even calculate the per capita donations, by divided money by population. Here's the catch: suppose money from A comes primarily from the government Treasury, while private donations from the Pockets of ordinary citizens (or the charitable organizations they fund) is much less. A(T) > A(P) But in country B it might be the opposite. Their government doesn't send nearly as much as the ordinary people do: B(T) < B(P) Now comes the article, where the newspaper writer praises country A for sending so much money while criticizing country B for its stinginess. A is the highest - counting only government money Someone in B says, "Wait a minute: you can't ignore private donations. We actually gave more than A, if you factor in non-govermental contributions." B = B(T) + B(P) - counting both Treasury and Private People use the names of countries differently, depending on the context and on the point they're trying to make. If the TOTAL amount aid out of a country B(T) + B(P) is highest, then it's the "winner" in this contest. Unless we only count government aid, in which case A is the winner, i.e., its GOVERNMENT is the winner. The point is that Canada sent troops all right, just not Government troops. Canada (the nation as a whole) send 12,000 men - or they "went", anyway - and they did fight on the South Vietnamese side. Coulter's mistake was in not knowing (or saying) that CANADIANS did serve as soldiers in Vietnam. The interviewer's mistake (or deliberate deception) was in not acknowedging that Canadians DID SERVE as soldiers in Vietnam. He wanted to make it all about the government, which he knew (either at the moment, or when editing later or when discussing with his producer how to show Coulter in a bad light) hadn't sent the men. So we really need to use this example in an article about how the liberal media goes out of its way to discredit "the right" while NEVER conceding any error of its own and even DELIBERATELY deceiving the public. Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 10 20:18:00 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:18:00 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: What's in a (country's) name? Message-ID: Oops, I meant "Coulter's mistake was in not knowing (or saying) that Canadians served as soldiers in Vietnam but WERE NOT sent by its GOVERMENT." (Gosh, this linguistic analysis is tricky. How come they're so good at tricking us and we're so lousy at seeing through the tricks?) ed From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 20:42:48 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:42:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050310194322.43910.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050310194322.43910.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <550ccb82050310124214d98f0a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:43:22 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > > Yout left out how User 1 accuses User 2 AND User 3 of > being members of the cabal out to get him. There is no cabal. I've checked [[cabal]] -- Pete, surprised to find a reference to King Arthur From kkrueger at whoi.edu Thu Mar 10 20:51:37 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:51:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: What's in a (country's) name? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050310205137.GH23157@whoi.edu> On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 03:18:00PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Oops, I meant > > "Coulter's mistake was in not knowing (or saying) that Canadians served > as soldiers in Vietnam but WERE NOT sent by its GOVERMENT." However, Coulter's claim was offered in the context of an assertion that the nation of Canada was once a supportive ally of the United States but no longer is. International alliances are relationships between or among states, that is, governments. In this context, the claim only really makes sense as an assertion about government actions, since the actions of private individuals cannot constitute (or break) an alliance. Moreover, this context also associates the presence of Canadians in the Vietnam conflict with ideological support by the Canadian government for the United States government's position in that conflict. I agree, by the way, with the interpretation that she likely made this claim from memory (remembering that some Canadians fought in Vietnam), without intent to deliberately deceive, but without checking the facts. It appears further that when exposed to the facts she expressed disdain for those who considered the distinction worth making. For the morality of making rhetoric in this fashion -- which is hardly unique to Ms. Coulter -- I suggest reference to the recent work of Prof. Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University. -- Karl A. Krueger From rubenste at ohiou.edu Thu Mar 10 20:58:20 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:58:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050310154654.032fc1a8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Silverback wrote: >But it is an abstraction in another sense. The Americans have an >ideological tradition starting with some of the founders and kept alive by >conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals, which made a specific >point that the US was not a democracy, but a republic. By republic they >meant the rule of law, constitutional law, that could not be overridden by >the majority. This is not true (which proves my point about the problem with people who do not do research). According to the Federalist 10 (penned by James Madison, a major contributor to our (yankees) Constitution and fourth president -- A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union. The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. They use "republic" to refer to a representative government. Note -- this is (for them) a necessary but not sufficient definition of "republic." They are comparing "republic" to "democracy" and thus emphasize the difference. What they have in common, of course, is no monarch. Be that as it may, Americans today use these words differently, as do political scientists and political theorist (although no political theorist to my knowledge defines "republic" as democracy+law. They call democracy+law "liberal state" or "liberal democracy" (tho' I admit I am not a political scientist, if there is one out there, perhaps she can confirm or correct me) He also says > A third party who doesn't understand can often be an impetous to > clearer explanations and understandings on their parts. And I would again insist that the third party will not be able to suggest alternatives unless s/he has done research. You don't have to be an academic to do good research. But you just can't write an encyclopedia without doing research. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 10 21:09:23 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:09:23 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: What's in a (country's) name? In-Reply-To: <20050310205137.GH23157@whoi.edu> References: <20050310205137.GH23157@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <4230B783.6090304@apotheon.com> Karl A. Krueger wrote: > On Thu, Mar 10, 2005 at 03:18:00PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > >>Oops, I meant >> >>"Coulter's mistake was in not knowing (or saying) that Canadians served >>as soldiers in Vietnam but WERE NOT sent by its GOVERMENT." > > > However, Coulter's claim was offered in the context of an assertion that > the nation of Canada was once a supportive ally of the United States but > no longer is. International alliances are relationships between or > among states, that is, governments. In this context, the claim only > really makes sense as an assertion about government actions, since the > actions of private individuals cannot constitute (or break) an alliance. > Moreover, this context also associates the presence of Canadians in the > Vietnam conflict with ideological support by the Canadian government for > the United States government's position in that conflict. While I think it's likely that Coulter just made a mistake regarding the extent of the Canadian government, drawing from memory and hitting just off-center with her facts, I don't think there's enough hard evidence to make any final declarations about the matter. It could very well have been merely a poor choice of phrasing because of the colloquial understanding her words conveyed. You're trying to attach an "official Canadian action" sense to her words and, while she may well have meant that, she also may not have. There's no particular reason to assume she wasn't referring to a general, public support for the US, rather than a specific state of official relations between governments. In fact, considering that she was talking about matters of goodwill (instead of / in addition to) military policy, one might argue that the "public goodwill" argument holds more water. This factual error, misrepresentation, mistake, lie, or whatever else it might be, is in no way a cut-and-dried case of Coulter being in the right, the wrong, or the sideways. Look for reasons to assume good faith on her part and, if you don't find any reasonable options, THEN declare otherwise. Relying on the word of people like Moore, who has made documented, unavoidably deceptive statements on many occasions, hardly constitutes proper critical analysis of the situation. That aside, I don't see any reason to do other than simply include all relevant perspectives on the debate in the article. Any actual analysis of the matter should not be the core of the article's text. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 21:23:18 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:23:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310212319.25504.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rick wrote: > Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. That does not appear to be a case that is currently in arbitration or ever was. Please explain. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 10 21:32:37 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:32:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050310213238.86051.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rick wrote: > All right then. Me vs. Guanaco. Me vs. Wik. AFAIK, you were not sanctioned for anything in those cases. The closest to that I could find was a simple reminder about policy. Did I miss something? How has the ArbCom been persecuting you and other good editors unfairly? So far these allegations seem to be hot air. But if they are not, then as an ArbCom member I need to know so this can be changed. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From skyring at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 21:37:57 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:37:57 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 06:50:09 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > > Likewise, characterizing Australia as a republic when its title is > Commonwealth or the Soviet Union as a dictatorship when its title is > republic is problematic. Both characterizations seek to cut through the > verbiage and express the essence of the matter, the truth. However they > cannot take the place of the proper sort of NPOV information which explores > the different ways the situation is looked at and described. I'm not sure what's wrong with describing a commonwealth as a republic, but we've reached an acceptable solution, complete with good sources. The Prime Minister describes Australia as a "crowned republic". I take your point about blandly describing Australia as a republic, and in hindsight it caused more heat than light. -- Peter in Canberra From debussy at cyber-rights.net Thu Mar 10 21:50:37 2005 From: debussy at cyber-rights.net (debussy at cyber-rights.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:50:37 -0800 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) Message-ID: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Hi, Recycling Troll. Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you. Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml Get your free encrypted email at http://www.cyber-rights.net From theresaknott at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 22:07:31 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:07:31 +0000 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb050310140741aadbdc@mail.gmail.com> Will someone do the necessary block please? This is sollog Theresa On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:50:37 -0800, debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: > > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to > you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing > list.) The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, > there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places > where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where > Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and > then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to > you. > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a > dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at > your expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out > a bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then > ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick > pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml > > Get your free encrypted email at http://www.cyber-rights.net > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 10 22:05:53 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:05:53 -0500 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to > you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing > list.) The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, > there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places > where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where > Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and > then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to > you. > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a > dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at > your expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out > a bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then > ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. Ut-oh, he's discovered the libertarian communist semitic fascist CIA conspiracy of Wikipedia. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From failure.to.communicate at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 22:24:49 2005 From: failure.to.communicate at gmail.com (Cool Hand Luke) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:24:49 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050310132828.78898.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050310132828.78898.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <60e40a950503101424406f6b70@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 05:28:28 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Rick wrote: > > I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > > afraid to request sanctions against other users > > because of the perceived (and real) threat that the > > arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the > > case. > > Name a case where that happened. > > -- mav > Even in cases where the petitioner is ultimately cleared, arbitration requires an arduous defense. For people that would rather, say, work on wikipedia, arbitration is a hassle. No sane individual would want to draw fire from a troll who wants nothing more than to launch spurious attacks. From actionforum at comcast.net Thu Mar 10 23:08:14 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:08:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Queen Elizabeth II Message-ID: <031020052308.11680.4230D35E0006438F00002DA022069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Steve, I said "some" of the founding fathers, not any one picked at random. You landed on a federalist. Here is a quote from [[Democracy]]: According to classical usage, the word "democracy" refers solely to direct democracy, whilst a representative democracy where representatives of the people govern in accordance with a constitution is referred to as a "republic". This older terminology also has some popularity in U.S. Conservative and Libertarian debate. The definitions here that have more emphasis on a constitution, may not be the most popular definition of democracy in the US, but it does have intellectual validity and can be used, and will be recognized. Pledges and oaths of officeholder will be to the republic or to uphold the "constitution", not the to will of the people or the latest legislation or to the president. I think the above passage over emphasizes the "direct", because that term usually isn't used. The emphasis is that the will of the people is limited by the constitution with its checks and balances, supermajority provisions, and bill of rights. Jefferson is the founding father that most conservatives and libertarians look to. I probably agree with you that one has to do research to do a lot of writing, as long as past "research" counts. But short of extensive writing, contributing to refining pages where some of the people understand the subject and their positions well enough to reduce them to a few definitions and principles, is quite possible on new subjects, and not just merely improving the writing either. -- Silverback -------------- Original message -------------- > Silverback wrote: > > >But it is an abstraction in another sense. The Americans have an > >ideological tradition starting with some of the founders and kept alive by > >conservatives, libertarians and classical liberals, which made a specific > >point that the US was not a democracy, but a republic. By republic they > >meant the rule of law, constitutional law, that could not be overridden by > >the majority. > > This is not true (which proves my point about the problem with people who > do not do research). According to the Federalist 10 (penned by James > Madison, a major contributor to our (yankees) Constitution and fourth > president -- > A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of > representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the > cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies > from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure > and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union. > > The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: > first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number > of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, > and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. > They use "republic" to refer to a representative government. Note -- this > is (for them) a necessary but not sufficient definition of > "republic." They are comparing "republic" to "democracy" and thus > emphasize the difference. What they have in common, of course, is no monarch. > > Be that as it may, Americans today use these words differently, as do > political scientists and political theorist (although no political theorist > to my knowledge defines "republic" as democracy+law. They call > democracy+law "liberal state" or "liberal democracy" (tho' I admit I am not > a political scientist, if there is one out there, perhaps she can confirm > or correct me) > > He also says > > > A third party who doesn't understand can often be an impetous to > > clearer explanations and understandings on their parts. > > And I would again insist that the third party will not be able to suggest > alternatives unless s/he has done research. > > You don't have to be an academic to do good research. But you just can't > write an encyclopedia without doing research. > > 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 Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Thu Mar 10 23:11:41 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:11:41 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? In-Reply-To: <60e40a950503101424406f6b70@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050310132828.78898.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> <60e40a950503101424406f6b70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I suppose I should make public what has always been an implicit fact here, and note that I am willing to, assuming, in my judgment, the case has merits, raise any case to the arbitration committee. Contact me via e-mail if you have a specific problem user you think needs to be dealt with and don't feel you can deal with. I can't guarantee I'll deal with it immediately (I can only manage evidence on so many arbcom cases at once), but if the case has merit, I will submit it on your behalf. -Snowspinner On Mar 10, 2005, at 4:24 PM, Cool Hand Luke wrote: > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 05:28:28 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer > wrote: >> --- Rick wrote: >>> I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are >>> afraid to request sanctions against other users >>> because of the perceived (and real) threat that the >>> arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the >>> case. >> >> Name a case where that happened. >> >> -- mav >> > > Even in cases where the petitioner is ultimately cleared, arbitration > requires an arduous defense. For people that would rather, say, work > on wikipedia, arbitration is a hassle. No sane individual would want > to draw fire from a troll who wants nothing more than to launch > spurious attacks. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 23:09:01 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:09:01 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050310134059.45873.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050310134059.45873.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > >>--- Rick wrote: >> >>>I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are >>>afraid to request sanctions against other users >>>because of the perceived (and real) threat that the >>>arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the >>>case. >> >>Name a case where that happened. > > > I should have added, name a case where that happened where the person bringing > the case was in fact innocent and then wrongfully sanctioned. It would be > absurd to only look at the accused and not the accuser. That would encourage > bad actors to request frivolous arbitrations. > > -- mav The ArbCom process should already be able to handle this. Let's look at the process: 1. Conflict resolution fails 2. User requests ArbCom decision 3. ArbCom members vote on whether to accept the case 4. ArbCom procedes and looks into the matter at hand At step 3 the user submitting the case should be examined. If its determined that the user is requesting an Arbitration case in bad faith the arbitrators reject the case. If the user continues to file frivilous requests a seperate ArbCom request is submitted against that user and they are stopped at the source. This has already happened with CheeseDreams. It worked admirably. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 23:12:37 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:12:37 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <550ccb82050310124214d98f0a@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050310194322.43910.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> <550ccb82050310124214d98f0a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Skyring wrote: > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:43:22 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > >>Yout left out how User 1 accuses User 2 AND User 3 of >>being members of the cabal out to get him. > > > There is no cabal. I've checked [[cabal]] > And none on [[Wikipedia:The_Cabal]]. TBSDY From christiaan at last-straw.net Thu Mar 10 23:29:26 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:29:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> On 10 Mar 2005, at 9:37 pm, Skyring wrote: > we've reached an acceptable solution, complete with good sources. The > Prime Minister describes Australia as a "crowned republic". Well well well. It appears Pete (Skyring) is entitled to an apology of sorts from some people on this list. I hope you stay on Pete and I hope this hasn't left a bad taste in your mouth. Good on you for sticking with it through all the personal attacks, etc. It's a shame you had to go to such lengths to create a better article. Christiaan From christiaan at last-straw.net Thu Mar 10 23:32:19 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:32:19 +0000 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> Chad Perrin wrote: > debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: >> Hi, Recycling Troll. >> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you >> as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) >> The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty >> of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia >> steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and >> other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do >> to them what they're starting in on doing to you. >> Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a >> dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your >> expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a >> bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban >> you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > Uh-oh, he's discovered the libertarian communist semitic fascist CIA > conspiracy of Wikipedia. Not to mention the un-American one. Christiaan From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 23:11:11 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:11:11 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Fred Bauder wrote: > The problem here is that we do not intervene. We accept some case which have > gone through the dispute resolution process. > > If there is to be intervention it will have to be by administrators (after a > policy allowing it is established). > > Fred > > >>From: "Poor, Edmund W" >>Reply-To: English Wikipedia >>Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:34:45 -0500 >>To: "English Wikipedia" >>Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abusive editors >> >>User 1 should be asked to be polite after "some abuse", then requested >>to review "no personal attacks" after "Hostility". >> >>User 1 should be referred to arbcom for "Other abuse", and will make the >>committee's job easier if he offers "streams of abuse" just as they're >>beginning to look into it all. >> >>No need to slap User 2 (either on wrist or back). Arbcom should >>intervene earlier and set User 1 straight, before he tempts his victims >>to take matters into their own hands. >> >>Uncle Ed Agreed. ArbCom only deals with requests from other editors. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 10 23:23:08 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:23:08 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to > you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing > list.) The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, > there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places > where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where > Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and > then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to > you. > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a > dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at > your expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out > a bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then > ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick > pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml > > > > > > Get your free encrypted email at http://www.cyber-rights.net Oh. My. Gosh. Can someone kick Sollog off the mailing list please? Thanks. TBSDY From slimvirgin at gmail.com Thu Mar 10 23:55:54 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:55:54 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Skyring and the Queen (again) In-Reply-To: References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05031015552a46f250@mail.gmail.com> Could an admin help out on [[Talk:Government of Australia]], please? User:Skyring is, for the third time, trying to escalate things with Adam, this time by saying he's about to delete the entire head-of-state section because it's simply Adam's opinion. If an admin could have a word with Skyring now, it might stop it before anyone gets blocked again. I've asked for help on WP:AN/I, but no response so far. Sarah From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 00:05:04 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:05:04 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin assistance requested In-Reply-To: <4cc603b05031015552a46f250@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4cc603b05031015552a46f250@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b050310160561e01077@mail.gmail.com> I just realized that a lot of you might not read my last post because I listed the subject as related to the Queen again, and I don't blame you. It is, in fact, a request for assistance from an admin. See below. Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:55:54 -0700 Subject: User:Skyring and the Queen (again) Could an admin help out on [[Talk:Government of Australia]], please? User:Skyring is, for the third time, trying to escalate things with Adam, this time by saying he's about to delete the entire head-of-state section because it's simply Adam's opinion. If an admin could have a word with Skyring now, it might stop it before anyone gets blocked again. I've asked for help on WP:AN/I, but no response so far. Sarah From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 00:11:01 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:11:01 +0000 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb050310140741aadbdc@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <1bfe3eb050310140741aadbdc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4230E215.7000202@thingy.apana.org.au> Theresa Knott wrote: > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:50:37 -0800, debussy at cyber-rights.net > wrote: >>Hi, Recycling Troll. >>Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to >>you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing > Will someone do the necessary block please? This is sollog Bye, [[Sollog]]! - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:08:59 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:08:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311000859.30769.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Rick wrote: > > Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. > > That does not appear to be a case that is currently > in arbitration or ever was. > Please explain. > > -- mav Exactly. As I said, I did not bring the case because of the fear of retribution against me by the arbcom, as has happened in the past. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:27:19 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:27:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311002719.42675.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rick wrote: > --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > > --- Rick wrote: > > > Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. > > > > That does not appear to be a case that is currently > > in arbitration or ever was. > > Please explain. > > > > -- mav > > Exactly. As I said, I did not bring the case because > of the fear of retribution against me by the arbcom, > as has happened in the past. Again, you have failed to demonstrate that is has happened and yet continue to state it as if it were fact. Please either stop or demonstrate the truthfulness of the statement. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:30:58 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:30:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311003058.17285.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Rick wrote: > > --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > > > --- Rick wrote: > > > > Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. > > > > > > That does not appear to be a case that is > currently > > > in arbitration or ever was. > > > Please explain. > > > > > > -- mav > > > > Exactly. As I said, I did not bring the case > because > > of the fear of retribution against me by the > arbcom, > > as has happened in the past. > > Again, you have failed to demonstrate that is has > happened and yet continue to > state it as if it were fact. > > Please either stop or demonstrate the truthfulness > of the statement. > > -- mav Calling someone a liar on the email list is frowned on, isn't it? Besides, all anyone has to do is to look at the results of the cases. Not only was I sanctioned, but Guanaco, against whom the case was brought, was PRAISED for his actions. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:36:41 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:36:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311003641.99497.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Cool Hand Luke wrote: > Even in cases where the petitioner is ultimately cleared, arbitration > requires an arduous defense. For people that would rather, say, work > on wikipedia, arbitration is a hassle. No sane individual would want > to draw fire from a troll who wants nothing more than to launch > spurious attacks. Noted. I think this is a side effect of the ArbCom not capping the amount of evidence that can be presented (several evidence pages have exceeded 100KB). I'd like to cap the number of words each person in arbitration can submit. This should reduce tit for tat evidence submission that consumes so much time of the people who are in cases (and the arbitrators that have to read all that). I'll put some thought into this. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From slimvirgin at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 00:40:25 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:40:25 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050311003641.99497.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050311003641.99497.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b0503101640203b0fb@mail.gmail.com> I believe it's capped already to 1,000 words and 100 diffs, which sounds a lot, but when you have a complex case, you can use them up pretty fast. I got through my 1000 words in no time in the LaRouche case, and I don't think I was being long-winded. It means I've got a ton of unused evidence still left on my computer for next time. ;-) Sarah On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:36:41 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > Noted. I think this is a side effect of the ArbCom not capping the amount of > evidence that can be presented (several evidence pages have exceeded 100KB). > I'd like to cap the number of words each person in arbitration can submit. From chris_mahan at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:45:01 2005 From: chris_mahan at yahoo.com (Christopher Mahan) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:45:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311004501.73156.qmail@web14027.mail.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Cool Hand Luke wrote: > > Even in cases where the petitioner is ultimately cleared, > arbitration > > requires an arduous defense. For people that would rather, say, > work > > on wikipedia, arbitration is a hassle. No sane individual would > want > > to draw fire from a troll who wants nothing more than to launch > > spurious attacks. > > Noted. Mav, Jimbo, I'd like to go on record to say that if someone was to start proceedings against me in arbcom, or if I felt that I needed to do likewise, I would just leave the project. Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan at yahoo.com chris.mahan at gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 00:47:48 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:47:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311004748.2850.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Rick wrote: > Calling someone a liar on the email list is frowned > on, isn't it? You made a statement that was derogatory toward the ArbCom. I asked for evidence to back that up. You failed to give such evidence. Making ad hominem attacks is what is frowned on. > Besides, all anyone has to do is to look at the > results of the cases. Not only was I sanctioned, but > Guanaco, against whom the case was brought, was > PRAISED for his actions. You were reminded of policy - that's all. You were not blocked and none of your editing privileges were compromised in any way. Hardly a sanction. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From perrin at apotheon.com Fri Mar 11 01:08:02 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:08:02 -0500 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> Christiaan Briggs wrote: > Chad Perrin wrote: >> debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: >>> Hi, Recycling Troll. >>> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you >>> as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) >>> The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty >>> of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia >>> steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and >>> other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do >>> to them what they're starting in on doing to you. >>> Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a >>> dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your >>> expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a >>> bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban >>> you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. >> >> Uh-oh, he's discovered the libertarian communist semitic fascist CIA >> conspiracy of Wikipedia. > > Not to mention the un-American one. I kinda figured that went without saying, but I suppose you're right: we should mention it's the American Imperialist un-American conspiracy, too. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 11 01:11:11 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:11 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311011111.E69FA6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! Be it known to all Wiccapedians that THERE BE WITCHES AMONG US! If THOU FEARE TO BRING CHARGES THYSELF before YE ARBITRATION COMMITTEE, Be aweare that SNOW-SPINNER will bring CHARGES ON THY BEHALFE. HE FEARETH NOTT!!! Wee Shall CLEANSE THE WICCAPEDIA of THEIR PRESENCE. Already Hath Brave SNOW-SPINNER brought DR. ZEN before THE COURT for Objecting to placing of the IMAGE of the SACRED CLITORIS in the Wiccapedia!!! He, at GREAT PERIL to his PERSON, hath faced the dreaded WHEELER, who sins with HERESY thinking that the Wiccapedia should be run like a REPUBLIC and dedicate itself to TRUTH (with THY CAPITAL "T"!!!!) So SHALL HE SMITE the DEVILLS in Our MIDST! So DO NOT HESITATE to DENOUNCE the DEMONS Amongst Us!!!! IF SOME SHOULD DARE to disagree with our SACRED ENDEAVOUR, DENOUNCE THEM ALSO!!!! GIVEN THIS DATE, COTTON-MATHER "All are addressed heare in the Male Gender. If in any case such addresse shall not describe the primarie sexe characteristics of the individual, substitute in thy mind the Distaff Gender." "Tonighte We Shalle Partye Like It's Sixteen-Ninety-Nine" ----- Original Message ----- From: Snowspinner To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:11:41 -0600 > > I suppose I should make public what has always been an implicit > fact here, and note that I am willing to, assuming, in my judgment, > the case has merits, raise any case to the arbitration committee. > Contact me via e-mail if you have a specific problem user you think > needs to be dealt with and don't feel you can deal with. I can't > guarantee I'll deal with it immediately (I can only manage evidence > on so many arbcom cases at once), but if the case has merit, I will > submit it on your behalf. > > -Snowspinner > > On Mar 10, 2005, at 4:24 PM, Cool Hand Luke wrote: > > > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 05:28:28 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer > > wrote: > >> --- Rick wrote: > >>> I think we've discussed ad nauseum how people are > >>> afraid to request sanctions against other users > >>> because of the perceived (and real) threat that the > >>> arbcom will turn it against the person bringing the > >>> case. > >> > >> Name a case where that happened. > >> > >> -- mav > >> > > > > Even in cases where the petitioner is ultimately cleared, arbitration > > requires an arduous defense. For people that would rather, say, work > > on wikipedia, arbitration is a hassle. No sane individual would want > > to draw fire from a troll who wants nothing more than to launch > > spurious attacks. > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 01:18:58 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut Message-ID: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture" heading that certain articles have, which which become a hodgepodge list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science fiction novel. Does this make me a bad person? Do others feel this? I feel as if these sections should be hunted down and exterminated. They could, of course, be broken off into separate lists (as I did for [[Mad scientist]] => [[List of mad scientists]]), but is that list then encyclopedic? It is feasible that it will ever be comprehensive? Would there be a point to a list of instances in popular culture of the [[philosopher's stone]] -- a common and reoccuring theme since at least medieval times? [[Nuclear weapon]] is another entry which has such a section. I've tried to make it, over time, less of a list and more of a descriptive paragraph. But it still is quite unpleasant and not very useful. I feel somewhat bad cutting a whole list out of an entry, though. With something like "nuclear weapon" (a major cultural motif of the late 20th century), it feels ridiculous to try and add every instance of its being invoked. But where to draw the line? I edited out a line somebody added about the fact that the prog-rock band Rush wrote a song about nuclear weapons on the basis that this was hardly notable enough to be mentioned in an encyclopedia article. But is "Sum of All Fears"? "Godzilla"? I don't know. Do these sections help you understand the article in question? I don't think they do. I'm happy with the article for the movie "Sum of All Fears" saying that it involved a nuclear weapon, but the other way around seems quite silly. My general feeling is that this is an issue of "importance" (very subjective) and "specificity" (less subjective); "Sum of All Fears" (the movie) is far less important than "nuclear weapons" (writ largely), and while the "Sum of All Fears" invokes the larger trope of the "nuclear weapon", the opposite does not, in my opinion, occur (most people do not see the word "nuclear weapon" and think, "Oh yes, that movie!"). I think that if the subject of an article really warrants a section on its impact in "popular culture," it should be something more along the lines of describing the way it is invoked (i.e. "Nuclear weapons have commonly stood as metaphors for the harnessing of the powers of nature by science, and are often invoked as apocalyptic symbols, etc.") rather than a list of occurences. Is anybody else with me on this? Have I lost my mind? Should I be more respectful to aspects of "popular culture" that I obviously disdain? Am I a cruel and unfair editor? I'm interested in your thoughts. This is clearly a matter of taste (and perhaps a little reasoning), though, and I'm not proposing any hard policies. I do understand the *reason* such sections exist: a lot of users don't have a whole lot to contribute to an article on "nuclear weapons", for instance, besides their associations in popular culture. Everybody wants to pitch in, as best they can. However, "all contributions are equally valid and must be kept" is clearly not the Wiki philosophy (egalitarianism here is reserved to the ability to contribute, not the information contributed itself), though I feel bad saying, "Look buddy, I'm sorry you don't know anything about this except that it was featured in an HBO weekly show. I understand you want to help. But you're just not up to snuff, if this is the only information you can offer." I'd feel like such a snobby academic historian saying that sort of thing, a very un-wiki sentiment. Alas! Does anybody have any thoughts? FF From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 01:38:50 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:38:50 -0500 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05031017387165b33b@mail.gmail.com> What's beautiful here is the motivation assigned. That's right, Wikipedia is just here to "lure people in with a pack of lies" just so they can be banned! That sounds like a reasonable endeavor, worth the time of the four hundred administrators and many thousands of registered editors. But wait! Who are these hundreds of editors? How did they get to be in the position of banning? Were they not too lured in by the pack of lies and banned? How does one change from the banned to the banners? How is such a decision made? More importantly: When can I get banned, or ban someone? I'm not in either category and feeling somewhat unsure of my identity. Do I create the pack of lies or am I a dupe of them? If someone could let me know either way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. FF On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:08:02 -0500, Chad Perrin wrote: > Christiaan Briggs wrote: > > Chad Perrin wrote: > >> debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: > >>> Hi, Recycling Troll. > >>> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you > >>> as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) > >>> The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty > >>> of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia > >>> steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and > >>> other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do > >>> to them what they're starting in on doing to you. > >>> Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a > >>> dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your > >>> expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a > >>> bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban > >>> you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > >> > >> Uh-oh, he's discovered the libertarian communist semitic fascist CIA > >> conspiracy of Wikipedia. > > > > Not to mention the un-American one. > > I kinda figured that went without saying, but I suppose you're right: we > should mention it's the American Imperialist un-American conspiracy, too. > > -- > Chad > [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 01:38:50 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:38:50 -0500 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05031017387165b33b@mail.gmail.com> What's beautiful here is the motivation assigned. That's right, Wikipedia is just here to "lure people in with a pack of lies" just so they can be banned! That sounds like a reasonable endeavor, worth the time of the four hundred administrators and many thousands of registered editors. But wait! Who are these hundreds of editors? How did they get to be in the position of banning? Were they not too lured in by the pack of lies and banned? How does one change from the banned to the banners? How is such a decision made? More importantly: When can I get banned, or ban someone? I'm not in either category and feeling somewhat unsure of my identity. Do I create the pack of lies or am I a dupe of them? If someone could let me know either way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. FF On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:08:02 -0500, Chad Perrin wrote: > Christiaan Briggs wrote: > > Chad Perrin wrote: > >> debussy at cyber-rights.net wrote: > >>> Hi, Recycling Troll. > >>> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you > >>> as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) > >>> The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty > >>> of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia > >>> steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and > >>> other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do > >>> to them what they're starting in on doing to you. > >>> Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a > >>> dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your > >>> expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a > >>> bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban > >>> you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > >> > >> Uh-oh, he's discovered the libertarian communist semitic fascist CIA > >> conspiracy of Wikipedia. > > > > Not to mention the un-American one. > > I kinda figured that went without saying, but I suppose you're right: we > should mention it's the American Imperialist un-American conspiracy, too. > > -- > Chad > [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From sean at epoptic.org Fri Mar 11 02:03:16 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:03:16 -0800 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031017387165b33b@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4230C4C1.2080208@apotheon.com> <77f2ddae8cb86897d74a44474057c927@last-straw.net> <4230EF72.7060500@apotheon.com> <98dd099a05031017387165b33b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4230FC64.5040605@epoptic.com> Fastfission stated for the record: > What's beautiful here is the motivation assigned. That's right, > Wikipedia is just here to "lure people in with a pack of lies" just so > they can be banned! That sounds like a reasonable endeavor, worth the > time of the four hundred administrators and many thousands of > registered editors. > > But wait! Who are these hundreds of editors? How did they get to be in > the position of banning? Were they not too lured in by the pack of > lies and banned? How does one change from the banned to the banners? > How is such a decision made? > > More importantly: When can I get banned, or ban someone? I'm not in > either category and feeling somewhat unsure of my identity. Do I > create the pack of lies or am I a dupe of them? If someone could let > me know either way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Ah-hah! You have conclusively demonstrated that you are actually one of the shadowy Controllers of the Cabal -- only a high-ranking conspirator would reveal those secrets and then claim such ignorance! -- Sean Barrett | The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant. sean at epoptic.com | From mackensen at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 02:22:41 2005 From: mackensen at gmail.com (Charles Fulton) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:22:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> Message-ID: Sir, I trust that was deliberately not a fatuous response. The Prime Minister is the head of government, and heads of government are generally not the people who interpret a constitution. When John Howard spoke in that connection, he was merely noting that the monarch had little if any real influence on politics. However, that no more makes Australia a republic than calling a sheep's tail a leg make it a leg. Skyring's POV is that Australia is a republic and not a constitutional monarchy, which flies in the face of logic, fact, common sense, and Australia's own constitution. Moreover, I see no evidence from the relevant talk pages that such a compromise has been reached, certainly if one has been reached, it doesn't involve him. Charles Fulton On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:29:26 +0000, Christiaan Briggs wrote: > On 10 Mar 2005, at 9:37 pm, Skyring wrote: > > > we've reached an acceptable solution, complete with good sources. The > > Prime Minister describes Australia as a "crowned republic". > > Well well well. It appears Pete (Skyring) is entitled to an apology of > sorts from some people on this list. I hope you stay on Pete and I hope > this hasn't left a bad taste in your mouth. Good on you for sticking > with it through all the personal attacks, etc. It's a shame you had to > go to such lengths to create a better article. > > Christiaan > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From mackensen at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 02:24:17 2005 From: mackensen at gmail.com (Charles Fulton) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:24:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> Message-ID: Right, and I meant for the negation to precede the adverb ("not a deliberately"). Although, on reflection, the phrase ("that response was not fatuous on purpose") would have been far superior. Sigh... Charles On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:22:41 +0000, Charles Fulton wrote: > Sir, I trust that was deliberately not a fatuous response. The Prime > Minister is the head of government, and heads of government are > generally not the people who interpret a constitution. When John > Howard spoke in that connection, he was merely noting that the monarch > had little if any real influence on politics. > > However, that no more makes Australia a republic than calling a > sheep's tail a leg make it a leg. Skyring's POV is that Australia is > a republic and not a constitutional monarchy, which flies in the face > of logic, fact, common sense, and Australia's own constitution. > > Moreover, I see no evidence from the relevant talk pages that such a > compromise has been reached, certainly if one has been reached, it > doesn't involve him. > > Charles Fulton > > > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:29:26 +0000, Christiaan Briggs > wrote: > > On 10 Mar 2005, at 9:37 pm, Skyring wrote: > > > > > we've reached an acceptable solution, complete with good sources. The > > > Prime Minister describes Australia as a "crowned republic". > > > > Well well well. It appears Pete (Skyring) is entitled to an apology of > > sorts from some people on this list. I hope you stay on Pete and I hope > > this hasn't left a bad taste in your mouth. Good on you for sticking > > with it through all the personal attacks, etc. It's a shame you had to > > go to such lengths to create a better article. > > > > Christiaan > > > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From morven at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 02:36:51 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:36:51 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc005031018365388c7ac@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote: > I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture" > heading that certain articles have, which which become a hodgepodge > list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in > a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science > fiction novel. I strongly agree with this and the rest of what you've entered here. I don't feel that they are ALL bad or should always go, but they can, and are, overused. The rule of thumb to be used is "Is this fact notable enough to be in this article?" In the example of nuclear weapons, for example, listing every movie, book, or whatnot that ever mentioned one is clearly going beyond the bounds of notability. Listing examples of them that had SIGNIFICANT effect on the popular knowledge or opinion would be a different manner, and quite acceptable. Meanwhile, in an article about something much more obscure, mentioning a cultural reference might be much more valuable, since it may be one of the few ways in which a member of the general public has heard of the topic. E.g. in the article on the [[Toyota 2000GT]], a rare 1960s Japanese sports car, the fact that one appeared in a James Bond movie may be quite relevant, since it's the only place that most of us are likely to have seen one. In a sense, this is a special case of a meta-problem: trivia. The extent that Wikipedia articles should include trivia - and how this should be done - isn't properly defined. -Matt (User:Morven) From bigwiki at earthling.net Fri Mar 11 03:00:20 2005 From: bigwiki at earthling.net (Ryan Wetherell) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:00:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Snowspinner ArbCom cases Message-ID: <20050311030021.B9F9E164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> > I suppose I should make public what has always been an implicit > fact here, and note that I am willing to, assuming, in my judgment, > the case has merits, raise any case to the arbitration committee. > Contact me via e-mail if you have a specific problem user you think > needs to be dealt with and don't feel you can deal with. I can't > guarantee I'll deal with it immediately (I can only manage evidence > on so many arbcom cases at once), but if the case has merit, I will > submit it on your behalf. > > -Snowspinner May I be the first one to congratulate Snowspinner on his bravery in taking on other's cases as if they were his own? This shows true selflessness. --Merovingian PS. Yes, I've finally started to read the mailing list. -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From bigwiki at earthling.net Fri Mar 11 03:11:20 2005 From: bigwiki at earthling.net (Ryan Wetherell) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:11:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture Glut Message-ID: <20050311031120.649401F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> > In a sense, this is a special case of a meta-problem: trivia. The > extent that Wikipedia articles should include trivia - and how this > should be done - isn't properly defined. > -Matt (User:Morven) I don't think that there can be a definite policy on trivia, seeing as what to include and what to omit seems very static. I was thinking one time about the logic of making a list along the lines of [[List of songs which explicitly refer to transportation by automobile]]. I quickly found that there were too many instances to remember. Besides, would a list like this serve any real purpose? Probably not. --Merovingian -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 11 03:17:01 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:17:01 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <20050311030024.E6C391AC1962@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050311030024.E6C391AC1962@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42310DAD.1050707@earthlink.net> Fastfission wrote: >What's beautiful here is the motivation assigned. That's right, >Wikipedia is just here to "lure people in with a pack of lies" just so >they can be banned! That sounds like a reasonable endeavor, worth the >time of the four hundred administrators and many thousands of >registered editors. > >But wait! Who are these hundreds of editors? How did they get to be in >the position of banning? Were they not too lured in by the pack of >lies and banned? How does one change from the banned to the banners? >How is such a decision made? > >More importantly: When can I get banned, or ban someone? I'm not in >either category and feeling somewhat unsure of my identity. Do I >create the pack of lies or am I a dupe of them? If someone could let >me know either way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. > > If you haven't been banned, you don't really exist. You're just a figment of Jimbo's imagination. It's not until you're ejected from the solipsist collective that your being acquires an independent metaphysical nature. --Michael Snow From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 11 03:30:53 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:30:53 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]] Message-ID: I have started off our first attempt to find a baseline revision for [[Common Unix Printing System]]. The proposal is here and is locked in to stop vandals from editing the URL to the revision: [[Common Unix Printing System/Proposed baseline]]. See the [[Talk:Common Unix Printing System/Proposed baseline|talk page]] to see the objections and review for the proposed baseline revision. I figure the mailing list is as good a place as any to make this announcement! :) TBSDY From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 03:38:08 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:38:08 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <550ccb8205031019386d5ea72a@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:22:41 +0000, Charles Fulton wrote: > Sir, I trust that was deliberately not a fatuous response. The Prime > Minister is the head of government, and heads of government are > generally not the people who interpret a constitution. When John > Howard spoke in that connection, he was merely noting that the monarch > had little if any real influence on politics. He said: "The essence of a republican form of government is that ultimate sovereignty resides in the people, and that all public office holders derive their authority from the people, either through election by the people, or by appointment by officers themselves elected by the people - precisely the form of government we enjoy in Australia. What this means is that we have always been a crowned republic. " http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/1997/waerydun.htm This seems to go a long way beyond your claim. As for constitutional commentators, the first were Quick and Garran with their monumental Annotation published in 1901, in which they said: "'The Constitution is the master of the legislature, and the community itself is the author of the Constitution ... Sovereignty resides in [those] in whom is ultimately vested the power to amend a Constitution of Government'." > > However, that no more makes Australia a republic than calling a > sheep's tail a leg make it a leg. Skyring's POV is that Australia is > a republic and not a constitutional monarchy, which flies in the face > of logic, fact, common sense, and Australia's own constitution. That is not my view. I have never said that Australia is not a constitutional monarchy. In fact I take the opportunity to state it quite firmly. Australia *is* a constitutional monarchy. The fact is that we are also a republic because we have a republican form of government, sovereignty resides in the people, and power is exercised through elected or appointed officials. The Queen certainly has a role, but as a figurehead. However, I am persuaded that to state it as a bland generalisation in the lead sentence without some considerable explanation immediately following is stylistically inelegant, to be polite. 8^) > Moreover, I see no evidence from the relevant talk pages that such a > compromise has been reached, certainly if one has been reached, it > doesn't involve him. This turns out not to be the case, as can be plainly seen. -- Peter in Canberra From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 11 03:49:06 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:49:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050311003641.99497.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Daniel Mayer >Noted. I think this is a side effect of the ArbCom not capping the amount >of >evidence that can be presented (several evidence pages have exceeded >100KB). >I'd like to cap the number of words each person in arbitration can submit. >This >should reduce tit for tat evidence submission that consumes so much time of >the >people who are in cases (and the arbitrators that have to read all that). >I'll >put some thought into this. 1000 words/100 links is already pretty tight for more complex cases. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 11 03:55:38 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:55:38 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311011111.E69FA6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: >From: "Jim Cecropia" >Already Hath Brave SNOW-SPINNER brought DR. ZEN before THE COURT for >Objecting to placing of the IMAGE of the SACRED CLITORIS in the >Wiccapedia!!! That's just one small symptom of persistent underlying policy violations. The RfAR isn't the Evidence page. Jay. From skyring at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 03:57:40 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:57:40 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Admin assistance requested In-Reply-To: <4cc603b050310160561e01077@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4cc603b05031015552a46f250@mail.gmail.com> <4cc603b050310160561e01077@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <550ccb8205031019573b1adde8@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 17:05:04 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > I just realized that a lot of you might not read my last post because > I listed the subject as related to the Queen again, and I don't blame > you. It is, in fact, a request for assistance from an admin. See > below. > > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:55:54 -0700 > Subject: User:Skyring and the Queen (again) > > Could an admin help out on [[Talk:Government of Australia]], please? > User:Skyring is, for the third time, trying to escalate things with > Adam, this time by saying he's about to delete the entire > head-of-state section because it's simply Adam's opinion. If an admin > could have a word with Skyring now, it might stop it before anyone > gets blocked again. I've asked for help on WP:AN/I, but no response so > far. Your summary is inaccurate. Here's what I said: "If you look back to [2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Government_of_Australia&diff=next&oldid=10232643) of nearly a month ago, you may see that in fact I proposed deleting any references to head of state because it was not a term that could be definitively sourced. Any additions are the property of others - my contribution was a single letter, which has since disappeared, I note. Let us be fair. Skyring 08:49, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) Accordingly, I will remove the Head of State section because it is contentious. Adam has not provided any verification for his statements that there is a convention that the Queen is head of state, that the authors of the Constitution thought this axiomatic, and that "most authorities" say that the Queen is the head of State. As User:SlimVirgin has argued repeatedly, the criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability." Here is what Sarah said in discussion: "Skyring, the criterion for entry into Wikipedia is verifibility, not truth; and the propositions we call factual are simply an overview of the most prevalent beliefs held by sources we regard as reputable and authoritative. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Government_of_Australia/archive_1] I do hope that she does not oppose me asking Adam to provide reputable sources for his opinions in the article. At one point he has claimed intimate knowledge of what was in the minds of the framers of the constitution, and I seriously doubt that he can back this up to the extent he claims. -- Peter in Canberra From perrin at apotheon.com Fri Mar 11 04:31:27 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:31:27 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42311F1F.6070100@apotheon.com> Fastfission wrote: > [snip screed] Actually, I agree with you. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 05:11:33 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311051133.51043.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! This posting was entirely inappropriate. Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an unacceptable incendiary posting. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 11 05:22:10 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 01:22:10 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> The issue is not Dr. Zen. The issue is not WHEELER. The issue is not 172. The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting people up. The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial review or standards. The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people have grievances with. My post was incendiary? Perhaps. My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. My post was inappropriate? I think not. Luv, C. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) > > > --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > > > HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! > > This posting was entirely inappropriate. > > Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation > of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to > do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an > unacceptable incendiary posting. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > _______________________________________________ > 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 saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 11 05:18:53 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:18:53 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] This republic nonsense has got to stop. In-Reply-To: <550ccb8205031019386d5ea72a@mail.gmail.com> References: <550ccb82050310004659a9769f@mail.gmail.com> <550ccb8205031013378108785@mail.gmail.com> <9d847c3a5020e1c2c47771ca160a147d@last-straw.net> <550ccb8205031019386d5ea72a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42312A3D.6090108@telus.net> Skyring wrote: >[John Howard] said: "The essence of a republican form of government is that >ultimate sovereignty resides in the people, and that all public office >holders derive their authority from the people, either through >election by the people, or by appointment by officers themselves >elected by the people - precisely the form of government we enjoy in >Australia. What this means is that we have always been a crowned >republic." > "All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people".- Article 2 of the Constitution. :-) Ec From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 05:29:44 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:29:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311052945.84864.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > The issue is not Dr. Zen. > The issue is not WHEELER. > The issue is not 172. > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress > toward shutting people up. > The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress > toward editorial review or standards. > The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases > against users people have grievances with. > > My post was incendiary? Perhaps. > My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. > My post was inappropriate? I think not. > > Luv, C. And what did you hope to accomplish by posting to the mailing list? RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 11 05:32:40 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:32:40 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Wocka wocka (makes Rap noises). TBSDY Jim Cecropia wrote: > The issue is not Dr. Zen. > The issue is not WHEELER. > The issue is not 172. > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting people up. > The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial review or standards. > The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people have grievances with. > > My post was incendiary? Perhaps. > My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. > My post was inappropriate? I think not. > > Luv, C. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Rick > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) > > >> >>--- Jim Cecropia wrote: >> >>>HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! >> >>This posting was entirely inappropriate. >> >>Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation >>of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to >>do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an >>unacceptable incendiary posting. >> >>RickK From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Fri Mar 11 05:38:47 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:38:47 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: If there are users who feel intimidated by the system to the point where they do not feel comfortable seeking dispute resolution, that is itself a problem. I am willing to help there. Think of it as the AMA, only for a different kind of disadvantaged user. -Snowspinner On Mar 10, 2005, at 11:22 PM, Jim Cecropia wrote: > The issue is not Dr. Zen. > The issue is not WHEELER. > The issue is not 172. > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting > people up. > The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial > review or standards. > The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people > have grievances with. > > My post was incendiary? Perhaps. > My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. > My post was inappropriate? I think not. > > Luv, C. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Rick > To: "English Wikipedia" > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) > >> >> >> --- Jim Cecropia wrote: >>> >>> HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! >> >> This posting was entirely inappropriate. >> >> Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation >> of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to >> do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an >> unacceptable incendiary posting. >> >> RickK >> >> >> >> >> __________________________________ >> Do you Yahoo!? >> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! >> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 11 05:38:50 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:38:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311052210.386C11F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: >The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people have >grievances with. No, Snowspinner is telling people that if they know of editors who have consistently violated policy, but feel too intimidated to bring them before ArbCom themselves, he will investigate himself, and if he thinks the charges have merit, will bring a case before ArbCom. Jay. From perrin at apotheon.com Fri Mar 11 05:40:51 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:40:51 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia referenced by SANS Message-ID: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> I received an email tonight from the SANS Institute, one of the most widely known authorities on matters pertaining to network security and provider of some of the best information on the subject of computer security threats available online. The email is an invitation to a conference they'll be hosting. Since it's in Colorado and costs great scads of money between the attendance fee and the expenses, I won't be going. I thought an excerpt from the email might interest this list, though. "According to Wikipedia, "spyware consists of computer software that gathers and reports information about a computer user without the user's knowledge or consent." This can encompass a wide range of different types of malware that perform a variety of actions on computer systems. Some spyware delivers advertising, while other spyware gathers user information without his/her knowledge. Spyware can also install modem dialing software and redirect users to malicious Web sites." That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference. It seems like good news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to provide definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade. Good night. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From mapellegrini at comcast.net Fri Mar 11 05:45:28 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:45:28 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <42313078.3060706@comcast.net> The '''Wikipedia Arbitration committee''' is [[Wikipedia]]'s final mechanism of [[m:dispute resolution]] process. ==History== In an effort to [[m:devolve power]], in early 2004 [[Jimbo Wales]] appointed 12 trust members of the Wikipedia community and tasked them with sorting out user disputes. Unfortunately, for the first year of its existance, the arbitration commitee was lambasted for being too slow and too feeble in its decisions. Following the vicious [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|2004 elections]], the commitee's processes began to speed up and decisions became more decisive. Unfortunately, the commitee was then lambasted as being a [[witch hunt]] and for 'shutting people up'. ==See also== * [[Catch 22]] * [[No-win situation]] {{stub}} From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 11 05:55:08 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 01:55:08 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311055508.9D9D1101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:29:44 -0800 (PST) > > > --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > The issue is not Dr. Zen. > > The issue is not WHEELER. > > The issue is not 172. > > > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress > > toward shutting people up. > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress > > toward editorial review or standards. > > The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases > > against users people have grievances with. > > > > My post was incendiary? Perhaps. > > My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. > > My post was inappropriate? I think not. > > > > Luv, C. > > And what did you hope to accomplish by posting to the > mailing list? > > RickK > I hoped, with some satire, to wake Wikipedians up to the above points. Has no one read Jimbo's comments that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first, a community second? --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From theresaknott at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 05:56:36 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 05:56:36 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <20050311000859.30769.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050311000859.30769.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0503102156101ecc38@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:08:59 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > > --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > > --- Rick wrote: > > > Me vs. The Recycling Troll, for starters. > > > > That does not appear to be a case that is currently > > in arbitration or ever was. > > Please explain. > > > > -- mav > > Exactly. As I said, I did not bring the case because > of the fear of retribution against me by the arbcom, > as has happened in the past. > > RickK RickK are you serious ? That is ridiculous. Theresa From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 11 06:00:35 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:00:35 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311060035.BF2394BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. Now it seems to be a first resort for some. Not good, however well-intentioned. --C ----- Original Message ----- From: Snowspinner To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:38:47 -0600 > > If there are users who feel intimidated by the system to the point > where they do not feel comfortable seeking dispute resolution, that > is itself a problem. I am willing to help there. > > Think of it as the AMA, only for a different kind of disadvantaged user. > > -Snowspinner > > On Mar 10, 2005, at 11:22 PM, Jim Cecropia wrote: > > > The issue is not Dr. Zen. > > The issue is not WHEELER. > > The issue is not 172. > > > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward > > shutting people up. > > The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial > > review or standards. > > The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users > > people have grievances with. > > > > My post was incendiary? Perhaps. > > My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. > > My post was inappropriate? I think not. > > > > Luv, C. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Rick > > To: "English Wikipedia" > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! > > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) > > > >> > >> > >> --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > >>> > >>> HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! > >> > >> This posting was entirely inappropriate. > >> > >> Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation > >> of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to > >> do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an > >> unacceptable incendiary posting. > >> > >> RickK > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> __________________________________ > >> Do you Yahoo!? > >> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > >> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From jcecropia at mail.com Fri Mar 11 06:06:33 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 02:06:33 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311060633.F1F406EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> It is entirely possible for something to go from ineffectual to overbearing. One is not a corrective to the other. --C ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Pellegrini" To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:45:28 -0500 > > The '''Wikipedia Arbitration committee''' is [[Wikipedia]]'s final > mechanism of [[m:dispute resolution]] process. > > ==History== > In an effort to [[m:devolve power]], in early 2004 [[Jimbo Wales]] > appointed 12 trust members > of the Wikipedia community and tasked them with sorting out user disputes. > > Unfortunately, for the first year of its existance, the arbitration > commitee was lambasted for being too slow and > too feeble in its decisions. Following the vicious > [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|2004 > elections]], the commitee's processes began to speed up and > decisions became more decisive. Unfortunately, the commitee was > then lambasted as being a [[witch hunt]] and for 'shutting people > up'. ==See also== > * [[Catch 22]] > * [[No-win situation]] > > {{stub}} > > _______________________________________________ > 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 wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 11 06:56:06 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:56:06 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311060641.B91AA1AC1A1C@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050311060641.B91AA1AC1A1C@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42314106.3050205@earthlink.net> Jim Cecropia wrote: >In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. Now it seems to be a first resort for some. > >Not good, however well-intentioned. > > I think this observation is perceptive. Note that the problem is not with the Arbitration Committee itself, it's the community's use of the arbitration process. I'm disappointed that a number of cases in the past week or two have been brought with little or no indication that other methods of dispute resolution have been given any serious effort, or that such efforts are in the long-distant past. I would also be disappointed with the Arbitration Committee for accepting such cases, but they have rejected some, and in other cases I recognize that the arbitrators feel obligated to respond to the community, and when community sentiment is strongly for arbitration this is difficult to resist. The other dispute resolution methods (requests for comment, surveys, mediation) are not simply formalities to check off on the inexorable path to arbitration. Treating them as such is not acting in good faith. Yes, it's nice that arbitration is now working much more quickly than before. This doesn't mean that you get to speed through the rest of the process on an expedited track. Writing a great encyclopedia takes time. The attendant discussion and resolving of disagreements takes time too. With arbitration working more efficiently, no doubt some people feel that the other processes are now comparatively inefficient. Please work to change this. The mediation process still desperately needs more mediators to handle the load. Requests for comment for article disputes would work better if everyone seeking comment also took the time to add their input to someone else's request. The RfC page could also stand to be pruned more often and stale listings removed. Finally, I would note that the admin noticeboard is a nice idea and often a useful tool, but it is not part of the dispute resolution process. It exists for people to consider whether admins should take action to deal with problems, but its focus and tone are better suited for halting disputes (temporarily) than resolving them. Going directly from the noticeboard to arbitration is, in almost all cases, short-circuiting the process. --Michael Snow From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 11 07:08:09 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:08:09 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311060035.BF2394BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050311060035.BF2394BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: I've noticed this. I see that Dr Zen never got an RFC and yet an arbcom dispute has been filed. He was also blocked the other day and I had to unblock him. I'd like to know if the arbcom will be dealing with one issue, or many. If it's one issue I might suggest that they accepted this arb request to quickly. TBSDY Jim Cecropia wrote: > In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. Now it seems to be a first resort for some. > > Not good, however well-intentioned. > > --C From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 11 07:10:06 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:10:06 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <42314106.3050205@earthlink.net> References: <20050311060641.B91AA1AC1A1C@mail.wikimedia.org> <42314106.3050205@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Michael Snow wrote: > Jim Cecropia wrote: > >> In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. >> Now it seems to be a first resort for some. >> >> Not good, however well-intentioned. >> >> > I think this observation is perceptive. Note that the problem is not > with the Arbitration Committee itself, it's the community's use of the > arbitration process. I'm disappointed that a number of cases in the past > week or two have been brought with little or no indication that other > methods of dispute resolution have been given any serious effort, or > that such efforts are in the long-distant past. I would also be > disappointed with the Arbitration Committee for accepting such cases, > but they have rejected some, and in other cases I recognize that the > arbitrators feel obligated to respond to the community, and when > community sentiment is strongly for arbitration this is difficult to > resist. > > The other dispute resolution methods (requests for comment, surveys, > mediation) are not simply formalities to check off on the inexorable > path to arbitration. Treating them as such is not acting in good faith. > > Yes, it's nice that arbitration is now working much more quickly than > before. This doesn't mean that you get to speed through the rest of the > process on an expedited track. Writing a great encyclopedia takes time. > The attendant discussion and resolving of disagreements takes time too. > > With arbitration working more efficiently, no doubt some people feel > that the other processes are now comparatively inefficient. Please work > to change this. The mediation process still desperately needs more > mediators to handle the load. Requests for comment for article disputes > would work better if everyone seeking comment also took the time to add > their input to someone else's request. The RfC page could also stand to > be pruned more often and stale listings removed. > > Finally, I would note that the admin noticeboard is a nice idea and > often a useful tool, but it is not part of the dispute resolution > process. It exists for people to consider whether admins should take > action to deal with problems, but its focus and tone are better suited > for halting disputes (temporarily) than resolving them. Going directly > from the noticeboard to arbitration is, in almost all cases, > short-circuiting the process. > > --Michael Snow Agreed. This was NEVER my intention when I setup the admin noticeboard. I'm beginning to regret that I've concentrated the power of a majority of admins and made them a might too powerful. I say this because lately I've been acting the same way. Time for me to pull back from admin tasks I feel. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 11 07:14:51 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 18:14:51 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia referenced by SANS In-Reply-To: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> References: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> Message-ID: Chad Perrin wrote: > I received an email tonight from the SANS Institute, one of the most > widely known authorities on matters pertaining to network security and > provider of some of the best information on the subject of computer > security threats available online. The email is an invitation to a > conference they'll be hosting. Since it's in Colorado and costs great > scads of money between the attendance fee and the expenses, I won't be > going. > > I thought an excerpt from the email might interest this list, though. > > "According to Wikipedia, "spyware consists of computer software that > gathers and reports information about a computer user without the user's > knowledge or consent." This can encompass a wide range of different > types of malware that perform a variety of actions on computer systems. > Some spyware delivers advertising, while other spyware gathers user > information without his/her knowledge. Spyware can also install modem > dialing software and redirect users to malicious Web sites." > > That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference. It seems like good > news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to provide > definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade. > > Good night. > That's cool :) Can you add this to [[WP:Media]]? TBSDY From jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk Fri Mar 11 08:37:17 2005 From: jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk (J.F. de Wolff) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:37:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut In-Reply-To: <20050311030025.53A771AC1981@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050311030025.53A771AC1981@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050311082706.028ce0b8@mail1.doctors.org.uk> Fastfission has touched on an important point - the encyclopedicity of trivia. I've had very similar arguments over some medical articles. Some articles on diseases (e.g. [[Parkinson's disease]], [[Pneumonia]]) have grown little lists of "famous people with pneumonia" etc. As most know, millions of people worldwide die from pneumonia or Parkinson's, and just because the Pope is one of them hardly makes him worth mentioning in the article about the disease. Oddly, only some articles have grown these lists. Nixon had thrombosis, but he's not in [[deep venous thrombosis]]. Similarly, [[myocardial infarction]] (heart attack) does not have a list of famous people who died from it, because it is so very common. I would like to seek consensus on what kind of morbidity is worthy of inclusion in articles. I would say: only if someone's morbidity has *significantly* altered public perception of a disorder is this person worth mentioning (e.g. [[Lou Gehrig]] and his eponymous disease; [[Stephen Hawking]] would qualify for this as well). Otherwise, only the article *on that person* should mention morbidity and mortality. Jfdwolff -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.1 - Release Date: 09/03/2005 From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 08:46:31 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:46:31 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311060035.BF2394BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050311060035.BF2394BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <42315AE7.1040706@thingy.apana.org.au> Jim Cecropia wrote: > In my memory ArbCom was the very last resort in an open commuunity. Now it seems to be a first resort for some. > Not good, however well-intentioned. At which point the AC generally says "go away, put in the effort to resolve this yourselves first." Unfortunately, there's no way to keep people from bringing issues to RFAr way prematurely. However, we can and do reject them for this. - d. From DavidCarson at perception.com.au Fri Mar 11 05:25:42 2005 From: DavidCarson at perception.com.au (David Carson) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:25:42 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <3E52F1A447071349BAC3060B43E1710FC082D2@perception-1.Perception.local> Your post was extremely funny? Well, I thought so! Cheers, David... (Stormie) -----Original Message----- From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Jim Cecropia Sent: Friday, 11 March 2005 4:22 PM To: English Wikipedia Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! The issue is not Dr. Zen. The issue is not WHEELER. The issue is not 172. The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress toward shutting people up. The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress toward editorial review or standards. The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases against users people have grievances with. My post was incendiary? Perhaps. My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. My post was inappropriate? I think not. Luv, C. ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:33 -0800 (PST) > > > --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > > > HEAR YE!! HEAR YE!! > > This posting was entirely inappropriate. > > Dr Zen has repeatedly deleted the image in violation > of consensus, and indicates that he will continue to > do so. Your posting to the mailing list is an > unacceptable incendiary posting. > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > _______________________________________________ > 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 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 charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 09:10:07 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:10:07 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's in a (country's) name? References: Message-ID: <001301c5261a$1fa1cdb0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ed Poor wrote >So we really need to use this example in an article about how the liberal media goes out of its way to discredit "the right" while NEVER conceding any error of its own and even DELIBERATELY deceiving the public. We need to do no such thing. If this article is written from a NPOV, the facts of the case can be clarified. Elephantine generalisations like 'liberal media' need not appear. Readers, if provided with facts, can draw conclusions about whether this is about more than professional loudmouth columnist meets ill-prepared interviewer (whatever - on a scale of 1 to 10 this is about at -6 for most people's threshold of interest, I suppose). Ed, your agenda is showing. Charles From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 09:18:27 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:18:27 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut References: <20050311030025.53A771AC1981@mail.wikimedia.org> <6.2.1.2.0.20050311082706.028ce0b8@mail1.doctors.org.uk> Message-ID: <002501c5261b$4a07ba00$9e7c0450@Galasien> J.F. de Wolff wrote > I would like to seek consensus on what kind of morbidity is worthy of > inclusion in articles. I would say: only if someone's morbidity has > *significantly* altered public perception of a disorder is this person > worth mentioning (e.g. [[Lou Gehrig]] and his eponymous disease; [[Stephen > Hawking]] would qualify for this as well). Otherwise, only the article *on > that person* should mention morbidity and mortality. Reasonable. In a sense it is not so important, either way, in most cases. Tuberculosis: there's a case where in a sense a historical list would be of considerable general interest. The problem with historical listings is of course that the factuality of the diagnosis can be problematic. Charles From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 09:32:07 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:32:07 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <42f90dc005031018365388c7ac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002f01c5261d$34125190$9e7c0450@Galasien> Matt Brown wrote > In a sense, this is a special case of a meta-problem: trivia. The > extent that Wikipedia articles should include trivia - and how this > should be done - isn't properly defined. Yes. But it's 'starting a hare'. If we ever had a big debate on exactly what counts as 'trivia', we'd never get finished and it would be a (probably) pointless use of time. I note that trivia used to be called 'general knowledge'; before Trivial Pursuit fairly much broke the mould of the older type of quiz question. There was a certain type of democratisation when facts about sportspeople, soap stars, B-list royalty, one-hit wonders, Pikachu, actors within six degrees of Kevin Bacon etc. all were added into the brew. Mostly trivia neither add much to nor detract from WP; they may be weed-like, growing in the wrong place. Now, I hope we can agree one thing - no astrology column on the Main Page ... Charles From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 10:32:35 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:32:35 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <002f01c5261d$34125190$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <42f90dc005031018365388c7ac@mail.gmail.com> <002f01c5261d$34125190$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <423173C3.8010608@thingy.apana.org.au> Charles Matthews wrote: > Now, I hope we can agree one thing - no astrology column on the Main > Page ... No, that would go next to the crossword on Wikinews. AQUARIUS: Your habit of looking in newspapers for guides to how to live your life today may indicate a shallow grasp of personal responsibility and an excess of gullibility. Read more Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan. Lucky number: 0. - d. From brian1954 at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 12:20:31 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:20:31 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at all. Your example of [[Nuclear weapons]] is perfect. If there were a section on public opinion about nuclear weapons, which would be quire reasonable to have, and there were some movie, book, or other item of popular culture that had a significant impact in influencing this public opinion, then the book, etc, should be mentioned, of course. But just a list under "in popular culture" listing movies and books that nuclear weapons in them, is ridiculous. Next thing you know, there will be a section in the article "Nuclear Weapons In Star Wars", describing the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars, and so forth. The article is currently missing this important aspect of nuclear weapons. Perhaps the "solution" is just to concede that Wikipedia is really just the online encyclopedia of popular culture, throw in the towel, and delete the 20% of so of it that is about reality. You know off-topic stuff like [[Nuclear weapons]]. Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections? Someone is going to insist that it is "removal of information" and , therefore, vandalism to remove them. On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote: > I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture" > heading that certain articles have, which which become a hodgepodge > list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in > a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science > fiction novel. > From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 12:39:10 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:39:10 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000701c52637$548a3e50$9e7c0450@Galasien> Brian M wrote >But > when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major > problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at > all. As far as I can see, WP doesn't have a sense of proportion. It has a sense of mission. The mission is not proportionate to anything conventional. It would certainly be quite wrong to read anything into relative coverage. I think the positiion is like this: after a certain point pop culture can become spam. Just like a bot creating a page for each prime number would be spamming WP, after a certain point. We have no idea where that point would be - it's a judgement call, it makes little odds to the merit of WP one way or another. Information about the uninteresting is not the threat that disinformation about the interesting is - by a factor of at least 100. We don't need to have a page about every Magic the Gathering card, but if they proliferate it would be much better to purge them en masse some day, than to clog up VfD-type processes. Charles From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 11 12:47:19 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:47:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050311124719.19994.qmail@web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Brian M wrote: > I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be > deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia > of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV > episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner > of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But > when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major > problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at > all. I enthusiastically agree, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed and been (mildy) irked by this phenomenon -- phew! Perhaps we could propose a [[Wikipedia:*]] advice page cautioning against this trend? > Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections? Someone is > going to insist that it is "removal of information" and, therefore, > vandalism to remove them. Yes, I can see that happening :( But just like questioning accuracy or neutrality of material, I think it's quite legitimate to question something's importance (relative to the topic) in an article. There's a trade-off at work here, something like: * The benefit of the information provided; versus * The risk of bloating the article and making it less useful as a concise survey of a topic. This is quite a different dynamic to VfD, because trivia parceled up in its own separate article is much less harmful to other content (some might even say harmless). On a large scale, we can be guided by the balance that other people have thought workable, for example, themes that are covered in other encyclopedia articles, books, textbooks, surveys, etc. Ultimately, though, the best any of us can do is to make a heuristic judgement about how "trivial" such information is -- it might be controversial, but we can try and discuss things and arrive at consensus (yes, I'm an optimist...) -- Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Mar 11 13:02:53 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:02:53 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005031018365388c7ac@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: Matt Brown > Reply-To: Matt Brown , English Wikipedia > > Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:36:51 -0800 > To: Fastfission , English Wikipedia > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut > > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote: >> I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture" >> heading that certain articles have, which which become a hodgepodge >> list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in >> a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science >> fiction novel. > > I strongly agree with this and the rest of what you've entered here. > > I don't feel that they are ALL bad or should always go, but they can, > and are, overused. The rule of thumb to be used is "Is this fact > notable enough to be in this article?" In the example of nuclear > weapons, for example, listing every movie, book, or whatnot that ever > mentioned one is clearly going beyond the bounds of notability. > Listing examples of them that had SIGNIFICANT effect on the popular > knowledge or opinion would be a different manner, and quite > acceptable. For example the movie ''On the Beach.'' > > Meanwhile, in an article about something much more obscure, mentioning > a cultural reference might be much more valuable, since it may be one > of the few ways in which a member of the general public has heard of > the topic. E.g. in the article on the [[Toyota 2000GT]], a rare 1960s > Japanese sports car, the fact that one appeared in a James Bond movie > may be quite relevant, since it's the only place that most of us are > likely to have seen one. > > In a sense, this is a special case of a meta-problem: trivia. The > extent that Wikipedia articles should include trivia - and how this > should be done - isn't properly defined. Some trivia is interesting, some not > > -Matt (User:Morven) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Fri Mar 11 13:44:40 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:44:40 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? In-Reply-To: References: <20050310132828.78898.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> <60e40a950503101424406f6b70@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49143.194.72.110.12.1110548680.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Snowspinner said: > I suppose I should make public what has always been an implicit fact > here, and note that I am willing to, assuming, in my judgment, the case > has merits, raise any case to the arbitration committee. Contact me > via e-mail if you have a specific problem user you think needs to be > dealt with and don't feel you can deal with. I can't guarantee I'll > deal with it immediately (I can only manage evidence on so many arbcom > cases at once), but if the case has merit, I will submit it on your > behalf. If you find yourself too busy (and always assuming arbcom can handle the caseload), I would like to volunteer to handle some of the evidence phase. I have experience of preparing concise, useful evidence for arbcom. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Mar 11 14:22:30 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:22:30 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? In-Reply-To: <49143.194.72.110.12.1110548680.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Anyone can add evidence to an arbcom case. Concise presentation of evidence that is significant would be welcome in any arbcom case. Fred > From: "Tony Sidaway" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:44:40 -0000 (GMT) > To: > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? > > Snowspinner said: >> I suppose I should make public what has always been an implicit fact >> here, and note that I am willing to, assuming, in my judgment, the case >> has merits, raise any case to the arbitration committee. Contact me >> via e-mail if you have a specific problem user you think needs to be >> dealt with and don't feel you can deal with. I can't guarantee I'll >> deal with it immediately (I can only manage evidence on so many arbcom >> cases at once), but if the case has merit, I will submit it on your >> behalf. > > If you find yourself too busy (and always assuming arbcom can handle the > caseload), I would like to volunteer to handle some of the evidence phase. > I have experience of preparing concise, useful evidence for arbcom. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From shebs at apple.com Fri Mar 11 14:30:41 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 06:30:41 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4231AB91.9050701@apple.com> Brian M wrote: >I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be >deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia >of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV >episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner >of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But >when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major >problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at >all. > Or it makes WP more attractive to readers because it has information that can't be gotten from other sources. Robert Collison's history makes mention of a decision by Britannica (for the 9th edition?) to include topics like farming, metalworking, and so forth, not because they thought they had suddenly become "encyclopedic", but to try to sell EB to middle-class people that didn't have so much of a need for complete coverage of Marcus Atilius Regulus and medieval German literature. Even so, we now know that EB simply failed to report on great swathes of their own culture. Nuclear weapons are one of the areas where 20th-century geopolitics has impinged on the general consciousness, and popular culture references are a reflection of the fears they've come to engender in ordinary people. Not only are the references themselves manifestations of the artists' feelings, but the very urge to add the references tells you something about the fears of WP editors. (There's also a good argument to be made that the desire to delete all the cultural references is a different kind of editorial response to the same fears.) So yeah, if a reference is trivial, maybe it doesn't need to be there, but it would be good to exercise a light touch, keeping in mind the breadth of our audience, and that many (probably most) readers will be far more interested in the culture stuff than the mathematical equations. Stan From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 14:45:13 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:45:13 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <20050311124719.19994.qmail@web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050311124719.19994.qmail@web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4231AEF9.9040503@thingy.apana.org.au> Matt R wrote: > --- Brian M wrote: >>I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be >>deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia >>of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV >>episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner >>of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But >>when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major >>problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at >>all. > I enthusiastically agree, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed > and been (mildy) irked by this phenomenon -- phew! Perhaps we could propose a > [[Wikipedia:*]] advice page cautioning against this trend? I would strongly caution against a blanket purge. Take [[ununpentium]], for instance - the popular culture stuff is most of the reason anyone would look at it. At which point they learn *why* it got into popular culture, and can learn about the [[island of stability]] and UFO nut [[Bob Lazar]]. It adds a lot of interest to an otherwise almost cookie-cutter sciencecruft article. A lot of articles are not in fact very balanced. This happens. Better to split off the trivia to another suitable article than just delete it because you don't care. "The existence of this pisses me off" is not in fact a reason to delete. One example of how to handle this is [[Lilith]]. The ==Lilith in popular culture== section was about to overwhelm the article, so it all got put into [[Lilith (disambiguation)]]. The section says to see that article because people kept putting trivia into it. Now [[Lilith]] is reasonably balanced and the thousand uses of Lilith in popular culture are usefully placed at a disambig. In any case, nuclear weapons in popular culture is a huge and fascinating sociological topic, for those of us old enough to remember the Cold War and to try to get across what it felt like to those who aren't. It still amazes me when I meet mature adults with kids who don't remember the Cold War and just don't understand WTF I'm talking about. - d. From cunctator at kband.com Fri Mar 11 14:53:29 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:53:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary In-Reply-To: <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/11/05 7:20 AM, "Brian M" wrote: > I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be > deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia > of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV > episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner > of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But > when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major > problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at > all. Ack! No! > Your example of [[Nuclear weapons]] is perfect. If there were a > section on public opinion about nuclear weapons, which would be quire > reasonable to have, and there were some movie, book, or other item of > popular culture that had a significant impact in influencing this > public opinion, then the book, etc, should be mentioned, of course. > But just a list under "in popular culture" listing movies and books > that nuclear weapons in them, is ridiculous. Next thing you know, > there will be a section in the article "Nuclear Weapons In Star Wars", > describing the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars, and so forth. > The article is currently missing this important aspect of nuclear > weapons. The answer is to separate distinct concepts into different pages. There's no reason there shouldn't be [[Nuclear weapons in Star Wars]] (except that it's not clear that there really are any--the Death Star, for example, seems to use some kind of collimated maser? You know, the kind that makes a zapping sound in DEEP SPACE. Ack.). > Perhaps the "solution" is just to concede that Wikipedia is really > just the online encyclopedia of popular culture, throw in the towel, > and delete the 20% of so of it that is about reality. You know > off-topic stuff like [[Nuclear weapons]]. There's no need to delete knowledge. Interesting how you don't think popular culture is real. Worrisome, actually. > Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections? Someone is > going to insist that it is "removal of information" and , therefore, > vandalism to remove them. It's good that somewhere you recognize how misguided your impulse is. Look: Wikipedia is going to be full of knowledge that any one individual person will find utterly uninteresting and/or irrelevant to that person's interests or life--but that selfsame knowledge will be interesting and/or relevant to someone else--most likely many other people. Remember that all information in Wikipedia has been added by a reader, so we *know* at least part of the audience feels that it's relevant. As long as the information is objectively verifiable and is coherently presented, it deserves place in Wikipedia. Where to put it and how to present it is a perfectly reasonable topic for discussion. From dpbsmith at verizon.net Fri Mar 11 15:27:01 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:27:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public Message-ID: <4376934.1110554822014.JavaMail.root@vms076.mailsrvcs.net> The people trying to determine whether Australia is a republic just need to get together WHEELER, who has special expertise in that area. :-) From dpbsmith at verizon.net Fri Mar 11 15:28:31 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:28:31 -0600 (CST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public Message-ID: <21560127.1110554911373.JavaMail.root@vms076.mailsrvcs.net> The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should get together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area. :-) From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 15:57:52 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:57:52 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public References: <21560127.1110554911373.JavaMail.root@vms076.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <001001c52653$163832d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote > The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should get > together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area. Gilbert & Sullivan had it down: the punishment should fit the crime. Charles From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 16:04:53 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:04:53 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <4231AEF9.9040503@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050311124719.19994.qmail@web25007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <4231AEF9.9040503@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <98dd099a050311080415a320c@mail.gmail.com> > In any case, nuclear weapons in popular culture is a huge and fascinating > sociological topic, for those of us old enough to remember the Cold War > and to try to get across what it felt like to those who aren't. It still > amazes me when I meet mature adults with kids who don't remember the Cold > War and just don't understand WTF I'm talking about. That's of course the hopeful point of the "In popular culture" section for that article. But does it currently accomplish that? I think not -- it is mostly a list of Hollywood movies. That's sort of my point: cultural impacts are important, but a list of movies or times something is used in video games is not a real metric of cultural impact and doesn't tell you anything new. See [[philosopher's stone]] for another excellent example of something which COULD have an interesting section on how and why it is used in popular culture (notions of immortality, alchemy, mystery, secrecy!), but instead has a list of Japanese cartoons and video games which in some minor way feature something called a philosopher's stone. FF From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Fri Mar 11 16:07:57 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:07:57 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public In-Reply-To: <001001c52653$163832d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <21560127.1110554911373.JavaMail.root@vms076.mailsrvcs.net> <001001c52653$163832d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <25621.194.72.110.12.1110557277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Charles Matthews said: > dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote > >> The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should >> get together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area. > > Gilbert & Sullivan had it down: the punishment should fit the crime. I'm all for clapping them in irons and sending them to a country on the other side of the world. Oh wait... From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 16:09:05 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:09:05 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia running nicely today, at least for me... References: Message-ID: <001401c52654$a7757bd0$9e7c0450@Galasien> > Yes it did, and your e-mail appears to have jinxed it already. :-( > > Jay. Fear not. I'm assured by amazon.com that Wikipedia 'usually ships within 24 hours'. Charles From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 16:13:36 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:13:36 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary In-Reply-To: References: <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050311081328d13ff1@mail.gmail.com> I think I should clarify one thing about what I was trying to say: I'm not against the ==In popular culture== sections if they are coherent sentences, narratives, etc. about the impacts and representatiosn in popular culture. Popular culture is important (though of course I worry that "popular culture" simply means "US and UK popular culture" but anyway that's for the CSB people to worry about). I'm against *lists* where people just hemorrage "trivia" in a non-interesting, non-useful function. Sure, a reader thought the fact that a song called "Manhattan Project" by the prog-rock band "Rush" was relevant and interesting. But I think most people would find that to be "trivia", and not very interesting trivia at that. Of course it is an individual judgment call. But if someone really thought it was important, they could add it back in with an expanded line about WHY this is notable (i.e. "... and this song became the anthem of a generation, featured prominently as the official UN song about nuclear weapons" etc.), and suddenly, it's not trivia any more! I feel that everything in an article should be there for a reason, and if that reason isn't apparent, it should be spelled out. Within reason, of course. FF From saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 11 16:54:50 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:54:50 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311052945.84864.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050311052945.84864.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4231CD5A.6040706@telus.net> Rick wrote: >--- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > >>The issue is not Dr. Zen. >>The issue is not WHEELER. >>The issue is not 172. >> >>The issue is that Wikipedia has made great progress >>toward shutting people up. >>The issue is that Wikipedia has made no progress >>toward editorial review or standards. >>The issue is that Snowspinner is soliciting cases >>against users people have grievances with. >> >>My post was incendiary? Perhaps. >>My post was unacceptable? In your opinion. >>My post was inappropriate? I think not. >> >>Luv, C. >> >> > >And what did you hope to accomplish by posting to the >mailing list? > > Hmmm! You might consider going out to buy yourself a sense of humour. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 11 17:05:49 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:05:49 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia referenced by SANS In-Reply-To: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> References: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <4231CFED.1000007@telus.net> Chad Perrin wrote: > I received an email tonight from the SANS Institute, one of the most > widely known authorities on matters pertaining to network security and > provider of some of the best information on the subject of computer > security threats available online. The email is an invitation to a > conference they'll be hosting. Since it's in Colorado and costs great > scads of money between the attendance fee and the expenses, I won't be > going. > > I thought an excerpt from the email might interest this list, though. > > "According to Wikipedia, "spyware consists of computer software that > gathers and reports information about a computer user without the > user's knowledge or consent." This can encompass a wide range of > different types of malware that perform a variety of actions on > computer systems. Some spyware delivers advertising, while other > spyware gathers user information without his/her knowledge. Spyware > can also install modem dialing software and redirect users to > malicious Web sites." > > That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference. It seems like > good news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to > provide definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade. While I have no real complaint about the contents of the quote, someone familiar with the subject area could go to the article to tighten up the prose style. The phrase about gathering user information is repetitious. Ec From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 17:22:54 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:22:54 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! References: <20050311052945.84864.qmail@web60604.mail.yahoo.com> <4231CD5A.6040706@telus.net> Message-ID: <002101c5265e$f786e000$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ray Saintonge wrote > Hmmm! You might consider going out to buy yourself a sense of humour. According to [[Good Humor]], 'stop me and buy one' is harder than it used to be. Well, I'm in a good mood - the 2005 [[Wolf Prize in Mathematics]] has gone to [[Grigory Margulis]] and [[S. P. Novikov]], and I started both those pages some time ago; so wiki-en is a good source for anyone who looks them up. Charles From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 17:39:15 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:39:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050311081328d13ff1@mail.gmail.com> References: <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a050311081328d13ff1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4231D7C3.4050005@thingy.apana.org.au> Fastfission wrote: > I'm not against the ==In popular culture== sections if they are > coherent sentences, narratives, etc. about the impacts and > representatiosn in popular culture. Popular culture is important > (though of course I worry that "popular culture" simply means "US and > UK popular culture" but anyway that's for the CSB people to worry > about). > I'm against *lists* where people just hemorrage "trivia" in a > non-interesting, non-useful function. > Sure, a reader thought the fact that a song called "Manhattan Project" > by the prog-rock band "Rush" was relevant and interesting. But I think > most people would find that to be "trivia", and not very interesting > trivia at that. That would be ideal to shunt off to a disambig page, c.f. [[Lilith]] vs [[Lilith (disambiguation)]]. If the present sections are currently unfinished lumps of data, then reworking and polishing is in order, rather than removal - something that will solve the problem forward rather than attempting to wind it back, 'cos that trick's not going to work if so many people want to put stuff there. - d. From wikipedia at decumanus.com Fri Mar 11 18:00:23 2005 From: wikipedia at decumanus.com (Matthew Trump) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:00:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut In-Reply-To: <20050311171403.8F80C1AC19B7@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050311171403.8F80C1AC19B7@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <56819.168.103.206.47.1110564023.squirrel@mail.decumanus.com> Over time, the probability that any given article in Wikipedia will contain a reference to a video game goes to one. From magnus.manske at web.de Fri Mar 11 18:46:19 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:46:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million Message-ID: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release? Celebration? Party? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCMed7CZKBJbEFcz0RAiUsAJ0fPHwl08NV/jDcRx7eJ47e7Xh4hwCeO4uG BCeQ1G3qegURGQC8hYZrgao= =tm8x -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From bigwiki at earthling.net Fri Mar 11 18:47:49 2005 From: bigwiki at earthling.net (Ryan Wetherell) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:47:49 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! Message-ID: <20050311184749.B159B101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> > The '''Wikipedia Arbitration committee''' is [[Wikipedia]]'s final > mechanism of [[m:dispute resolution]] process. > > ==History== > In an effort to [[m:devolve power]], in early 2004 [[Jimbo Wales]] > appointed 12 trust members > of the Wikipedia community and tasked them with sorting out user disputes. > > Unfortunately, for the first year of its existance, the arbitration > commitee was lambasted for being too slow and > too feeble in its decisions. Following the vicious > [[Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2004|2004 > elections]], the commitee's processes began to speed up and > decisions became more decisive. Unfortunately, the commitee was > then lambasted as being a [[witch hunt]] and for 'shutting people > up'. ==See also== > * [[Catch 22]] > * [[No-win situation]] > > {{stub}} This sounds an awful lot like a George W. Bush effect. Bush was nothing but a stupid cowboy unfit to lead the USA, *but* he was SO wickedly smart that he tricked everybody into following him into a war only for Big Oil! I love how the Arbitration Committee has gotten a better attitude and is now churning out real results at a faster pace. --Merovingian -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From failure.to.communicate at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 18:56:04 2005 From: failure.to.communicate at gmail.com (Cool Hand Luke) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:56:04 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Scared of the arbcom? FEARE YE NOTT! In-Reply-To: <20050311011111.E69FA6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050311011111.E69FA6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <60e40a9505031110562905b304@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:11:11 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > Already Hath Brave SNOW-SPINNER ... I find this thread very funny, but I should say that Snowspinner's pledge to help any case is admirable. From delirium at hackish.org Fri Mar 11 18:56:35 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:56:35 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4231E9E3.70906@hackish.org> The Cunctator wrote: >The answer is to separate distinct concepts into different pages. There's no >reason there shouldn't be [[Nuclear weapons in Star Wars]] (except that it's >not clear that there really are any--the Death Star, for example, seems to >use some kind of collimated maser? You know, the kind that makes a zapping >sound in DEEP SPACE. Ack.). > > This seems like the right answer to me. My personal pet peeve is that nearly every short-lived country or obscure semi-sovereign-at-one-time region has a section on their stamps that is larger than the section on the area itself. And of course, this information is interesting if you're a philatelist, and shouldn't be deleted---but should be somewhere like [[Stamps of Blah]], rather than making up 80% of the [[Blah]] article. But I think this is really a somewhat minor organization issue, not a huge problem with our focus and content. -Mark From brian1954 at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 19:29:21 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:29:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million In-Reply-To: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> References: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> Message-ID: <547b297e0503111129780fd2b@mail.gmail.com> As a deletionist, I reckon we ought to have a party if we can get it back down to, oh, 400,000, for a start. Just joking -- well ...., yeah, just joking. On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:46:19 +0100, Magnus Manske wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release? > Celebration? Party? > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCMed7CZKBJbEFcz0RAiUsAJ0fPHwl08NV/jDcRx7eJ47e7Xh4hwCeO4uG > BCeQ1G3qegURGQC8hYZrgao= > =tm8x > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 11 19:27:55 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:27:55 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050311082706.028ce0b8@mail1.doctors.org.uk> References: <20050311030025.53A771AC1981@mail.wikimedia.org> <6.2.1.2.0.20050311082706.028ce0b8@mail1.doctors.org.uk> Message-ID: <4231F13B.3080001@telus.net> J.F. de Wolff wrote: > Nixon had thrombosis, but he's not in deep venous thrombosis. A very poetic comment! Ec From saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 11 19:37:00 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:37:00 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's in a (country's) name? In-Reply-To: <001301c5261a$1fa1cdb0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <001301c5261a$1fa1cdb0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <4231F35C.9000903@telus.net> Charles Matthews wrote: > Ed Poor wrote > >> So we really need to use this example in an article about how the >> liberal media goes out of its way to discredit "the right" while >> NEVER conceding any error of its own and even DELIBERATELY deceiving >> the public. > > We need to do no such thing. > > If this article is written from a NPOV, the facts of the case can be > clarified. Elephantine generalisations like 'liberal media' need not > appear. Readers, if provided with facts, can draw conclusions about > whether this is about more than professional loudmouth columnist meets > ill-prepared interviewer (whatever - on a scale of 1 to 10 this is > about at -6 for most people's threshold of interest, I suppose). > > Ed, your agenda is showing. Well put. Ed's statement would read as well if "liberal" were changed to "conservative" and "right" were changed to "left". If the opposite is as meaningful for a different cohort of people, the likelihood is that the truth is somewhere between. Ec From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 11 19:59:21 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:59:21 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's in a (country's) name? In-Reply-To: <4231F35C.9000903@telus.net> References: <001301c5261a$1fa1cdb0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <4231F35C.9000903@telus.net> Message-ID: <4231F899.1060401@sprintmail.com> You mean Ed wasn't joking? Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." Ray Saintonge wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> Ed Poor wrote >> >>> So we really need to use this example in an article about how the >>> liberal media goes out of its way to discredit "the right" while >>> NEVER conceding any error of its own and even DELIBERATELY deceiving >>> the public. >> >> >> We need to do no such thing. >> >> If this article is written from a NPOV, the facts of the case can be >> clarified. Elephantine generalisations like 'liberal media' need not >> appear. Readers, if provided with facts, can draw conclusions about >> whether this is about more than professional loudmouth columnist >> meets ill-prepared interviewer (whatever - on a scale of 1 to 10 this >> is about at -6 for most people's threshold of interest, I suppose). >> >> Ed, your agenda is showing. > > > Well put. Ed's statement would read as well if "liberal" were changed > to "conservative" and "right" were changed to "left". If the opposite > is as meaningful for a different cohort of people, the likelihood is > that the truth is somewhere between. > > Ec > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From shebs at apple.com Fri Mar 11 20:07:51 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:07:51 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut? On the contrary In-Reply-To: <4231E9E3.70906@hackish.org> References: <4231E9E3.70906@hackish.org> Message-ID: <4231FA97.5000401@apple.com> Delirium wrote: > > My personal pet peeve is that nearly every short-lived country or > obscure semi-sovereign-at-one-time region has a section on their > stamps that is larger than the section on the area itself. And of > course, this information is interesting if you're a philatelist, and > shouldn't be deleted---but should be somewhere like [[Stamps of > Blah]], rather than making up 80% of the [[Blah]] article. Hey! You're dissing my material! :-) Actually, I did this because the short-lived entities tend not to have their own lengthy articles - their story is usually subsumed in the history article for the modern-day country, which is sometimes sensible, sometimes less so. So instead of creating two cross-connected stubs, I just made a single longer article. Note that all such have a [[Postage stamps and postal history of Blah]] redirect, to facilitate future splitting. I think I'm the only one that has done such a split however. Stan From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 11 20:06:34 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:06:34 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Half a million References: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> Message-ID: <4231FA4A.2010602@yahoo.com> I think that would be a great idea. The last press release is already about 6 months old (million of articles). Anthere Magnus Manske a ?crit: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release? > Celebration? Party? > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > > iD8DBQFCMed7CZKBJbEFcz0RAiUsAJ0fPHwl08NV/jDcRx7eJ47e7Xh4hwCeO4uG > BCeQ1G3qegURGQC8hYZrgao= > =tm8x > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From delirium at hackish.org Fri Mar 11 20:18:31 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:18:31 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia referenced by SANS In-Reply-To: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> References: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <4231FD17.5080600@hackish.org> Chad Perrin wrote: > That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference. It seems like > good news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to > provide definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade. This is a great thing, because it also showcases one of our strengths: We're becoming an authoritative source for summaries of consensus opinion. A common way of doing that is to find a few authors who have made statements, like "according to Foo, spyware is 'blah'; according to Foo2, it's 'blah2'". Wikipedia sort of collects and summarizes those sorts of things for them. (For our good articles anyway. :-) -Mark From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 11 20:25:19 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:25:19 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million References: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> <547b297e0503111129780fd2b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <005301c52678$78123f80$9e7c0450@Galasien> Brian M wrote > As a deletionist Actually, is there a journalistic angle here? Consider that there is presumably a 'tipping point' out there, where a Blandopedia fork will be a commercial proposition. Like a Linux distribution, say: the CD-ROM you pay for is a definite version, someone has taken the decisions for you, you are not filling your computer up with stuff in which you have no interest, and for which no one takes the slightest responsibility. So, when will it come for WP? Can we induce - I won't say a media feeding frenzy - some speculation about how long? Charles From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 20:36:46 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 20:36:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia referenced by SANS In-Reply-To: <4231FD17.5080600@hackish.org> References: <42312F63.1000108@apotheon.com> <4231FD17.5080600@hackish.org> Message-ID: <4232015E.7030801@thingy.apana.org.au> Delirium wrote: > Chad Perrin wrote: >> That's the lead-in to the purpose of the conference. It seems like >> good news to see yet another recognized authority using Wikipedia to >> provide definitions of the terms for the foci of its trade. > This is a great thing, because it also showcases one of our strengths: > We're becoming an authoritative source for summaries of consensus > opinion. A common way of doing that is to find a few authors who have > made statements, like "according to Foo, spyware is 'blah'; according to > Foo2, it's 'blah2'". Wikipedia sort of collects and summarizes those > sorts of things for them. > (For our good articles anyway. :-) Our technical coverage has some gaps, but most of it is of sterling quality. If I want to learn WTF something I've barely heard of *actually is*, I look at Wikipedia first - a Google search tending to turn up mailing list posts (which I look to for tech support, not introductions) and Linux HOWTOs dated six years ago. I use and *recommend* Wikipedia for technical matters now. - d. From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 21:11:41 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:11:41 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031107436f163e4c@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031107436f163e4c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05031113117736b7ea@mail.gmail.com> The "removal of content" aspect is the rub. What I'm planning to do with the section on [[Nuclear weapon]] is to rewrite that section to be more encyclopedic, mentioning a few *significant* cultural additions (i.e. that [[Dr. Strangelove]] became the paradigmatic movie and way of thinking about MAD; the way in which [[Godzilla]] became the exemplar of "monster made huge by radiation" movies, coming out just months after the [[Castle Bravo]] fallout incident which so panicked the Japanese; the way in which [[The Day After]] is an excellent example of "pathologization" of nuclear war which comes out of the Reagan years; etc.) in a way which discourages "list making." With any luck, if done well, nobody will realize or care that I cut out John Travolta's [[Broken Arrow]] from the mix, and nobody will think that adding a line about the Rush song is appropriate for the section (without some justification of its importance, anyway). I think these sections need to be snipped in the bud, or reformatted into coherent lines of texts. Because once they are really list-length (i.e. [[List of mad scientists]]) then there's not much that can be done which doesn't seem like you are removing tons of content. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who feels this way, I was feeling somewhat snobbish. FF On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 07:20:31 -0500, Brian M wrote: > I agree with you completely, and most of these sections should be > deleted. It is one thing for Wikipedia to be the online Encyclopedia > of Popular Culture with articles on every Pokemon character, TV > episode, forgotten (or never known) song or CD, every obscure corner > of every fictional universe, etc, etc, ad absurdum, ad nauseum. But > when all this starts bleeding into other articles, it becomes a major > problem and makes Wikipedia look like it has no sense of proportion at > all. > > Your example of [[Nuclear weapons]] is perfect. If there were a > section on public opinion about nuclear weapons, which would be quire > reasonable to have, and there were some movie, book, or other item of > popular culture that had a significant impact in influencing this > public opinion, then the book, etc, should be mentioned, of course. > But just a list under "in popular culture" listing movies and books > that nuclear weapons in them, is ridiculous. Next thing you know, > there will be a section in the article "Nuclear Weapons In Star Wars", > describing the use of nuclear weapons in Star Wars, and so forth. > The article is currently missing this important aspect of nuclear > weapons. > > Perhaps the "solution" is just to concede that Wikipedia is really > just the online encyclopedia of popular culture, throw in the towel, > and delete the 20% of so of it that is about reality. You know > off-topic stuff like [[Nuclear weapons]]. > > Seriously, how does one go about deleting these sections? Someone is > going to insist that it is "removal of information" and , therefore, > vandalism to remove them. > > > On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:18:58 -0500, Fastfission wrote: > > I have a strong bias to admit. I can't stand the "In popular culture" > > heading that certain articles have, which which become a hodgepodge > > list for every time a major historical event or theme is mentioned in > > a TV show, movie, Japanese cartoon, video game, rock song, or science > > fiction novel. > > > From fastfission at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 21:12:17 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 16:12:17 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031107597924fae7@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <4231AB91.9050701@apple.com> <98dd099a05031107597924fae7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a05031113122b024a1d@mail.gmail.com> > Or it makes WP more attractive to readers because it has information > that can't be gotten from other sources. Well, that's the trade-off. What's useful to whom? This is why I suggested this had to be a judgment call and that this was not a call for attempting an articulation of hard-and-fast policy (which I think would be not useful). The difficulty of course is also that some people are very vested in their "trivia" for whatever reason (see the Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln same birthday debate which went on for months). > Robert Collison's history makes mention of a decision by Britannica > (for the 9th edition?) to include topics like farming, metalworking, > and so forth, not because they thought they had suddenly become > "encyclopedic", but to try to sell EB to middle-class people that > didn't have so much of a need for complete coverage of Marcus Atilius > Regulus and medieval German literature. Even so, we now know that > EB simply failed to report on great swathes of their own culture. I have nothing against writing sensibly on popular culture impacts and effects. I'm just against such sections being representing such influence as a *list*. Lists are not "content" in the same sense--they are organizational systems, and can be very useful in some situations. But a well-written set of paragraphs about changing attitudes and impact is going to be far more appropriate for an encyclopedia. > Nuclear weapons are one of the areas where 20th-century geopolitics > has impinged on the general consciousness, and popular culture > references are a reflection of the fears they've come to engender > in ordinary people. Not only are the references themselves > manifestations of the artists' feelings, but the very urge to add > the references tells you something about the fears of WP editors. > (There's also a good argument to be made that the desire to delete > all the cultural references is a different kind of editorial response > to the same fears.) Again, I'm interested in singling out the aspects which have had a larger impact on culture or popular conception. John Travolta's [[Broken Arrow]] doesn't seem to have done this, at least not in the way that Stanley Kubrick's [[Dr. Strangelove]] did, or John Hersey's [[Hiroshima]] which helped set the entire tone for our thinking about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm somewhat uncomfortable with creating a psychoanalytic theory of why WP editors add to these lists (I tend to think it is just a well-meaning attempt to contribute, rather than anything to do with the article in question), but anyway it is somewhat irrevalent. The goal is to make a good encyclopedia, not to satisfy the inner motivations of the contributors, as I'm sure you'll agree. Of course this is an issue of taste. > So yeah, if a reference is trivial, maybe it doesn't need to be > there, but it would be good to exercise a light touch, keeping in > mind the breadth of our audience, and that many (probably most) > readers will be far more interested in the culture stuff than the > mathematical equations. As am I, honestly. I just think there are better ways to "do" culture, but I'll admit it takes work and some specialized knowledge to do it. With [[Nuclear weapon]] this is not insurmountable, as there are scholarly works on the impact of them on culture and in politics, etc. (i.e. Spencer Weart's wonderful and highly-recommended _Nuclear fear: A history of images_, well-written and insightful!) But with most topics I'm sure there aren't extensive literature on their culture impacts and it'll become more a matter of opinion, which I think is when it gets into really problematic territory. FF From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Fri Mar 11 22:48:55 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:48:55 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million In-Reply-To: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> References: <4231E77B.40507@web.de> Message-ID: <742dfd0605031114487366cbf7@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:46:19 +0100, Magnus Manske wrote: > I noticed the en.wikipedia close to 500 000 articles. Press release? Definitely. I'm currently drafting one... > Celebration? Party? Great idea! Shall we coordinate a global party for next Saturday? Then we could issue the press release Saturday/Sunday. +SJ+ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 00:48:20 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:48:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release Message-ID: <742dfd0605031116484ccfba@mail.gmail.com> I've put up a draft press release to celebrate the English WP's 500,000th article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005 It is not quite like our previous press releases; see what you think, edit and improve on it. It should eventually mention the 500,000th article by name, so see if you can spot it as it zooms by. Here is a meta-page for translating the release (though you should wait until the end of the weekend, say, once it has been edited a bit): http://tinyurl.com/58dnq Why translate an EN-centered press release? For one thing, it is not *only* an English-language press release; it is celebrating the project as a whole. For another, all major project announcements should be multilingual. For instance, I would like to see it sent to the many spanish- and chinese-language newspapers (among others) in the US. Skimming through the circulation numbers in Bacon's media directory, it is surprising to see how broad their audiences are; I have no doubt that the bulk of their readers read English to some extent, and could both benefit from EN: and help bridge the gap between it and their native language-edition. -- +sj+ From dgerard at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 01:21:57 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:21:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Culture glut In-Reply-To: <98dd099a05031113117736b7ea@mail.gmail.com> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031107436f163e4c@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031113117736b7ea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42324435.1050606@thingy.apana.org.au> Fastfission wrote: > The "removal of content" aspect is the rub. What I'm planning to do > with the section on [[Nuclear weapon]] is to rewrite that section to > be more encyclopedic, mentioning a few *significant* cultural > additions (i.e. that [[Dr. Strangelove]] became the paradigmatic movie > and way of thinking about MAD; the way in which [[Godzilla]] became > the exemplar of "monster made huge by radiation" movies, coming out > just months after the [[Castle Bravo]] fallout incident which so > panicked the Japanese; the way in which [[The Day After]] is an > excellent example of "pathologization" of nuclear war which comes out > of the Reagan years; etc.) in a way which discourages "list making." You don't ned to actually *remove* even the trivia. Write a two-para summary for the main article, with a link ''Main article: [[Nuclear weapons in popular culture]]'', make *that* article your essay - don't forget the immaculate sociological references ;-) - then include a link *there* to [[List of ...]] something. Make a section ==Nuclear weapons in popular culture == and make its content ''See [[List of ...]]''. Also see if categories are your friend. That way, you get the pop culture and sociology out of the main article where it doesn't really belong, and you have two new articles which very self-evidently show what belongs in them. This is more work, but produces a thoroughly elegant result ;-) - d. From neil at tonal.clara.co.uk Sat Mar 12 01:40:31 2005 From: neil at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:40:31 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal back ''again'' In-Reply-To: <42324435.1050606@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031107436f163e4c@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031113117736b7ea@mail.gmail.com> <42324435.1050606@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4232488F.3040809@tonal.clara.co.uk> The page-move vandal WoW is back again. this time as [[User: ? ]], an account kept from August 2004. So clearly WoW has some "old" accounts still registered, and regards them as throw-away accounts. Could a developer or bureaucrat please take a look at the logs to see where this nuisance user is coming from, to see if there's a consistent pattern of IP addresses? -- Neil From neil at tonal.clara.co.uk Sat Mar 12 01:48:13 2005 From: neil at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 01:48:13 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Page move vandal back ''again'' In-Reply-To: <4232488F.3040809@tonal.clara.co.uk> References: <98dd099a05031017181d7147cd@mail.gmail.com> <547b297e05031104202056a573@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031107436f163e4c@mail.gmail.com> <98dd099a05031113117736b7ea@mail.gmail.com> <42324435.1050606@thingy.apana.org.au> <4232488F.3040809@tonal.clara.co.uk> Message-ID: <42324A5D.1050307@tonal.clara.co.uk> Neil Harris wrote: > The page-move vandal WoW is back again. this time as [[User: ? > ]], an > account kept from August 2004. So clearly WoW has some "old" accounts > still registered, and regards them as throw-away accounts. > > Could a developer or bureaucrat please take a look at the logs to see > where this nuisance user is coming from, to see if there's a > consistent pattern of IP addresses? > > -- Neil They now seem to be doing abusive page moves in batches of sixty or so at a hit. This is a major drag on admin time for multiple admins. They appear to spend the time that the admins are cleaning up preparing their next vandalism run, then rinse and repeat ad lib. -- Neil From crazyr2 at shaw.ca Fri Mar 11 22:17:59 2005 From: crazyr2 at shaw.ca (Steven Melenchuk) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:17:59 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Amendment to arbitration policy Message-ID: <42321917.8040208@shaw.ca> The November 2004 proposed amendment to arbitration policy implemented]]. Pursuant to the new amendment section of the policy I have created a subpage to house further proposed changes to the policy at [[Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposals]]. I ask for your comments and discussion on the above, but please keep it in the context of the wiki. Thanks. ~Grunt From fritz at spamexpire-200503.rodent.frell.eu.org Fri Mar 11 23:27:29 2005 From: fritz at spamexpire-200503.rodent.frell.eu.org (Fritz Wuehler) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 00:27:29 +0100 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) Message-ID: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> Hi, Recycling Troll. Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you. Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse. If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Sat Mar 12 05:50:56 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:50:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Culture glut In-Reply-To: <002501c5261b$4a07ba00$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: On Fri, 11 Mar 2005, Charles Matthews wrote: > J.F. de Wolff wrote > > > I would like to seek consensus on what kind of morbidity is worthy of > > inclusion in articles. I would say: only if someone's morbidity has > > *significantly* altered public perception of a disorder is this person > > worth mentioning (e.g. [[Lou Gehrig]] and his eponymous disease; [[Stephen > > Hawking]] would qualify for this as well). Otherwise, only the article *on > > that person* should mention morbidity and mortality. > > Reasonable. In a sense it is not so important, either way, in most cases. > Tuberculosis: there's a case where in a sense a historical list would be of > considerable general interest. The problem with historical listings is of > course that the factuality of the diagnosis can be problematic. > Drifting a little OT (one might think), I remember reading about an annual exercise where the autopsy of a historical individual is reiewed -- but with said person's identity removed. The participants are given a description of the symptoms that lead to the death, & some amount of environmental information. Sometimes the modern review leads to a clearly different diagnosis than the contemporary doctors made. The case that I best remember was that of Edgar Allan Poe, whose death at the time was attributed to alcohol poisoning. A re-examination of the facts in his death led to a surprisingly different diagnosis -- which was defended by the fact the original coroner merely assumed because Poe had a history of alcohol abuse, & showed symptoms of delirium in his last hours that he drank himself to death. I wish I could remember more about this official medical exercise, but it's one of those things that I've seen written up in the local paper maybe twice in the last 15 years, & never think to save the article. If Wikipedia doesn't have an article about it, then someone should write one; if Wikipedia already has one, then we should try to develop it into a Featured Article. Geoff From perrin at apotheon.com Sat Mar 12 07:35:42 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 02:35:42 -0500 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> References: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> Message-ID: <42329BCE.8010304@apotheon.com> Fritz Wuehler wrote: > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've > done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is > not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, > (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's > a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies > and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you. > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse. > If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they > control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great > "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml > Am I the only person this joker has started emailing off-list with indictments of my flippant quips about his emails? -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From alphasigmax at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 09:21:19 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:51:19 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <4232B48F.5070508@gmail.com> TBSDY wrote: > Oh. My. Gosh. Can someone kick Sollog off the mailing list please? If they want to vandalise Wikipedia, we'll vandalise them. Let's register at the WikipediaSucks forum! Yeah! Vandalise the place! ~~~~ From geniice at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 09:34:03 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:34:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <4232B48F.5070508@gmail.com> References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4232B48F.5070508@gmail.com> Message-ID: > If they want to vandalise Wikipedia, we'll vandalise them. > > Let's register at the WikipediaSucks forum! Yeah! Vandalise the place! > > ~~~~ That would be childish. Anyway I can't be bothered to set up a proxy -- geni From theresaknott at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 13:15:41 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:15:41 +0000 Subject: Re [WikiEN-l] Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <42329BCE.8010304@apotheon.com> References: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> <42329BCE.8010304@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05031205155ae55c8@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 02:35:42 -0500, Chad Perrin wrote: > Fritz Wuehler wrote: > > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've > > done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is > > not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, > > (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's > > a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies > > and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you. > > > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse. > > If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they > > control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great > > "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > > > Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml > > > > Am I the only person this joker has started emailing off-list with > indictments of my flippant quips about his emails? Nope he's emailded me too. Theresa From fastfission at gmail.com Sat Mar 12 16:57:58 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:57:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> Message-ID: <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> Haha, SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN... FF ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: debussy at cyber-rights.net Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 13:19:14 -0800 Subject: To: fastfission at gmail.com You jesus christing moron! -- What's beautiful here is the motivation assigned. ILLITERATE-That's right, Wikipedia is just here to "lure people in with a pack of lies" just so they can be banned! YEAH MORON-That sounds like a reasonable endeavor, worth the time of the four hundred administrators and many thousands of registered editors.WHAT THE JESUS CHRIST!! HAS THAT!!! TO DO WITH WHAT I SAID YOU NUTTER? But wait! Who are these hundreds of editors? YOUR FANTASY NUTTER. I NEVER SAID 100'S OF EDITORS. YOU CAN'T EVEN GODAMN READ!!! YOU MORON-How did they get to be in the position of banning? WHAT U ON ABOUT U CRAZY BUGGER?-Were they not too lured in by the pack of lies and banned? SOME HAVE BEEN MORON-How does one change from the banned to the banners?MEANINGLESS SHIT- How is such a decision made?FUK U- More importantly: When can I get banned, or ban someone?U'LL NEVER BE BANNED COS YOU'RE A BASTARD. READ!!!!!! THE MESSAGE BEFORE COMMENTING ON IT. MORON!!!!!!! I'm not in either category and feeling somewhat unsure of my identity.WHAT U ON ABOUT YOU POOR SAP?- Do I create the pack of lies or am I a dupe of them? If someone could let me know either way, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.I'LL LET YER KNOW. U R A MORON AND A BASTARD. OK SPAZ BASTARD? FF Get your free encrypted email at http://www.cyber-rights.net From sean at epoptic.org Sat Mar 12 17:32:52 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:32:52 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423327C4.90705@epoptic.com> Fastfission stated for the record: > Haha, SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN... > > FF I am so envious ... you got your very own cussing out from Sollog! Well done, FF! > You jesus christing moron! English: the language in which any noun can be verbed. -- Sean Barrett | I came, I saw, I did what I had sean at epoptic.com | to do and got the hell out. From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sat Mar 12 17:45:41 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:45:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42332AC5.5020302@tiscali.co.uk> Fastfission wrote: > Haha, SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN... > It's not SOLLOG, it's WikiUser --sannse From sannse at tiscali.co.uk Sat Mar 12 17:47:59 2005 From: sannse at tiscali.co.uk (sannse) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:47:59 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <42332AC5.5020302@tiscali.co.uk> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> <42332AC5.5020302@tiscali.co.uk> Message-ID: <42332B4F.6060706@tiscali.co.uk> sannse wrote: > > > Fastfission wrote: > >> Haha, SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN... >> > > It's not SOLLOG, it's WikiUser (or at least, a good imitation) --sann From thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk Sat Mar 12 18:07:07 2005 From: thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk (Jon) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:07:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for comment Message-ID: <20050312180707.32917.qmail@web25401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Why do we have such a nasty dispute resolution process as the user conduct RfC? And one that creates so much bitterness from those who have been through it? As I see it, the rules are this: two users have a disagreement with one user (User X) and cite them on RfC. User X gets permanently listed on a troublesome users list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_conduct_disputes). There is no appeal and no provision for User X to be removed from that list - and any Wikipedian (or, as SlimVirgin has noted on - any potential employer can see that User X is trouble from it too). The arguments for retention seem to be the follow: (1) we'll need the info in the RfC for if/when the case goes to ArbCom; and (2) we like a record of these things (ie it is interesting to the prurient) As a result of the nastiness of the process, trolls and bullies know they can threaten people with the process. Of course, the one-sided nature of the process makes it much more likely that User X reacts badly so that the case has to go to the ArbCom. Should RfC really remain vicious and interesting for those that like a dispute? Or should it not be changed to encourage disputes to be resolved, and quickly forgotten, so those who wish to make WP a better encycopaedia can get on with that aim? (And, going back to the SlimVirgin point - should the RfC process not take account that potential employers often do make internet checks of potential employess?) Kind regards jguk Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 12 18:17:27 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:17:27 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for comment Message-ID: <031220051817.4968.42333236000AD5090000136822007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Just, don't use your real identity. You would also be deleting this history of accuser-"litigators", or mobocracy supporters. Why assume it is just the "unfairly" accused and maligned that you are protecting? It is best to have an open system. In the real civil and criminal court system, it is the dirt that gets "sealed" or "expunged", to the detriment of society. Whatever identity you use, if your overall behavior continues to be exemplary, eventually it will reflect negatively on the accusers, unless you expunge the records. Besides, perhaps they will have retained some notes themselves. If there isn't an "official" record, then their, perhaps selective records may go unchallenged. -- Silverback -------------- Original message -------------- > Why do we have such a nasty dispute resolution process as the user conduct RfC? > And one that creates so much bitterness from those who have been through it? > > As I see it, the rules are this: two users have a disagreement with one user > (User X) and cite them on RfC. > > User X gets permanently listed on a troublesome users list > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_conduct_disputes). There is no > appeal and no provision for User X to be removed from that list - and any > Wikipedian (or, as SlimVirgin has noted on - any potential employer can see > that User X is trouble from it too). > > The arguments for retention seem to be the follow: > > (1) we'll need the info in the RfC for if/when the case goes to ArbCom; and > (2) we like a record of these things (ie it is interesting to the prurient) > > As a result of the nastiness of the process, trolls and bullies know they can > threaten people with the process. Of course, the one-sided nature of the process > makes it much more likely that User X reacts badly so that the case has to go to > the ArbCom. > > Should RfC really remain vicious and interesting for those that like a dispute? > > Or should it not be changed to encourage disputes to be resolved, and quickly > forgotten, so those who wish to make WP a better encycopaedia can get on with > that aim? (And, going back to the SlimVirgin point - should the RfC process not > take account that potential employers often do make internet checks of potential > employess?) > > Kind regards > > jguk > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 12 18:15:15 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:15:15 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <423327C4.90705@epoptic.com> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> <423327C4.90705@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <423331B3.10004@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > Fastfission stated for the record: > >> Haha, SOLLOG HAS SPOKEN... >> >> FF > > I am so envious ... you got your very own cussing out from Sollog! > Well done, FF! > >> You jesus christing moron! > > English: the language in which any noun can be verbed. I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in Wiktionary. :-) Ec From sean at epoptic.org Sat Mar 12 18:33:27 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 10:33:27 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <423331B3.10004@telus.net> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> <423327C4.90705@epoptic.com> <423331B3.10004@telus.net> Message-ID: <423335F7.1010607@epoptic.com> Ray Saintonge stated for the record: >>> You jesus christing moron! >> >> >> English: the language in which any noun can be verbed. > > > I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in > Wiktionary. :-) Would objections of that sort be eclecticologifications? -- Sean Barrett | I came, I saw, I did what I had sean at epoptic.com | to do and got the hell out. From erik_moeller at gmx.de Sat Mar 12 18:44:40 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:44:40 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for comment In-Reply-To: <20050312180707.32917.qmail@web25401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050312180707.32917.qmail@web25401.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42333898.301@gmx.de> Why not just redirect old RfCs to the main RfC page? That way, the history would be kept, and if the information needed to be accessed later for some reason, it could be retrieved. Erik From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 12 18:58:42 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 18:58:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for comment Message-ID: <031220051858.17538.42333BE200000C1C0000448222058861729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Why not just redirect old RfCs to the main RfC page? That way, the > history would be kept, and if the information needed to be accessed > later for some reason, it could be retrieved. You're still giving somebody else control of the information, instead of keeping it in the open. -- Silverback From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 12 19:07:01 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 11:07:01 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: In-Reply-To: <423335F7.1010607@epoptic.com> References: <200503112119.j2BLJIOe022066@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <98dd099a050312085719138951@mail.gmail.com> <423327C4.90705@epoptic.com> <423331B3.10004@telus.net> <423335F7.1010607@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <42333DD5.6040009@telus.net> Sean Barrett wrote: > Ray Saintonge stated for the record: > >>>> You jesus christing moron! >>> >>> English: the language in which any noun can be verbed. >> >> I would probably object if someone sought to include "christing" in >> Wiktionary. :-) > > Would objections of that sort be eclecticologifications? You do me praise to suggest that my chosen pseudonym should also become an eponym. Modesty would demand that such an honour be relegated to the list of protologisms. Ec From perrin at apotheon.com Sat Mar 12 21:09:24 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 16:09:24 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Requests for comment In-Reply-To: <031220051817.4968.42333236000AD5090000136822007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031220051817.4968.42333236000AD5090000136822007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <42335A84.9060808@apotheon.com> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > Just, don't use your real identity. You would also be deleting this history of accuser-"litigators", or mobocracy supporters. Why assume it is just the "unfairly" accused and maligned that you are protecting? It is best to have an open system. In the real civil and criminal court system, it is the dirt that gets "sealed" or "expunged", to the detriment of society. > > Whatever identity you use, if your overall behavior continues to be exemplary, eventually it will reflect negatively on the accusers, unless you expunge the records. Besides, perhaps they will have retained some notes themselves. If there isn't an "official" record, then their, perhaps selective records may go unchallenged. > Regardless of the benefits or detriments provided by your solution(s) in general, the "don't use your real identity" suggestion isn't practical and doesn't address any problem. There's not really any such thing as a kept secret on the Internet. It's too easy to find out who is behind an obfuscating identity and, in any case, some people choose to use their legal identities for various purposes, often in part because of the perceived added credibility that comes with personal accountability. If there's a problem that needs fixing, "don't use your real identity" won't fix it. If you really don't want your "real identity" associated with something, the only way to ensure that is to not associate with that something at all, which in this case would mean abandoning Wikipedia to others and having nothing further to do with it as an editor. I don't think that's a productive or desirable solution. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From jfader at gmail.com Sun Mar 13 01:00:39 2005 From: jfader at gmail.com (John Fader) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:00:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] en-> wikicities interwikis Message-ID: <42eaa3d05031217003fc8486a@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, I just noticed that interwiki mappings have been established from (at least) en.wikipedia to wikicities (e.g. [[Wikicities:c:StarWars:Jedi]]). I wonder, could someone point me to the discussion which preceeded this decision? -- John Fader From beesley at gmail.com Sun Mar 13 03:43:09 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 04:43:09 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] en-> wikicities interwikis In-Reply-To: <42eaa3d05031217003fc8486a@mail.gmail.com> References: <42eaa3d05031217003fc8486a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8b722b800503121943746d409e@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 01:00:39 +0000, John Fader wrote: > Hi all, > I just noticed that interwiki mappings have been established > from (at least) en.wikipedia to wikicities (e.g. > [[Wikicities:c:StarWars:Jedi]]). > > I wonder, could someone point me to the discussion which preceeded > this decision? This is the case for many wikis. There isn't any discussion of these since they can just be added to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interwiki_map which is a publicly editable page. Wikicities is in the interwiki map, along with dozens of other wikis. Redirects within the Wikicities set up allows the use of c:WikiName to be a link to a particular Wikicity (this prevents each individual Wikicity needing to be added). There are help pages on this at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Interwiki_linking and http://www.wikicities.com/wiki/Help:Interwiki_link The idea is explained at http://usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?InterWiki and used on many wikis (see ) Angela. From crazyr2 at shaw.ca Sun Mar 13 04:49:44 2005 From: crazyr2 at shaw.ca (Steven Melenchuk) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 04:49:44 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [[Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment revote]] Message-ID: <4233C668.8050003@shaw.ca> As the old ratification vote for the arbcom policy amendment has degenerated into a fiasco, I am working on initiating a revote. Please visit there and add any significant comments you might have to make. ~Grunt From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 14 01:26:05 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:26:05 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: References: <200503102150.j2ALofkK090970@mailserver1.hushmail.com> <4232B48F.5070508@gmail.com> Message-ID: geni wrote: >>If they want to vandalise Wikipedia, we'll vandalise them. >> >>Let's register at the WikipediaSucks forum! Yeah! Vandalise the place! >> >>~~~~ > > > That would be childish. Anyway I can't be bothered to set up a proxy > Now THAT is funny. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 14 01:26:51 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:26:51 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> References: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> Message-ID: Fritz Wuehler wrote: > Hi, Recycling Troll. > > Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you as they've > done to many before. (Check back over this mailing list.) The wikipedia is > not of course an online encyclopedia, there's plenty of real online encyclopedias, > (you know, the places where wikipedia steals most of it's stuff from), it's > a place where Jimmy Wales and other scum lure people in with a pack of lies > and then proceed to do to them what they're starting in on doing to you. > > Many have tried to opppose their insanity. But you are flogging a dead horse. > If you keep trying they'll just have loads of fun at your expense, as they > control the system, and in the end carry out a bizarre an un-American great > "court case" against you and then ban you. They are pathetic (but nasty) morons. > > Also did you know that Jimmy Wales is a sick pornograper?:http://www.247news.net/2004/20041211-wikipedia.shtml Again, can someone kick Sollog off the mailing list? Thanks. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 14 01:34:25 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 12:34:25 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: public In-Reply-To: <25621.194.72.110.12.1110557277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <21560127.1110554911373.JavaMail.root@vms076.mailsrvcs.net> <001001c52653$163832d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <25621.194.72.110.12.1110557277.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Tony Sidaway wrote: > Charles Matthews said: > >>dpbsmith at verizon.net wrote >> >> >>>The people trying to determine whether Australis is a republic should >>>get together with WHEELER, who has expertise in that area. >> >>Gilbert & Sullivan had it down: the punishment should fit the crime. > > > I'm all for clapping them in irons and sending them to a country on the > other side of the world. Oh wait... Please, you can keep them. TBSDY From dgerard at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 09:47:01 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:47:01 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re Abuse of blocking powers (The Recycling Troll) In-Reply-To: References: <5776bddb2a1d3e556a5d6144cfc3b525@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> Message-ID: <42355D95.7030809@thingy.apana.org.au> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Fritz Wuehler wrote: >> Please note that the wikipedia scum are doing the same routine to you > Again, can someone kick Sollog off the mailing list? This one actually appears to be WikiUser. My mistake! - d. From violetriga at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 13:07:17 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:07:17 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 Message-ID: RickK has banned IP 217.33.74.20 as a "returning vandal". That IP is used by a school and I have requested on the talk page that misuse should be reported to me so that I can deal with the people responsible. There has been no problems at all for over a month and RickK has not issued any warning on the talk page. I can see nothing wrong in the contributions so perhaps articles were created (and subsequently deleted) but other than that there is no indication as to why he has blocked it. Can someone please unblock it, thanks... ~~~~ Violet/Riga From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 14 16:45:06 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:45:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050314164507.3965.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Violet/Riga wrote: > RickK has banned IP 217.33.74.20 as a "returning vandal". That IP is > used by a school and I have requested on the talk page that misuse > should be reported to me so that I can deal with the people > responsible. There has been no problems at all for over a month and > RickK has not issued any warning on the talk page. I can see nothing > wrong in the contributions so perhaps articles were created (and > subsequently deleted) but other than that there is no indication as to > why he has blocked it. Doesn't RickK have 'email this user' enabled? If not, then he should not be blocking IPs since there is no obvious recourse for wrongly-blocked people to make note of that fact. Same goes for all admins. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From violetriga at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 17:06:59 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:06:59 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks to The Anome for unblocking this earlier. Any chance you could let me know the reason for the ban, RickK? I'll look into it at this end where needs be. Cheers. ~~~~ Violet/Riga From beesley at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 17:18:10 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:18:10 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 In-Reply-To: <20050314164507.3965.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050314164507.3965.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8b722b800503140918158c9481@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:45:06 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > Doesn't RickK have 'email this user' enabled? If not, then he should not be > blocking IPs since there is no obvious recourse for wrongly-blocked people to > make note of that fact. Same goes for all admins. There is currently no requirement for admins on the English Wikipedia to enable their email. I proposed adding this to the policy almost a year ago, but there was no support for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Email_proposal It is a requirement on the Simple English Wikipedia: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bans_and_blocks Angela. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 14 17:32:43 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:32:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050314173243.24197.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Angela wrote: > There is currently no requirement for admins on the English Wikipedia > to enable their email. I proposed adding this to the policy almost a > year ago, but there was no support for it. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy#Email_proposal This is such a blindingly obvious thing that I?m shocked there was not more support for it. I will continue to nag admins that don?t do this since so many emails from people who get blocked go to me (since I?m one of the few admins on the admin list that gives an obvious link to my ?email this user? form). I?m sure most people don?t even get as far as the admin list. In fact there should be an auto link to ?email the admin who blocked you? for block messages. Of course the blocking admin need not respond via email and thus give up their email address to vandals who may spam bomb them and there should be a per IP throttle limit to the number of emails that can be sent using this option (server side virus checks would also be useful). But blocking an IP and not giving any potentially innocent people who also use that IP an easy way to inform somebody about it, is not fair and very unwiki. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From beesley at gmail.com Mon Mar 14 17:42:03 2005 From: beesley at gmail.com (Angela) Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:42:03 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unblock this IP: 217.33.74.20 In-Reply-To: <20050314173243.24197.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050314173243.24197.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8b722b80050314094230f39ef1@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 09:32:43 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > In fact there should be an auto link to 'email the admin who blocked you' for > block messages. There is one. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Blockedtext but it's less useful for banned IPs since they'd need to first create an account to make use of the "email this user" feature. > server side virus checks would also be useful This isn't necessary since only plain text emails can be sent through the wiki. Angela. From alphasigmax at gmail.com Tue Mar 15 05:29:22 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:59:22 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The WikiEN-l Archive Message-ID: <423672B2.1050008@gmail.com> I have a couple of major gripes with this. Firstly, the monthly text files are un-compressed; secondly, there is no "Get the entire list" option (which mailman can do). Why not? Will this ever change, or do I just need to import each monthly archive (I used to get things in digests, but they are crappy)? [[en:User:Alphax]] From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 15 11:41:02 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:41:02 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User Survey Message-ID: <742dfd0605031503413ea0fcf9@mail.gmail.com> I would like to draft a general (optional!) user survey, to offer in sections to users who want to fill it out. What do you think? Take a look at the current survey questions and comment. I seem to recall a number of smaller surveys have been run in the past; if you have taken part in (or run) one of these, please link the surveys to one another, or perhaps create a category for them... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sj/Survey/draft (I know it's in my user space, but feel free to edit this page mercilessly.) -- +sj+ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 15 15:38:20 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 10:38:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] English Wikipedia reaches 500,000 articles Message-ID: <742dfd060503150738387c6830@mail.gmail.com> Please take another look at this press release: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005 If you're interested in helping distribute the press release this weekend, please add your name to the list of press-release participants... or chime in on the talk page. -- +sj+ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Tue Mar 15 15:55:45 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 10:55:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Careless image deletion : a minor outrage Message-ID: <742dfd06050315075513b4e021@mail.gmail.com> Yesterday I came across a beautiful panorama, one which any reference work would be thrilled to have, which had been *casually* put up for deletion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wuerzburg_panorama.jpg This image had illustrated the article on Wuerzburg for a long while, and was then removed by an anonymous edit in February. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W%FCrzburg&diff=9939546&oldid=9902946 It was soon afterward listed for deletion as one of hundreds of "unverified orphans" [UOs] listed in recent months. Quoth an enthusiastic UO deleter: "I've been doing this for about a month, and it's been generally well received." Out of about 100 such images currently listed on Images for Deletion, I found about 20 which were either clearly uploaded by their creators, or seemed likely to have been (by virtue of composition, edit summaries, image descriptions). Some of these could clearly be used productively in articles, even if they aren't at present; in particular the Wuerzburg image and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Xi%27an_city_wall.jpg [ Detailed rant: http://tinyurl.com/4zpyb ] This kind of careless deletion must stop. It should be unacceptable to list a borderline image for deletion, and only afterwards notify the uploader, who may not even visit Wikipedia every week. A cardinal rule of image deletion should be : take every precaution not to irreversibly delete beautiful, free content. Particularly so long as we tolerate foolish debates about the unproven copyvio-status of everyone's favorite autofellatio image. -- +sj+ From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 15 19:16:38 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:16:38 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage References: <742dfd06050315075513b4e021@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42373496.6020708@yahoo.com> I do not even see what to add to your mail Sj. I do not think I can be listed amongst those who generally received it well. And the very idea is making my blood pressure too high. Ant Sj a ?crit: > Yesterday I came across a beautiful panorama, one which any reference > work would be thrilled to have, which had been *casually* put up for > deletion. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wuerzburg_panorama.jpg > > This image had illustrated the article on Wuerzburg for a long while, > and was then removed by an anonymous edit in February. > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W%FCrzburg&diff=9939546&oldid=9902946 > > It was soon afterward listed for deletion as one of hundreds of > "unverified orphans" [UOs] listed in recent months. Quoth an > enthusiastic UO deleter: > "I've been doing this for about a month, and it's been generally > well received." > > Out of about 100 such images currently listed on Images for Deletion, > I found about 20 which were either clearly uploaded by their creators, > or seemed likely to have been (by virtue of composition, edit > summaries, image descriptions). Some of these could clearly be used > productively in articles, even if they aren't at present; in > particular the Wuerzburg image and > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Xi%27an_city_wall.jpg > > [ Detailed rant: http://tinyurl.com/4zpyb ] > > This kind of careless deletion must stop. It should be unacceptable > to list a borderline image for deletion, and only afterwards notify > the uploader, who may not even visit Wikipedia every week. > > A cardinal rule of image deletion should be : take every precaution > not to irreversibly delete beautiful, free content. Particularly so > long as we tolerate foolish debates about the unproven copyvio-status > of everyone's favorite autofellatio image. > From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 03:33:34 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:33:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by admin CryptoDerk Message-ID: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> While in the middle of a series of edits and a discussion of those edits, user Blair P. Houghton was blocked by admin CryptoDerk, whose note on the blocked user's talk page indicated that the admin had neither read the talk page nor verified that the three-revert-rule had been broken. What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases of abuse? --Blair From jack-lutz at comcast.net Wed Mar 16 03:51:41 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (Jack Lutz) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:51:41 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> Message-ID: <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> >What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases of abuse? Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 04:06:30 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:06:30 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> Message-ID: <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient cause to block an admin. --Blair Jack Lutz wrote: >>What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases > > of abuse? > > Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only > a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 04:23:08 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:23:08 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050315202361ce1edc@mail.gmail.com> Blair, according to the 3RR page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule#Enforcement this is the right place to go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Blair_P._Houghton -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:06:30 -0700, Blair P. Houghton wrote: > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. > > Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. > > And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention > to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient > cause to block an admin. > > --Blair > > Jack Lutz wrote: > >>What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases > > > > of abuse? > > > > Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only > > a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed > > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > -- Andrew Lih, Assistant Professor Journalism and Media Studies Centre University of Hong Kong Email: alih at hku.hk | Web: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih AOL IM: fuzheado | ICQ: 231894253 Yahoo Messenger: andrew_lih | MSN Messenger: andrew_lih at msn.com From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 04:28:24 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:28:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050315202361ce1edc@mail.gmail.com> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315202361ce1edc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4237B5E8.1020608@houghton.net> I can't go there. While blocked, I'm not allowed to edit any pages on the website. Which includes discussing repercussions against those who railroaded me. 3RR has a Catch-22. --Blair Andrew Lih wrote: > Blair, according to the 3RR page: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule#Enforcement > > this is the right place to go: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR#User:Blair_P._Houghton > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > > On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:06:30 -0700, Blair P. Houghton > wrote: > >>[[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. >> >>Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. >> >>And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention >>to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient >>cause to block an admin. >> >>--Blair >> >>Jack Lutz wrote: >> >>>>What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases >>> >>>of abuse? >>> >>>Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only >>>a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed >>>[[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. >>> >>>_______________________________________________ >>>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 theresaknott at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 04:45:40 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 04:45:40 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by admin CryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb0503152045910cba7@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:33:34 -0700, Blair P. Houghton wrote: > While in the middle of a series of edits and a discussion of those edits, " I am working with others, apparently in the way that a teacher works with a class of juvenile delinquents. " That's what you call discussing the edits? Theresa From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 05:06:51 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:36:51 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage In-Reply-To: <42373496.6020708@yahoo.com> References: <742dfd06050315075513b4e021@mail.gmail.com> <42373496.6020708@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4237BEEB.4030506@gmail.com> Anthere wrote: > I do not even see what to add to your mail Sj. > > I do not think I can be listed amongst those who generally received it > well. And the very idea is making my blood pressure too high. That comes very close to raising my Wikistress. I think we need some official policy for images "that lack copyright tags, but are probably the uploader's own work". Especially in this case, where the uploader made 3 contributions before disappearing. [[en:User:Alphax]] From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 05:06:46 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:06:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by admin CryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb0503152045910cba7@mail.gmail.com> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <1bfe3eb0503152045910cba7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4237BEE6.20809@houghton.net> It's what I call responding to specious allegations by a group of sardonic children. But thanks for taking the quote out of context. I'll be giving a lecture on intellectual dishonesty in short order. --Blair Theresa Knott wrote: > On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:33:34 -0700, Blair P. Houghton > wrote: > >>While in the middle of a series of edits and a discussion of those edits, > > > " I am working with others, apparently in the way that a teacher works > with a class of juvenile delinquents. " > > That's what you call discussing the edits? > > Theresa > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 05:09:30 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. The 3RR blocking is being extremely abused, IMO. We sometimes give actual anon vandals who trash articles more slack than some logged-in users that have an honest difference of opinion. I am an amateur body builder for 20 years. I am no expert but, like many who enjoy the sport, I've studied a good bit about it. Either the prior version or Houghton's version are accurate, and I believe Houghton's is a bit better written and more reflects the state-of-the-art. HOWEVER, I am not taking a position on which version should stand, just indicating that I know Houghton's version is, at least, not vandalism. The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. The 3RR page says that you will not necessarily be blocked for 3RR, it is admin's discretion. CryptoDerk used his discretion to block; I ordinarily will not get in the way of another admin's judgment, but in this case I've used my discretion to unblock. I caution Blair P. Houghton to take his arguments about the article to its talk page for now, and to argue about his being blocked in other forums. I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment specifically on the Weight Training article. -Cecropia -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 05:23:32 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:23:32 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316052332.D69CC6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Cecropia" I will make one addendum to my comments below. Houghton and GeorgeStepanek alternated three reverts, with Houghton making the last, then Taxman made another revert. Then Houghton reverts that (fourth revert) and is blocked. Then Taxman made another revert, but Houghton is blocked, and that ends that. Having two people on one side of a disagreement play "tag team" on reverts (consciously or not) is a violation of the spirit, if not exactly the wording, of the 3RR. In effect, Taxman's first and second reverts were really GeorgeStepanek's fourth and fifth. Result: one side in an article can always win AND get the opposition blocked so long as they have one more supporter than the other side. This 3RR gamesmanship has to end. Ask an admin to protect the article and take it to the talk page. --Cecropia To: "English Wikipedia" Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400 > > I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself in > the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > > The 3RR blocking is being extremely abused, IMO. We sometimes give > actual anon vandals who trash articles more slack than some > logged-in users that have an honest difference of opinion. I am an > amateur body builder for 20 years. I am no expert but, like many > who enjoy the sport, I've studied a good bit about it. Either the > prior version or Houghton's version are accurate, and I believe > Houghton's is a bit better written and more reflects the > state-of-the-art. > > HOWEVER, I am not taking a position on which version should stand, > just indicating that I know Houghton's version is, at least, not > vandalism. > > The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to > favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better > solution is to protect the article for a limited time to get the > combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the instant > case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his > reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs consciousness of > the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who disagrees with Houghton > picked up on the reverting. > > The 3RR page says that you will not necessarily be blocked for 3RR, > it is admin's discretion. CryptoDerk used his discretion to block; > I ordinarily will not get in the way of another admin's judgment, > but in this case I've used my discretion to unblock. > > I caution Blair P. Houghton to take his arguments about the article > to its talk page for now, and to argue about his being blocked in > other forums. > > I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor > accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment > specifically on the Weight Training article. > > -Cecropia > -- > ___________________________________________________________ > 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 giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 05:23:38 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:23:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by admin CryptoDerk In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316052339.86376.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > It's what I call responding to specious allegations > by a group of > sardonic children. > > But thanks for taking the quote out of context. > > I'll be giving a lecture on intellectual dishonesty > in short order. > > --Blair > > Theresa Knott wrote: > > On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:33:34 -0700, Blair P. > Houghton > > wrote: > > > >>While in the middle of a series of edits and a > discussion of those edits, > > > > > > " I am working with others, apparently in the way > that a teacher works > > with a class of juvenile delinquents. " > > > > That's what you call discussing the edits? > > > > Theresa My, aren't we the supercilious jerk? RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 05:32:26 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:32:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by admin CryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316052339.86376.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050316052339.86376.qmail@web60609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4237C4EA.8070408@houghton.net> What irony. --Blair Rick wrote: > --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > >>It's what I call responding to specious allegations >>by a group of >>sardonic children. >> >>But thanks for taking the quote out of context. >> >>I'll be giving a lecture on intellectual dishonesty >>in short order. >> >>--Blair >> >>Theresa Knott wrote: >> >>>On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:33:34 -0700, Blair P. >> >>Houghton >> >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>While in the middle of a series of edits and a >> >>discussion of those edits, >> >>> >>>" I am working with others, apparently in the way >> >>that a teacher works >> >>>with a class of juvenile delinquents. " >>> >>>That's what you call discussing the edits? >>> >>>Theresa > > > My, aren't we the supercilious jerk? > > RickK > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 05:35:29 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:35:29 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4237C5A1.8000702@houghton.net> Thanks, Jim. I don't see my named account as blocked in the block list, but there are two numbered accounts autoblocked (probably because of the NAT serving the multiple computers on my IP) still listed there, which may be why I still can't edit a page yet. How long does an unblock take to work? --Blair Jim Cecropia wrote: > I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > > The 3RR blocking is being extremely abused, IMO. We sometimes give actual anon vandals who trash articles more slack than some logged-in users that have an honest difference of opinion. I am an amateur body builder for 20 years. I am no expert but, like many who enjoy the sport, I've studied a good bit about it. Either the prior version or Houghton's version are accurate, and I believe Houghton's is a bit better written and more reflects the state-of-the-art. > > HOWEVER, I am not taking a position on which version should stand, just indicating that I know Houghton's version is, at least, not vandalism. > > The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > The 3RR page says that you will not necessarily be blocked for 3RR, it is admin's discretion. CryptoDerk used his discretion to block; I ordinarily will not get in the way of another admin's judgment, but in this case I've used my discretion to unblock. > > I caution Blair P. Houghton to take his arguments about the article to its talk page for now, and to argue about his being blocked in other forums. > > I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment specifically on the Weight Training article. > > -Cecropia From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 05:45:24 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:45:24 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself > in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > > The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to > favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution > is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash > out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that > GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") > which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor > who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing count, could be construed as a trap as well. But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations need to be followed up by a ban. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 05:54:55 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:54:55 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but only after I was blocked. Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was just reverting the page to goad me into re-reverting it. I did, three times. Then I changed the edit to include others' suggestions. Then Taxman continued reverting in GeorgeStepanek's stead. Then they created the false allegations of 3RR violation. And once the unblock actually allows me into the server, I'll repeat all of this on the talk page so everyone concerned can see the mess these guys made. --Blair Andrew Lih wrote: > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > >>I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself >>in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. >> >>The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to >>favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution >>is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash >>out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that >>GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") >>which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor >>who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > > It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does > not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing > count, could be construed as a trap as well. > > But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community > better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow > this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations > need to be followed up by a ban. > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 05:59:34 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:59:34 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Blair, I removed the autoblocks as well. You should be able to edit now. I strongly suggest you brush up Wittiquette. I know how frustrating it can be to see what you view (and may be) unfair or inaccurate material in an article. Yet the (sometims almost goofy) courtesies of Wikipedia, surprisingly, go a very long way. Argue on substance, not personalities or characterizations. Remmeber that cardinal Wikirule "No 'Roid Rage" ;-) --C > > Thanks, Jim. > > I don't see my named account as blocked in the block list, but > there are two numbered accounts autoblocked (probably because of > the NAT serving the multiple computers on my IP) still listed > there, which may be why I still can't edit a page yet. > > How long does an unblock take to work? > > --Blair > > Jim Cecropia wrote: > > I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself > > in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > > > > The 3RR blocking is being extremely abused, IMO. We sometimes > > give actual anon vandals who trash articles more slack than some > > logged-in users that have an honest difference of opinion. I am > > an amateur body builder for 20 years. I am no expert but, like > > many who enjoy the sport, I've studied a good bit about it. > > Either the prior version or Houghton's version are accurate, and > > I believe Houghton's is a bit better written and more reflects > > the state-of-the-art. > > > > HOWEVER, I am not taking a position on which version should > > stand, just indicating that I know Houghton's version is, at > > least, not vandalism. > > > > The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends > > to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the > > better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to > > get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the > > instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered > > his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs > > consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who > > disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > > > The 3RR page says that you will not necessarily be blocked for > > 3RR, it is admin's discretion. CryptoDerk used his discretion to > > block; I ordinarily will not get in the way of another admin's > > judgment, but in this case I've used my discretion to unblock. > > > > I caution Blair P. Houghton to take his arguments about the > > article to its talk page for now, and to argue about his being > > blocked in other forums. > > > > I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor > > accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment > > specifically on the Weight Training article. > > > > -Cecropia > _______________________________________________ > 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 jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 06:03:31 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 02:03:31 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316060331.E8DEE101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> You are right. I apologize to George if I seem to characterizing his intentions. I am assuming good faith on all sides here, even if they get annoyed. I hope you generally support the idea that if an article gets too contentious, "locking is better than blocking." I believe honest editors, even if they get a bit hot under the collar, should be engaged, not blocked. Save blocking for actual vandals. -- C > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > > I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself > > in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > > > > The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends > > to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the > > better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to > > get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the > > instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered > > his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs > > consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who > > disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does > not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing > count, could be construed as a trap as well. > > But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community > better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow > this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations > need to be followed up by a ban. > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > _______________________________________________ > 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 andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 06:05:42 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:05:42 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> Blair, It was legit to unblock you but the biting comments don't help. So keep the personal comments out of it. Play the ball, not the man/men. I've also been bold and altered the 3RR page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Intent_of_the_policy Still not entirely happy with the edits, but I do think 3RR needs to be closer to the "means of last resort" rather than the quick tool it is now. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 22:54:55 -0700, Blair P. Houghton wrote: > It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but only after I was blocked. > > Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was just reverting the page to goad me into re-reverting it. I did, three times. Then I changed the edit to include others' suggestions. Then Taxman continued reverting in GeorgeStepanek's stead. Then they created the false allegations of 3RR violation. > > And once the unblock actually allows me into the server, I'll repeat all of this on the talk page so everyone concerned can see the mess these guys made. > > --Blair > > Andrew Lih wrote: > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > > > >>I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself > >>in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > >> > >>The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to > >>favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution > >>is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash > >>out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that > >>GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") > >>which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor > >>who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > > > > > It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does > > not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing > > count, could be construed as a trap as well. > > > > But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community > > better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow > > this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations > > need to be followed up by a ban. > > > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 06:08:23 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 02:08:23 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316060823.1273C164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- Well, let's all step back, take a deep breath, and maybe we can all go forward with good faith. My broader interest in this is that we are slipping in trying to have editorial standards on Wikiedpia (an encyclopedia first and foremost) at the same time when 3RR and ArbCom are starting to be used as editing tools. --C > > It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but > only after I was blocked. > > Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was > just reverting the page to goad me into re-reverting it. I did, > three times. Then I changed the edit to include others' > suggestions. Then Taxman continued reverting in GeorgeStepanek's > stead. Then they created the false allegations of 3RR violation. > > And once the unblock actually allows me into the server, I'll > repeat all of this on the talk page so everyone concerned can see > the mess these guys made. > > --Blair > > Andrew Lih wrote: > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > > > >> I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself > >> in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. > >> > >> The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends > >> to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the > >> better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to > >> get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the > >> instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, > >> numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs > >> consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who > >> disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. > > > > > > It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does > > not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing > > count, could be construed as a trap as well. > > > > But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community > > better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow > > this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations > > need to be followed up by a ban. > > > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 06:17:23 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 23:17:23 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> Garrrr! It not roid rage! It justifiable barbellcide! Garrr!!! I even spelled out in the talk page that I wasn't being vituperative. But did anyone read back more than two layers of comments? Hard to tell. What goes a long way is actually doing what is right, but clearly some people insist on manipulating the process to get their way while others are blocked from acting within their rights. The passive-aggressive nature of the conflicts I've observed on Wikipedia is flat-out dysfunctional. This one has been no different. I try to be direct so people will act appropriately. Instead they get offended by the truth and accuse me of antisocial behavior. And other people buy into it. Madness among epistemologists must lead to a loss of information. Bad mojo. ...wait a sec... The blocks are all gone. I can get edit pages now. Thanks, Jim. You are a musclehead and a gentleman. --Blair Jim Cecropia wrote: > Blair, I removed the autoblocks as well. You should be able to edit now. > > I strongly suggest you brush up Wittiquette. I know how frustrating it can be to see what you view (and may be) unfair or inaccurate material in an article. Yet the (sometims almost goofy) courtesies of Wikipedia, surprisingly, go a very long way. Argue on substance, not personalities or characterizations. > > Remmeber that cardinal Wikirule "No 'Roid Rage" ;-) > > --C > > > >>Thanks, Jim. >> >>I don't see my named account as blocked in the block list, but >>there are two numbered accounts autoblocked (probably because of >>the NAT serving the multiple computers on my IP) still listed >>there, which may be why I still can't edit a page yet. >> >>How long does an unblock take to work? >> >>--Blair >> >>Jim Cecropia wrote: >> >>>I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself >>>in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. >>> >>>The 3RR blocking is being extremely abused, IMO. We sometimes >>>give actual anon vandals who trash articles more slack than some >>>logged-in users that have an honest difference of opinion. I am >>>an amateur body builder for 20 years. I am no expert but, like >>>many who enjoy the sport, I've studied a good bit about it. >>>Either the prior version or Houghton's version are accurate, and >>>I believe Houghton's is a bit better written and more reflects >>>the state-of-the-art. >>> >>>HOWEVER, I am not taking a position on which version should >>>stand, just indicating that I know Houghton's version is, at >>>least, not vandalism. >>> >>>The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends >>>to favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the >>>better solution is to protect the article for a limited time to >>>get the combatants to hash out the issue in article talk. In the >>>instant case, I notice that GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered >>>his reverts ("first, second, third") which telegraphs >>>consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor who >>>disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. >>> >>>The 3RR page says that you will not necessarily be blocked for >>>3RR, it is admin's discretion. CryptoDerk used his discretion to >>>block; I ordinarily will not get in the way of another admin's >>>judgment, but in this case I've used my discretion to unblock. >>> >>>I caution Blair P. Houghton to take his arguments about the >>>article to its talk page for now, and to argue about his being >>>blocked in other forums. >>> >>>I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor >>>accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment >>>specifically on the Weight Training article. >>> >>>-Cecropia >> >>_______________________________________________ >>WikiEN-l mailing list >>WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From anthere9 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 06:38:27 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:38:27 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4237D463.40807@yahoo.com> I think that Jimbo might have sligthly more pressing matters than investigating himself all disputes on the english wikipedia. He certainly do cares and would regret a lot that abuse is practiced, but any investigation takes a lot of time. This is why an arbcom was set. So that an instance can be delegated power by Jimbo and by the community to consider such things. So, for any such issue, you should first of all consider turning to the arbcom, and trust the arbcom to take the right decision; and see Jimbo as the final person you can go to when ALL OTHER means have failed (to your opinion). Ant Blair P. Houghton a ?crit: > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. > > Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. > > And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention > to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient > cause to block an admin. > > --Blair > > Jack Lutz wrote: > >>> What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases >> >> >> of abuse? >> >> Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note >> that only >> a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 07:33:48 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 03:33:48 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316073349.56F1B4BE6F@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> I think we may have short-circuited the de-admin, RfC, ArbCom route. Sometimes a word to the wise (on both sides) is sufficient. I think everyone can now act in good faith. Hopefully, I will be proven right; stay tuned. --C ----- Original Message ----- From: Anthere To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDerk Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:38:27 +0100 > > I think that Jimbo might have sligthly more pressing matters than > investigating himself all disputes on the english wikipedia. He > certainly do cares and would regret a lot that abuse is practiced, > but any investigation takes a lot of time. This is why an arbcom > was set. So that an instance can be delegated power by Jimbo and by > the community to consider such things. > > So, for any such issue, you should first of all consider turning to > the arbcom, and trust the arbcom to take the right decision; and > see Jimbo as the final person you can go to when ALL OTHER means > have failed (to your opinion). > > Ant > > Blair P. Houghton a ?crit: > > [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. > > > > Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. > > > > And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention > > to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient > > cause to block an admin. > > > > --Blair > > > > Jack Lutz wrote: > > > >>> What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases > >> > >> > >> of abuse? > >> > >> Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only > >> a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed > >> [[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 skyring at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 08:22:22 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:22:22 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Abusive editors In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050310101140.03062a40@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050310101140.03062a40@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <550ccb820503160022294b1539@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:31:04 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > I am glad that Silverback and I are in agreement as to > principles. However, Skyring and Silverback are still either > misrepresenting or misunderstanding the issues in this particular case. > > Skyring wrote: > >In this case Adam changed "shall be" to "is". That changes the meaning > >and saves only a few letters. Nor did he use any commonly-used form of > >words to indicate a paraphrase. He used boldface to indicate that he > >thought it was a factual statement. > > First, your claim that changing "shall be" to "is" is a change in meaning > is absurd. The Constitution is using the subjunctive because guess what, > constitutions are written before they are instituted. But once the > constitution is instituted, events actually come to pass, and the > subjunctive should not be used for ongoing or actual events. Perhaps you can explain Section 101 then. It clearly says "There shall be an Inter-State Commission." Using your logic above, one might expect that there is now an Inter-State Commission. But one would be wrong. I am sorry that you see this as some sort of game. I suggest that if you don't know about Australian constitutional matters, it's probably wisest not to comment on them. -- Peter in Canberra From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 10:29:03 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:29:03 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316060331.E8DEE101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316060331.E8DEE101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <56526.194.72.110.12.1110968943.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Jim Cecropia said: > I hope you generally support the idea that if an article gets too > contentious, "locking is better than blocking." I don't agree with this in all cases. Sometimes there are just one or two people whos editing is problematic, and it's wrong to prevent *everybody* editing it in such cases. It would be cool if we could block an editor from editing a specific article, but that kind of granularity isn't yet available so a block is sometimes the way to take the most disruptive elements out of circulation for a few hours. It needs emphasizing that the length of the block is at the sysop's discretion. It can be anything *up to* 24 hours. Even two hours can be a pretty effective block for people who are already in an edit war. I also disagree with you on the idea that reverts by multiple users violate the spirit of the 3RR. In my opinion they exemplify it, and this is supported explicitly by the text of WP:3RR, though it rightly points out that extended disputes are better dealt with by protection rather than edit warring: "This policy applies to each person. Use of sockpuppets (multiple accounts) is not a legitimate way to avoid this limit, and the 3RR specifically does not apply to groups. If the edit really needs reverting that much, somebody else will probably do it?and that will serve the vital purpose of showing that the community at large is in agreement over which of two competing versions is correct. If you like, chat with other Wikipedians whom you respect, and ask them if they could take a look. If you and the person you've asked to help have both needed to revert three times, then it is probably time to ask for the page to be protected and to start looking into dispute resolution." From nought_0000 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 11:11:55 2005 From: nought_0000 at yahoo.com (zero 0000) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 03:11:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage In-Reply-To: <20050316050706.6F0681AC1888@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050316111155.76143.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> I'll go further and say that the image cops are doing more harm to Wikipedia than the same number of vandals. I think that an image of unknown provenance should only be deleted if it appears likely to be someone's substantial commercial asset. That is the only circumstance in which a lawsuit is even remotely plausible. Zero. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 11:24:11 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:24:11 +0000 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > Garrrr! It not roid rage! It justifiable barbellcide! Garrr!!! > I even spelled out in the talk page that I wasn't being vituperative. > But did anyone read back more than two layers of comments? Hard to tell. Take me through this one slowly: What's so hard about not reverting repeatedly? Why does it have to go into the article THAT SECOND? What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous? I look forward to your answers. - d. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 11:20:55 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:20:55 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Careless image deletion : a minor outrage In-Reply-To: <20050316111155.76143.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050316050706.6F0681AC1888@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050316111155.76143.qmail@web53309.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think images should only be deleted when they're obviously copyrighted by someone else than the uploader or if they're used only to commit vandalism (and nothing else). In all other cases, admins doing the deleting should attempt to contact the uploader to get copyright info on the image and give them a certain amount of time to respond before deleting anything. Mgm On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 03:11:55 -0800 (PST), zero 0000 wrote: > > I'll go further and say that the image cops are doing more > harm to Wikipedia than the same number of vandals. > > I think that an image of unknown provenance should only > be deleted if it appears likely to be someone's substantial > commercial asset. That is the only circumstance in which > a lawsuit is even remotely plausible. > > Zero. > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! > http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 11:37:48 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page Message-ID: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to edit ;-) I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure that's really productive myself. ==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?== First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very close to it. *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and apologise and ask to be unblocked. Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality. Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not tended to gain sympathy. - d. From geniice at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 11:58:20 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:05:42 +0800, Andrew Lih wrote: > Blair, > > It was legit to unblock you but the biting comments don't help. So > keep the personal comments out of it. Play the ball, not the man/men. > > I've also been bold and altered the 3RR page: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Intent_of_the_policy > > Still not entirely happy with the edits, but I do think 3RR needs to > be closer to the "means of last resort" rather than the quick tool it > is now. > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it get another consensus -- geni From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 12:03:33 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:03:33 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and > apologise and ask to be unblocked. Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result. Mgm On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:48 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely > reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to > edit ;-) > > I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But > if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be > unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit > better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure > that's really productive myself. > > ==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?== > First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very > close to it. > > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and > apologise and ask to be unblocked. > > Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do > not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality. > > Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not > tended to gain sympathy. > > - d. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From anthere9 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 14:00:17 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:00:17 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDerk References: <20050316073349.56F1B4BE6F@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <42383BF1.1010905@yahoo.com> Most of the time (about 99,99% only), just talking, even if a bit heated, is the wise route :-) ant Jim Cecropia a ?crit: > I think we may have short-circuited the de-admin, RfC, ArbCom route. Sometimes a word to the wise (on both sides) is sufficient. I think everyone can now act in good faith. Hopefully, I will be proven right; stay tuned. > > --C > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Anthere > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDerk > Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:38:27 +0100 > > >>I think that Jimbo might have sligthly more pressing matters than >>investigating himself all disputes on the english wikipedia. He >>certainly do cares and would regret a lot that abuse is practiced, >>but any investigation takes a lot of time. This is why an arbcom >>was set. So that an instance can be delegated power by Jimbo and by >>the community to consider such things. >> >>So, for any such issue, you should first of all consider turning to >>the arbcom, and trust the arbcom to take the right decision; and >>see Jimbo as the final person you can go to when ALL OTHER means >>have failed (to your opinion). >> >>Ant >> >>Blair P. Houghton a ?crit: >> >>>[[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]] says to ask here, or Jimbo. >>> >>>Which I guess means Jimbo is the only one who counts. >>> >>>And he doesn't seem to care that admins aren't paying attention >>>to the voted-on criteria for blocking users, as it's not sufficient >>>cause to block an admin. >>> >>>--Blair >>> >>>Jack Lutz wrote: >>> >>> >>>>>What is the usual procedure for having admin privileges stripped in cases >>>> >>>> >>>>of abuse? >>>> >>>>Apparently one must make an appeal to ArbCom or Jimbo, though note that only >>>>a few (2?) sysops have lost privileges on EN. See also the proposed >>>>[[Wikipedia:Requests for de-adminship]]. >>>> >>>>_______________________________________________ >>>>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 brian1954 at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 14:23:03 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:23:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: References: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <547b297e05031606233d9d9432@mail.gmail.com> I think your wording is a good addition, except for one point. As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should avoid second-guessing each other. Therefore, I don't think people should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them than the one who imposed the block in the first place. This just encourages people who have been blocked to "forum shop" for the softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators against each other. It is clear that there is antipathy between some administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this. In the case where the 3RR violation is not disputed, and a person wants to apologize, express contrition etc, he or she should do that with the admin who imposed the block. The scenario where A blocks B, B expresses contrition to C, C unblocks B is not a good scenario. It puts the admins into conflict, and undermines their roles. Admins should avoid this scenario if at all possible. In the case where the blocked member wishes to dispute the 3RR block, that should be done initially with the admin who imposed the block, so that admin can recognize and reverse his own error, and apologize if appropriate to the blocked person, minimizing future bad feelings and conflict. Only if that fails should the blocked person be able to ask a different admin to intervene. The intervention in most cases should be to leave the block in place but to open a discussion about it on AN/I, so that a consensus can be formed about whether the block was proper or not. Once a consensus is established, any admin can implement it. Brian (BM) On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:03:33 +0100, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another > > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. > > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the > > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and > > apologise and ask to be unblocked. > Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much > people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only > human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result. > > Mgm > > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:48 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > > I've just added the following to [[WP:3RR]]. I think it concisely > > reflects how these things actually work. Feel free, of course, to > > edit ;-) > > > > I'm a big fan of 3RR blocks, because sterile reverting is bad. But > > if someone emails me acknowledging their error and asking to be > > unblocked, I'll generally do so. The idea is to get people to edit > > better. Some admins are real hardarses about it, but I'm not sure > > that's really productive myself. > > > > ==I've been blocked under 3RR! What do I do?== > > First, check if you actually did make a fourth revert in 24 hours or very > > close to it. > > > > *If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another > > admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. > > *If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the > > admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and > > apologise and ask to be unblocked. > > > > Some admins look at the quality of the edits in question, but most admins do > > not as the rule does not concern itself with edit quality. > > > > Note that historically, public denunciation of the blocking admin has not > > tended to gain sympathy. > > > > - 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 dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 15:06:13 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:06:13 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: <547b297e05031606233d9d9432@mail.gmail.com> References: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> <547b297e05031606233d9d9432@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42384B65.30509@thingy.apana.org.au> Brian M wrote: > I think your wording is a good addition, except for one point. > As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should > avoid second-guessing each other. Therefore, I don't think people > should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them > than the one who imposed the block in the first place. This just > encourages people who have been blocked to "forum shop" for the > softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators > against each other. It is clear that there is antipathy between some > administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this. Yeah, rules lawyering and admin-shopping from the creatively antisocial is likely to happen. That said, they'd do it whether it was said there or not anyway, and admins can't be expected to be on 24-hour call by email. And the wording in that section should be simple and clear to those of good will, not a legalistic horror festooned with "AND NO DON'T TRY THAT GETOUT EITHER" in an attempt to head off those of less good will. If we can come up with a really concise wording ... - d. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 15:04:56 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:04:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now: http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/ Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki Woes (like vandals). And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia in papers they write. I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve. The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We never resolved the tension between: A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to fork? I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 15:19:18 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:19:18 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> Poor, Edmund W wrote: > The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project > for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We > never resolved the tension between: > A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, > B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. > Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't > know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. At the moment Magnus says it isn't prime time, and there appear to be no developers on hand to work on it. > Do we need to > fork? > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. Nah. A massively distributed rating system seems the only workable idea to me, because it will harness dilettantism. Editorial committees aren't the sort of thing that scales. And I think a ratings system should be worth a try, on the assumption that most of the ratings will be good faith. 'Cos if we can't assume that, then we can't assume good faith for the project in general. And I think we can. If their money can be directed that way, get them to hire a PHP developer for a while to get the rating feature polished up ;-) - d. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 16 15:18:20 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:18:20 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time References: Message-ID: <007901c52a3b$64b640f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ed Poor wrote >I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve. >The question is, where do we go from here? Good question. Obviously a million articles on wiki-en in a couple of years time is within reach. That now would 'merely' consolidate WP in English; the versions in other languages are coming on fast (especially the German). Getting it all interwikied might look like busy-work, but would surely be an outstanding cross-language project, historically speaking. >Larry Sanger left the project for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We never resolved the tension between: A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. Well, I think the project opted for A. We can never have quite enough folks to give warranties for B. The next best thing is to have thousands of Wikipedians editing, and A has turned out to be (unexpectedly) good at making WP a popular place. >I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. I wrote a few days ago that some sort of tipping point would be reached. I personally feel that this is also part of the WP model - what one could expect of a successful attempt to make commoditised knowledge open-source. I for one will lose little sleep over this. I think the WP communities are probably less schismatic, over content, than one might fear. But time alone will tell. Charles From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 16 15:26:59 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:26:59 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316152659.44773.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. The problem with a fork is that you'd leave most of the community behind, and the community is A) large, B) full of experts in obscure topics, and C) knowledgable about the state of existing WP articles. Having "stable-development" branches for articles seemed an excellent idea, and would effectively be an "in-project" fork...is this still under consideration? -- Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 15:33:29 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:33:29 -0500 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <20050316052332.D69CC6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: >From: "Jim Cecropia" >I also must state that, as Houghton infers, neither truth nor >accuracy is determined by consensus, and that is NOT a comment >specifically on the Weight Training article. "Truth" is a thing that is hard to determine, and often hotly disputed; in any event its determination is not something that is within the purview of Wikipedia. Instead we have the NPOV policy. >Having two people on one side of a disagreement play "tag team" on reverts >(consciously or not) is a violation of the spirit, if not exactly the >wording, of the 3RR. In effect, Taxman's first and second reverts were >really GeorgeStepanek's fourth and fifth. Result: one side in an article >can always win AND get the opposition blocked so long as they have one more >supporter than the other side. > >This 3RR gamesmanship has to end. Ask an admin to protect the article and >take it to the talk page. If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are seeing is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship". Jay. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 15:44:04 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:44:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: Matt wrote: > The problem with a fork is that you'd leave most of the > community behind, and the community is A) large, B) full > of experts in obscure topics, and C) knowledgable about > the state of existing WP articles. > > Having "stable-development" branches for articles seemed > an excellent idea, and would effectively be an "in- > project" fork...is this still under consideration? I prefer the idea of "branching": we're writing encyclopedia articles, not computer software. I don't want to leave the community behind at all. The foundation plans to hire professional editors and writers. They'll create, say, an additional 4,000 articles (on lofty topics, no doubt ;-) and also choose a subset of the half million Wikipedia articles to whip into shape. But I'm recommending to the foundation that any articles it revises be posted back to Wikipedia immediately - as opposed to waiting until their publication day. (I don't know the legal niceties; is prompt re-publication a requirement, or can they hang on to their version in-house till the last minute?) BOTH projects would surely benefit from this cross- pollination. I'd like to do whatever I can to reduce the 'forkiness' of the foundation's project and increase the 'give-and-take-iness' of it. Collaboration has been the key of Wikipedia's success; let's not change horses in midstream. Ed Poor From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 16:03:21 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:03:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316160322.92996.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project > for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We > never resolved the tension between: > > A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, > B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. Nod. > Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't > know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to > fork? Absolutely not. The online version needs to be accurate and fair just as much as any version in any other medium. We need to work out a way to incorporate a wiki way to do this (that is, fast, open and scalable). > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. We cannot control what others do, but we should not support any content fork of our own. However the fact that others are thinking about this in terms of needing a fork should get our attention that we need to create something in-house ASAP that is fast, open and scalable (see above). I think it is high time to re-look at Magnus? reader-controlled article rating software. We have gone far trusting editors with the ability to edit, I think we should see if we can trust readers with the ability to rate article versions. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:13:38 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:13:38 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> David Geerard wrote: > Nah. A massively distributed rating system seems the only workable idea > to me, because it will harness dilettantism. Editorial committees aren't > the sort of thing that scales. > > And I think a ratings system should be worth a try, on the assumption > that > most of the ratings will be good faith. 'Cos if we can't assume that, > then > we can't assume good faith for the project in general. And I think we > can. > > If their money can be directed that way, get them to hire a PHP developer > for a while to get the rating feature polished up ;-) Right, David. Don't think fork; think Add-on. And don't think editorial committee; think reputation/rating system. And always keep dilettantism at the front of your cogitations. To those considering forking Wikipedia, I say why not simply start an add-on site where users can register, build reputation, and rate article versions. All their edits originating from the Add-on site (credipedia.org or respectipedia.org) go straight into the main Wikipedia database, and the add-on site sifts articles for presentation to anonymous users according to its added features of user and article rating. Any successful feature are sure to find their way back into MediaWiki. Tom Haws From zoney.ie at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:20:55 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:20:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <20050316152659.44773.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050316152659.44773.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4418c60e05031608201fe98dea@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:26:59 +0000 (GMT), Matt R wrote: > --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > > > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. > > The problem with a fork is that you'd leave most of the community behind, and > the community is A) large, B) full of experts in obscure topics, and C) > knowledgable about the state of existing WP articles. > > Having "stable-development" branches for articles seemed an excellent idea, and > would effectively be an "in-project" fork...is this still under consideration? > > -- Matt > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com You are making assumptions as to which way people (including or particularly experts in obscure topics) would go... Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:31:01 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:31:01 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni wrote: > The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it > get another consensus Text that was voted on says: "If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 16:35:16 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:35:16 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: Daniel (mav) wrote: > We cannot control what others do, but we should not > support any content fork of our own. However the fact > that others are thinking about this in terms of needing > a fork should get our attention that we need to create > something in-house ASAP that is fast, open and scalable > (see above). > > I think it is high time to re-look at Magnus' reader- > controlled article rating software. We have gone far > trusting editors with the ability to edit, I think we > should see if we can trust readers with the ability to > rate article versions. I hate the idea of forking just as much as I hate having to put up with vandalism, trolls, POV-pushing and edit wars. I'll do whatever I can to prevent a Robert Frost style fork: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth. I do NOT want to take the other. I don't think it's "just as fair" (i.e., attractive). I'm not convinced it has "the better claim". At this point it seems "really about the same." If the foundation chooses MediaWiki software (as opposed to just copying and pasting articles into Microsoft Word, fer Pete's sake!), it will have to hire programmers to set up their server, administer their web site, and (most likely) customize MediaWiki for their unique requirements. It should be OBVIOUS that any changes to MediaWiki ought to be shared with Wikipedia. I don't have all the answers, but the first idea that popped into my mind was: * Let users (or a subset of them) "tag" an article version. * A tag (or "flag") could take on any assigned meaning. * My favorite tag idea: "Vandalism-patrolled by mav" (!) * Here's another: "Selected for the print edition" If the foundation chooses to cooperate with Wikipedia as much as I hope, then I would expect to have it identify particular VERSIONS of Wikipedia articles which it has approved. I daresay some of these might be the "current version" and even remain as the current version. Or if a Wikipedian makes a minor correction (like spelling, punctuation, grammar; or an obviously relevant internal link) to an article version tagged by the foundation - then it would be GREAT if the software would notify the foundation's editors. They could quickly review the change and probably be GLAD to endorse the current version. This would PREVENT forking, or at least reduce it to a bare minimum. Better yet, if a Wikipedian makes a SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT to a foundation-tagged article version, I'd think the foundation would be OVERJOYED to endorse it. (I'm planning to educate them about using the History and Diff functions.) Ed Poor From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:37:42 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:37:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: <547b297e05031606233d9d9432@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should >avoid second-guessing each other. Therefore, I don't think people >should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them >than the one who imposed the block in the first place. This just >encourages people who have been blocked to "forum shop" for the >softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators >against each other. It is clear that there is antipathy between some >administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this. Or (in my experience) sometimes they just e-mail all admins, hoping someone will (for whatever reason) unblock them. It's kind of like standing in an apartment lobby and buzzing all the apartments; someone inevitably buzzes you in. >In the case where the 3RR violation is not disputed, and a person >wants to apologize, express contrition etc, he or she should do that >with the admin who imposed the block. I've unblocked 3RR violators immediately for doing exactly that. >In the case where the blocked member wishes to dispute the 3RR block, >that should be done initially with the admin who imposed the block, so >that admin can recognize and reverse his own error, and apologize if >appropriate to the blocked person, minimizing future bad feelings and >conflict. Only if that fails should the blocked person be able to ask >a different admin to intervene. The intervention in most cases >should be to leave the block in place but to open a discussion about >it on AN/I, so that a consensus can be formed about whether the block >was proper or not. Once a consensus is established, any admin can >implement it. Well, one of the downsides of the more efficient ArbCom is that users want to bring every grievance they have there immediately. It doesn't help that RfC is only intermittently helpful, and RfM appears (at least in my experience) to still be completely non-functioning. Jay. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 16:38:17 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:38:17 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Andrew Lih said: > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni wrote: > >> The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it >> get another consensus > > Text that was voted on says: > "If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to > 24 hours." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement > > The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or > guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is > also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins. I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good thing. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:45:41 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:45:41 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <007901c52a3b$64b640f0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >From: "Charles Matthews" > >Good question. Obviously a million articles on wiki-en in a couple of >years time is within reach. If we stop deleting one line stubs on every public school in the United States, we should be there in a couple of months. ;-) P.S. Just a little humour, not meant to incite inclusionist/deletionist wars. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 16:46:00 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 08:46:00 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The wikimedia.org servers are currently overloaded, or down. Message-ID: Don't blame me, but I think that the article in Software Development magazine might have triggered some extra web traffic. It has a large circulation, and it goes to the best of the best. Just the sort of people who would immediately try out our most sophisticated (and processor-time-consuming) features! Uncle Ed From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 16 16:47:54 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:47:54 -0000 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com><2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com><4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net><2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com><2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Tony Sidaway wrote > I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* > drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit > it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to > a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be > holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good > thing. That omits the edits to other pages blocked users cannot make. Page protection is unpopular; temp-banning 3RR violaters seems to have a good consensus behind it. This displays a rational attitude to the content of the page in question, I think. Edit warring usually stops the development of a page right in its tracks, often for the sake of a part of the whole that is not that significant. Charles From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 16:46:38 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:46:38 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> David Gerard wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> Garrrr! It not roid rage! It justifiable barbellcide! Garrr!!! >> I even spelled out in the talk page that I wasn't being >> vituperative. But did anyone read back more than two layers of >> comments? Hard to tell. > > > Take me through this one slowly: > > What's so hard about not reverting repeatedly? I dunno. I didn't revert it. I edited it to make it right. Ask the guy who reverted it. > Why does it have to go into the article THAT SECOND? Why does it have to be reverted to wrong information that second? > > What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous? Who said it was? Read my rebuttal. I didn't violate the 3RR. > > I look forward to your answers. I look forward to a little educated forethought on the part of every self-elected politician on wikipedia. --Blair "Still not being vituperative." From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:49:52 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:49:52 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <20050316160322.92996.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >From: Daniel Mayer > >However the fact that others are thinking about this in terms of >needing a fork should get our attention that we need to create something >in-house ASAP that is fast, open and scalable (see above). Maybe more of the focus should be on making the Wikipedia infrastructure itself fast and scalable. It is rarely the former (and in fact is down again), which is leading me to doubt the latter. Jay. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 16 16:53:13 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:53:13 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time References: Message-ID: <00b301c52a48$a5b128b0$9e7c0450@Galasien> >... and in fact is down > again ... > > Jay ... and up again ... Charles From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 16:58:14 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <00b301c52a48$a5b128b0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: >>... and in fact is down again ... >> >>Jay > >... and up again ... > >Charles ... and down again ... From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:01:20 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:01:20 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42386660.9040609@sprintmail.com> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >I don't have all the answers, but the first idea >that popped into my mind was: > >* Let users (or a subset of them) "tag" an article > version. >* A tag (or "flag") could take on any assigned > meaning. >* My favorite tag idea: "Vandalism-patrolled by mav" (!) >* Here's another: "Selected for the print edition" > > This is the right approach. All article versions need to have several slider flags associated with them in the database. Some of those flags, like confidence, need to be automatically set according to the software's judgement of the trustworthiness of the editor (based on some reputation model). Other flags need to have an interface radio button setting so readers/editors can rate the article versions on any number of aspects. >Or if a Wikipedian makes a minor correction (like >spelling, punctuation, grammar; or an obviously >relevant internal link) to an article version tagged >by the foundation - then it would be GREAT if the >software would notify the foundation's editors. They >could quickly review the change and probably be GLAD >to endorse the current version. This would PREVENT >forking, or at least reduce it to a bare minimum. > >Better yet, if a Wikipedian makes a SIGNIFICANT >IMPROVEMENT to a foundation-tagged article version, >I'd think the foundation would be OVERJOYED to >endorse it. (I'm planning to educate them about >using the History and Diff functions.) > > Right, Ed. There is absolutely no reason for a fork. All we need is some proactive, creative, and *bold* programming experimentation. Long live Respectipedia.org!! Tom Haws From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:00:16 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:00:16 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42386620.4090502@houghton.net> geni wrote: >The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it >get another consensus > > You don't "get consensus" in the way you "get a bunch of bananas from the store." You "get consensus" in the way you "get the joke." Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite. It's something that happens. Consensus follows action. To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''. The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior consensus. This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the truth. Ask Galileo sometime. Or ask your 5th-grade science teacher why you were taught about Galileo's legal problems. (Not that I think I'm Galileo or these noobs are the Inquisition; but a boy's got to get out the ''reductio ad absurdum'' sometimes to put a point across.) --Blair From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 17:07:04 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:07:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316170704.18103.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > Better yet, if a Wikipedian makes a SIGNIFICANT > IMPROVEMENT to a foundation-tagged article version, > I'd think the foundation would be OVERJOYED to > endorse it. (I'm planning to educate them about > using the History and Diff functions.) Such ?tagging? should be part of a proper meta-data system that associates with particular article versions and *not* done through the category system or through the use of templates. Thus the metadata would need to be separate from the article. I think Magnus? reader-created rating system works that way. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From johnleemk at gawab.com Wed Mar 16 17:12:35 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:12:35 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42386903.1060501@gawab.com> Blair P. Houghton wrote: >> I look forward to your answers. > > > > I look forward to a little educated forethought on the part of every > self-elected > politician on wikipedia. Just so you know, David Gerard is an elected arbitrator. I don't think he's acting in an official capacity, just thought you should know, since that seems a bit unfair. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:11:26 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:11:26 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423868BE.4000609@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: > > If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are > seeing is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship". "One could argue" and "one could prove" are not the same thing. And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random, you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right thing" even most of the time. My real beef with the cries of "consensus!" from GeorgeStepanek is that he was the only one doing any reverting or talking during the time he was demanding there was consensus. And that's not consensus, it's a form of gamesmanship known as the "semi-bluff", in which you don't have a winning hand, but still have a chance to make one as the game progresses. Personally, I don't think Taxman was doing anything other than misinterpreting the problem as educated vandalism and taking over where GeorgeStepanek had to stop (although his countdown of his reverts indicates he was laying the trap). Taxman's part in this is merely stupid. It's GeorgeStepanek who crossed the line, making many mistakes in accusing me of 3RR violation, and then CryptoDerk who went along gleefully absent of understanding. --Blair From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:14:26 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:14:26 -0500 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <42386620.4090502@houghton.net> Message-ID: >From: "Blair P. Houghton" > >Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite. It's >something that happens. More typically, it is something you build based on discussion or debate. Talk: pages are a great place for that. >Consensus follows action. To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime >directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''. I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive" before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In any event, while I don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly POV re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the majority of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold". In particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk: pages first. >The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who >accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior >consensus. I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy territory here. >This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the >truth. Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. Jay. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:13:55 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:13:55 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: References: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42386953.70002@houghton.net> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >>*If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another >>admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. >>*If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the >>admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and >>apologise and ask to be unblocked. >> >> >Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much >people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only >human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result. > > Because if a few sysops lost their admin privs because they failed to perform due diligence, then all of them will start performing the diligence that is due. And then you'd stop seeing calls for their ouster for such minor errors. --Blair From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:19:18 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:19:18 -0500 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <423868BE.4000609@houghton.net> Message-ID: >From: "Blair P. Houghton" > >JAY JG wrote: > >> >>If enough people are reverting you, one could argue that what you are >>seeing is actually "concensus", not "3RR gamesmanship". > > >"One could argue" and "one could prove" are not the same thing. Right. That's undoubtedly why I chose the former wording. Thanks for confirming the correctness of my choice. >And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random, you >have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right thing" even >most of the time. Interesting assertion. An assertion and a proof are not the same thing. Jay. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 17:11:43 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:11:43 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <4237B5E8.1020608@houghton.net> References: <4237A90E.1050002@houghton.net> <000501c529db$78816610$6b01a8c0@one> <4237B0C6.2090201@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315202361ce1edc@mail.gmail.com> <4237B5E8.1020608@houghton.net> Message-ID: <423868CF.8080807@telus.net> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > I can't go there. While blocked, I'm not allowed to edit any pages on > the website. Which includes discussing repercussions against those > who railroaded me. > > 3RR has a Catch-22. Perhaps what is needed is a separate mailing list for disciplinary issues. That would address the real dilemma that Blair raises. This kind of thing generates a lot of heat on this mailing list. By having a separate list only those interested in such matters would be exposed to it. Ec From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:20:53 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:20:53 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: >I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* >drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit >it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to >a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be >holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good >thing. > > There's one very important distinction: if you block the page, the user is still able to edit other pages. I couldn't, for example, discuss the accusation of 3RR violation at all in the fora on which it was being discussed. I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community. I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero response, and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me. I couldn't even edit my own user-talk page. Blocking someone based on a knee-jerk reaction to n biased accusation is a very bad policy, IMO. --Blair From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:24:43 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:24:43 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42386BDB.9020206@sprintmail.com> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Blair P. Houghton" > >> And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at random, >> you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the right >> thing" even most of the time. > > > Interesting assertion. An assertion and a proof are not the same thing. I have found that waiting a few weeks usually allows enough players to arrive to start building a respectable consensus. The 3RR is right. Those who must repeatedly revert are simply impatient. Tom Haws From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:24:55 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:24:55 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386903.1060501@gawab.com> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <42386903.1060501@gawab.com> Message-ID: <42386BE7.90305@houghton.net> John Lee wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >>> I look forward to your answers. >> >> >> >> >> I look forward to a little educated forethought on the part of every >> self-elected >> politician on wikipedia. > > > Just so you know, David Gerard is an elected arbitrator. I don't think > he's acting in an official capacity, just thought you should know, > since that seems a bit unfair. Well, I apologize then. It's not possible to know who is and who isn't elected unless they wear the right color of propellor beanie. I was referring however to those in the Weight Training page who seem to think they know better than I do what a consensus is, what Weight Training is, or what due process is. --Blair "Mine's a rich, plebeian brown." From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:31:39 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:31:39 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have > cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community. This seems somewhat self centered. How do you think the list enjoys being cluttered? Yesterday was oh, so nice and quiet. It is rather disrespectful when users hijack the list for personal grievance airing. > I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero > response, and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me. I know that we have said we don't want to encourage shopping for admins. But in a case like yours, I think the best course of action is to shop for an ombudsman admin rather than to take your personal grievances to the list. We need to do something to make this clear to blocked users so this list doesn't continue to be bloated with internecine bickering about wars that should be resolved on talk pages. Tom Haws From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 17:23:40 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:23:40 -0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42386B9C.1020503@telus.net> Andrew Lih wrote: >On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 01:09:30 -0400, Jim Cecropia wrote: > > >>I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton so that he can defend himself >>in the appropriate forums on Wikipedia. >> >>The 3RR, as I've stated elsewhere, is a loose cannon which tends to >>favor the status-quo. If the there is a content dispute, the better solution >>is to protect the article for a limited time to get the combatants to hash >>out the issue in article talk. In the instant case, I notice that >>GeorgeStepanek, for example, numbered his reverts ("first, second, third") >>which telegraphs consciousness of the 3RR as a trap, then another editor >>who disagrees with Houghton picked up on the reverting. >> >> >It's dangerous to ascribe intent. Simply numbering one's edits does >not mean it's a "trap." In fact, *not* numbering them, and losing >count, could be construed as a trap as well. > >But I agree that an outside admin would have served the community >better by simply locking the page, and not banning anyone. Somehow >this needs to be emphasized on the 3RR page - not all 3R violations >need to be followed up by a ban. > I agree. In a Wikilove environment people would need to stop seeking the maximum penalty for minimum violation. Many editors who get involved in edit wars in one subject can be perfectly well behaved when they are working elsewhere. Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? Ec From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:32:31 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:32:31 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Blair P. Houghton" >> >> Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite. It's >> something that happens. > > > More typically, it is something you build based on discussion or > debate. Talk: pages are a great place for that. > >> Consensus follows action. To believe otherwise is to obviate the >> prime directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''. > > > I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive" > before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In any event, while I > don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often > people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly > POV re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the > majority of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be > bold". In particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on > disputed issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, get > consensus on Talk: pages first. Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill. I don't know who will complain until I do what I have a right to do. And I suspect I'm "only human" in that regard, as is everyone else. >> The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those >> who accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the >> prior consensus. > > > I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy > territory here. It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia. What doesn't get munged is accepted. And if you see a problem, you fix it. Has a lot to do with the way life works, too. Which is one of the attractive features of the place. > This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on > the truth. > > Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be > unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway). --Blair From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 17:37:34 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:37:34 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> Message-ID: <64904.194.72.110.12.1110994654.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Blair P. Houghton said: > > I couldn't, for example, discuss the accusation of 3RR violation at all > in the fora on which it was being discussed. Yes, it would be nice to have the degree of granularity necessary to block a user from, say, article space edits, but permit him to go to Wikipedia:, Talk: and User talk:, where such things are commonly discussed. > > I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have > cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community. Well, that was not strictly necessary. Most sysops receive and read email, I should expect. It's part of the job. There are about 400 of us. I do think we should have a mailing list of our own, though, so we don't clutter up Wikien-l with stuff like this. > > Blocking someone based on a knee-jerk reaction to n biased accusation > is a very bad policy, IMO. So it would be. You have to admit, though, you've hardly been respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. The way I see it, the block has given you a chance to consider what you had been doing wrong--if you choose to take it. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:35:44 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:35:44 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <42386BDB.9020206@sprintmail.com> References: <42386BDB.9020206@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <42386E70.60501@houghton.net> Tom Haws wrote: > > JAY JG wrote: > >>> From: "Blair P. Houghton" >> >> >>> And when the players in any particular page arrive totally at >>> random, you have no chance of ensuring that "consensus" will do "the >>> right thing" even most of the time. >> >> >> >> Interesting assertion. An assertion and a proof are not the same thing. > > > I have found that waiting a few weeks usually allows enough players to > arrive to start building a respectable consensus. The 3RR is right. > Those who must repeatedly revert are simply impatient. 1. I didn't violate 3RR. 2. I had actually been waiting for some time before fixing that article as someone else was being abused by that group of page-owning campers. All the wait managed to do was drive out the few reasonable editors who'd tired of the arguments. --Blair From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 17:39:54 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:39:54 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386BE7.90305@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <42386903.1060501@gawab.com> <42386BE7.90305@houghton.net> Message-ID: <3316.194.72.110.12.1110994794.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Blair P. Houghton said: > > I was referring however to those in the Weight Training page who seem > to think they know better than I do what a consensus is, what Weight > Training is, or what due process is. If you can't agree with your co-editors what consensus means, it's probably fair to say that you have not built a consensus with them. From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:41:32 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:41:32 -0500 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> Message-ID: >From: "Blair P. Houghton" > >JAY JG wrote: >>I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive" >>before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In any event, while I >>don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often >>people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly POV >>re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the majority >>of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold". In >>particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed issues >>and controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk: >>pages first. > >Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill. I don't know who will complain >until I do what I have a right to do. And I suspect I'm "only human" in >that regard, as is everyone else. Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed. And it's a bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right to do" on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not covered under the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation. >>I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy >>territory here. > >It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia. What doesn't get munged is >accepted. And if you see a problem, you fix it. Has a lot to do with the >way life works, too. Which is one of the attractive features of the place. As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously no longer correct. >>Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be >>unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. > >Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the back >of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then including >everything I added Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" and oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for getting cooperation. >(but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway). This statement is an ominous sign. Jay. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:39:59 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:39:59 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> <42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <42386F6F.3050902@houghton.net> Tom Haws wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> I had to join this mailing list (which honestly I'd rather not have >> cluttering up my in-box) to get ANY communication with the community. > > > This seems somewhat self centered. How do you think the list enjoys > being cluttered? Yesterday was oh, so nice and quiet. It is rather > disrespectful when users hijack the list for personal grievance airing. That seems somewhat self-centered. You want a public forum quiet while people are being denied their rights? I have to do my business where I must, and then leave. >> I was able to send "user email", but have as yet received zero >> response, and expected none from people whose intent was to railroad me. > > > I know that we have said we don't want to encourage shopping for > admins. But in a case like yours, I think the best course of action > is to shop for an ombudsman admin rather than to take your personal > grievances to the list. We need to do something to make this clear to > blocked users so this list doesn't continue to be bloated with > internecine bickering about wars that should be resolved on talk pages. As I've pointed out, "ketcheh-twenty-two". This is the only place to get a soapbox once the block is in place. If it were a message board it would be hierarchically organized and we wouldn't have to act to delete threads we aren't interested in. That it's still a mailing list implies a great deal of slothful acceptance of the status quo. --Blair From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:42:26 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:42:26 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> References: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42387002.8000405@sprintmail.com> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the > back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then > including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is > soon to be gone anyway). Blair, I will say it directly. You are in the wrong in this case. Please note the following steps: 1. Find a page that you think needs "improvement". 2. Ignore the talk page and *boldly* fix the page. 3. When you are reverted, bite your tongue, go to the talk page and say, "Huh?". 4. Spend the next 4 months discussing your POV and building consensus toward a better solution. You failed the above at step 3. I recommend you come to an admin with hat in hand, promise not to revert again, and go to work building a new, better consensus. That's the way it works. Tom From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 17:44:57 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:44:57 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386F6F.3050902@houghton.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> <42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> <42386F6F.3050902@houghton.net> Message-ID: <8098.194.72.110.12.1110995097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Blair P. Houghton said: > You want a public forum quiet while > people are being denied their rights? Oh dear. From dgerard at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:48:20 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:48:20 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42387164.9020302@thingy.apana.org.au> Poor, Edmund W wrote: [from wikien-l - Ed is talking about another foundation, not the WMF, who are interested in doing a Wikipedia distribution] > The foundation plans to hire professional editors and > writers. They'll create, say, an additional 4,000 > articles (on lofty topics, no doubt ;-) and also > choose a subset of the half million Wikipedia articles > to whip into shape. > But I'm recommending to the foundation that any > articles it revises be posted back to Wikipedia > immediately - as opposed to waiting until their > publication day. (I don't know the legal niceties; is > prompt re-publication a requirement, or can they hang > on to their version in-house till the last minute?) > BOTH projects would surely benefit from this cross- > pollination. Heh. I wonder how their versions will go down with the Wikipedia community. Are they familiar with the history of Nupedia? Have you read [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]] ? I've been putting project pages into it that I think are relevant to the endeavour. Also, the Wikimedia Foundation would beyond a doubt be highly interested in working with this other foundation! > I'd like to do whatever I can to reduce the 'forkiness' of > the foundation's project and increase the 'give-and-take-iness' > of it. Collaboration has been the key of Wikipedia's success; > let's not change horses in midstream. Indeed! - d. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:43:27 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:43:27 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: "Blair P. Houghton" >> >> JAY JG wrote: >> >>> I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime >>> directive" before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In any >>> event, while I don't know the details of this particular case, it >>> amazes me how often people attempting to make major, usually >>> contentious, and often highly POV re-writes to articles cite "Be >>> bold", yet fail to note that the majority of that policy is devoted >>> to when you *should not* "Be bold". In particular, much of the >>> policy clearly points out that on disputed issues and controversial >>> subjects one should, instead, get consensus on Talk: pages first. >> >> >> Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill. I don't know who will >> complain until I do what I have a right to do. And I suspect I'm >> "only human" in that regard, as is everyone else. > > > Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are > reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed. And > it's a bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right > to do" on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not > covered under the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation. You ought to read them sometime. They don't list all of your rights. > >>> I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical >>> fallacy territory here. >> >> >> It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia. What doesn't get munged is >> accepted. And if you see a problem, you fix it. Has a lot to do >> with the way life works, too. Which is one of the attractive >> features of the place. > > > As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously > no longer correct. And then we get into the "argument from self-imposed dictatorship". > >>> Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be >>> unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. >> >> >> Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the >> back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then >> including everything I added > > > Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" > and oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for > getting cooperation. I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to cooperate with me. > >> (but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway). > > > This statement is an ominous sign. Nope. Just a statement that I know the truth and the truth always wins when consensus is at stake. --Blair From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 16 17:49:00 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:49:00 -0000 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net><42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> <42386F6F.3050902@houghton.net> Message-ID: <00e701c52a50$7121fbd0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Blair P. Houghton wrote >... a great deal of slothful acceptance of the status quo. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not reading any more of this scattergun moaning. Charles From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:47:30 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:47:30 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <42387002.8000405@sprintmail.com> References: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> <42387002.8000405@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <42387132.90304@houghton.net> Tom Haws wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the >> back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then >> including everything I added (but retaining a bit of stuff that is >> soon to be gone anyway). > > > Blair, I will say it directly. You are in the wrong in this case. > Please note the following steps: > I am not. > 1. Find a page that you think needs "improvement". I did. > 2. Ignore the talk page and *boldly* fix the page. I fixed the page according to what I saw on the talk page. > 3. When you are reverted, bite your tongue, go to the talk page and > say, "Huh?". You presume the person doing the reversion was right not to say "Huh?" to me. > 4. Spend the next 4 months discussing your POV and building consensus > toward a better solution. Would have loved to do that, but it wasn't being offered to me in kind. Others were accepting of the edits I made but only too willing to pretend that I was breaking the rules. > You failed the above at step 3. Again, you are wrong. > I recommend you come to an admin with hat in hand, promise not to > revert again, and go to work building a new, better consensus. That's > the way it works. I did nothing wrong and I will not kowtow to blind authority; I will work to make authority responsible. That's the way it works. --Blair From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:49:49 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:49:49 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:47:54 -0000, Charles Matthews wrote: > > Page protection is unpopular; temp-banning 3RR violaters > seems to have a good consensus behind it. This displays > a rational attitude to the content of the page in question, > I think. > > Edit warring usually stops the development of a page right > in its tracks, often for the sake of a part of the whole that > is not that significant. You have to break eggs to make an omelette, and sometimes you have to let people see the futility of war. :) The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize the situation and let cooler heads prevail. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 17:50:26 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:50:26 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> References: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> Message-ID: <12818.194.72.110.12.1110995426.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Blair P. Houghton said: > JAY JG wrote: > >> >> Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" >> and oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for >> getting cooperation. > > I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to > cooperate with me. > How about: there are more of them than you and they seem to have a different perspective? Maybe you could work on changing their minds instead of saying, as you did in one edit summary that they're engaged in a conspiracy to publish bad information? You forgot to assume good faith. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:53:44 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:44 -0700 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk) In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> Andrew Lih wrote: >You have to break eggs to make an omelette, and sometimes you have to >let people see the futility of war. :) > > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR. But I don't completely understand the next paragraph. Can you restate? >The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame >much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize >the situation and let cooler heads prevail. > From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:53:00 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:00 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <12818.194.72.110.12.1110995426.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> <12818.194.72.110.12.1110995426.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4238727C.9040608@houghton.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Blair P. Houghton said: > > >>I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to >>cooperate with me. >> >> >> > >How about: there are more of them than you and they seem to have a >different perspective? Maybe you could work on changing their minds >instead of saying, as you did in one edit summary that they're engaged in >a conspiracy to publish bad information? You forgot to assume good faith. > > I assumed good faith until I was hit in the side of the head by irrational reversions. Then I deduced bad faith. Which was proved by the false accusations of 3RR violation. The bad faith didn't originate with my edits of the lead, either. GeorgeStepanek had abused Dan100 previous to that. --Blair From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:50:46 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:50:46 -0500 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> Message-ID: >>>JAY JG wrote: >>> >>>>I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime directive" >>>>before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In any event, while I >>>>don't know the details of this particular case, it amazes me how often >>>>people attempting to make major, usually contentious, and often highly >>>>POV re-writes to articles cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the >>>>majority of that policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold". >>>>In particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on disputed >>>>issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, get consensus on >>>>Talk: pages first. >>> >>> >>>Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill. I don't know who will complain >>>until I do what I have a right to do. And I suspect I'm "only human" in >>>that regard, as is everyone else. >> >> >>Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are >>reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed. And it's >>a bad sign when people start taking about what they "have a right to do" >>on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing Wikipedia is still not covered >>under the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or similar legislation. > >You ought to read them sometime. They don't list all of your rights. > >> >>>>I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical fallacy >>>>territory here. >>> >>> >>>It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia. What doesn't get munged is >>>accepted. And if you see a problem, you fix it. Has a lot to do with >>>the way life works, too. Which is one of the attractive features of the >>>place. >> >> >>As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is obviously no >>longer correct. > >And then we get into the "argument from self-imposed dictatorship". > >> >>>>Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot be >>>>unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. >>> >>> >>>Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from the >>>back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the point, then >>>including everything I added >> >> >>Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile delinquents" and >>oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad strategy for getting >>cooperation. > >I prefer to interpret the facts as showing nobody was trying to cooperate >with me. > >> >>>(but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway). >> >> >>This statement is an ominous sign. > >Nope. Just a statement that I know the truth and the truth always wins >when consensus is at stake. > >--Blair Blair, I regret to inform you that I'm going to have to withdraw from the discussion at this point, because of self-imposed feeding restrictions. Good luck, Jay. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 17:47:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:47:12 -0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42387120.2000604@telus.net> geni wrote: >On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:05:42 +0800, Andrew Lih wrote: > > >>Blair, >> >>It was legit to unblock you but the biting comments don't help. So >>keep the personal comments out of it. Play the ball, not the man/men. >> >>I've also been bold and altered the 3RR page: >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three-revert_rule#Intent_of_the_policy >> >>Still not entirely happy with the edits, but I do think 3RR needs to >>be closer to the "means of last resort" rather than the quick tool it >>is now. >> >>-Andrew (User:Fuzheado) >> >> >The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it >get another consensus > That sounds like hiding behind rules to avoid the use of common sense. Ec From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:55:24 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:55:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: From Wikipedia admin Tom Haws In-Reply-To: <42387080.2000606@sprintmail.com> References: <42387080.2000606@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4238730C.4050805@houghton.net> Tom, your spam-blocker bounced my email. Here's my reply: Tom Haws wrote: > Blair, > > Could we unburden the list by discussing this between us? You're not the only one I'm discussing it with, so it'll stay on the list until all those expressing false interpretations of the incident have their misapprehensions explained to them. I'd rather it went away, but that will require people to stop thinking I violated the 3RR. --Blair From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 17:58:44 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:58:44 +0800 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk) In-Reply-To: <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05031609582e8570de@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:44 -0700, Tom Haws wrote: > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR. But I don't > completely understand the next paragraph. Can you restate? > > >The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame > >much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize > >the situation and let cooler heads prevail. Sure. Before the 3RR, the standard procedure was for an uninvolved admin to come in and protect a page with an edit war, so no one could edit it. The parties were forced to go to the Talk page to hash something out. No one was declared right or wrong, no individuals were singled out and the admin didn't care about the relative viewpoints. After an unspecified amount of time the page would be unprotected so the article could be updated. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 17:56:45 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:56:45 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4238735D.9050803@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: > > Blair, I regret to inform you that I'm going to have to withdraw from > the discussion at this point, because of self-imposed feeding > restrictions. I had a protein shake, oatmeal, and a banana after spin-class this morning. --Blair "See, now *that* is irrelevant noise." From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 18:01:59 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:01:59 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user In-Reply-To: References: <4238703F.9010502@houghton.net> Message-ID: <21607.194.72.110.12.1110996119.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> JAY JG said: >> >>Nope. Just a statement that I know the truth and the truth always wins >> when consensus is at stake. >> >>--Blair > > Blair, I regret to inform you that I'm going to have to withdraw from > the discussion at this point, because of self-imposed feeding > restrictions. > Uh, yep. Me too. I also need to take an, ummm, feeding stop. I mean break. From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 18:02:04 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 02:02:04 +0800 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk) In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05031609582e8570de@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> <2ed171fb05031609582e8570de@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050316100244ef62da@mail.gmail.com> > No one was declared right or wrong, no individuals were > singled out and the admin didn't care about the relative viewpoints. I should amend that - obviously the admin would care to make sure the dispute was about content and not just vandalism. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 18:02:17 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:02:17 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <42387132.90304@houghton.net> References: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> <42387002.8000405@sprintmail.com> <42387132.90304@houghton.net> Message-ID: <423874A9.5050308@sprintmail.com> Dear Blair, Is the status of your issue such that I may be of assistance? I would be grateful to be able to do anything to help you resolve the issue. Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." > From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 17:56:03 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:56:03 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: References: <42381A8C.5070605@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42387333.9070202@telus.net> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >>*If you didn't, you should email the admin who blocked you (or another >>admin), politely point this out and ask to be unblocked. >>*If you did, you should either wait the 24 hours to calm down, or email the >>admin who blocked you (or another admin), acknowledge your error and >>apologise and ask to be unblocked. >> >> >Nicely said. Couldn't have said it better myself. Why do so much >people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? Sysops are only >human. Just asking nicely will have a much better result. > That works two ways. Should it not have been the responsibility of the person doing the blocking to discuss it nicely first? After all, the sysop presumably has more experience here than the person that he is blocking. It is only natural for people who feel they have been attacked to react with anger, and to feel victimized. Ec From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 18:04:21 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:04:21 -0700 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk) In-Reply-To: <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <00a301c52a47$e7a4a9a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <2ed171fb05031609497e92f3cf@mail.gmail.com> <423872A8.5030207@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <42387525.3050900@houghton.net> Tom Haws wrote: > Andrew Lih wrote: > >> You have to break eggs to make an omelette, and sometimes you have to >> let people see the futility of war. :) > > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR. Maybe we need to find a way to get Hollywood to make more movies that glorify the 3RR to the point of being anti-3RR movies... > But I don't completely understand the next paragraph. Can you restate? > >> The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame >> much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize >> the situation and let cooler heads prevail. >> An anecdote to prove Anderew's point: I had left the page for several hours to attend to other things and to allow those still there to read the reference I had posted long ago, to realize they were beinig wrong, and to accept the edits I made (which they should have done the first time I made them, but they failed to do; Taxman actually accused /me/ of failing to lead him by the hand to the reference he failed to read). I went back to resume the discussion from that point. But in my very short absence I was blocked. Since then the issue has been unreasonable blocks and other abuses of the system, and there has been no progress on the original issues with the page, nor with the dispute in process on the page. A small problem became a very large one, just as it was about to become none. Andrew observed that, and now you may. --Blair From jayjg at hotmail.com Wed Mar 16 18:10:16 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:10:16 -0500 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreaso In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05031609582e8570de@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Andrew Lih >On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:44 -0700, Tom Haws >wrote: > > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR. But I don't > > completely understand the next paragraph. Can you restate? > > > > >The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame > > >much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize > > >the situation and let cooler heads prevail. > >Sure. Before the 3RR, the standard procedure was for an uninvolved >admin to come in and protect a page with an edit war, so no one could >edit it. The parties were forced to go to the Talk page to hash >something out. No one was declared right or wrong, no individuals were >singled out and the admin didn't care about the relative viewpoints. > >After an unspecified amount of time the page would be unprotected so >the article could be updated. However, what often happened instead was that both sides waited out the protection period, and then immediately started warring again when the protection was removed. Jay. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 18:15:49 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:15:49 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: From Wikipedia admin Tom Haws In-Reply-To: <4238730C.4050805@houghton.net> References: <42387080.2000606@sprintmail.com> <4238730C.4050805@houghton.net> Message-ID: <423877D5.8030402@sprintmail.com> OK. Please note that both Jay and I will no longer be responding on the list due to self-imposed restrictions. But feel free at any time to e-mail me personally for comment or assistance. Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." Blair P. Houghton wrote: > Tom, your spam-blocker bounced my email. Here's my reply: > > Tom Haws wrote: > >> Blair, >> >> Could we unburden the list by discussing this between us? > > > > You're not the only one I'm discussing it with, so it'll stay on the > list until all those expressing false interpretations of the incident > have their misapprehensions explained to them. > > I'd rather it went away, but that will require people to stop thinking > I violated the 3RR. > > --Blair > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 18:16:32 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:16:32 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <423874A9.5050308@sprintmail.com> References: <42386DAF.9070307@houghton.net> <42387002.8000405@sprintmail.com> <42387132.90304@houghton.net> <423874A9.5050308@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <42387800.50906@houghton.net> Tom Haws wrote: > Is the status of your issue such that I may be of assistance? I would > be grateful to be able to do anything to help you resolve the issue. Thanks for the offer, Tom, but if you read back through the list to last night you'll see the unreasonable block was removed by Jim Cecropia, and I remain reasonably unblocked (although the entire DB is locked today so it won't do me any good). It's at the level of a discussion and fact-dissemination now, unless someone gets a hair up his ass and decides to block me unreasonably again. For anyone wishing a respite from this mess, I offer the following, gratis: http://promo.guinness1759society.com/spd/issue5.cfm Can't imagine not wanting to talk to THAT guy about SOMETHING. --Blair "Sl?inte!" From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 18:24:44 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:24:44 -0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423879EC.6060502@telus.net> Andrew Lih wrote: >On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni wrote: > > >>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it >>get another consensus >> >> >Text that was voted on says: >"If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to 24 hours." >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement > >The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or >guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking >is also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins. > It's important to note that "may block" is not the same as "shall block" There is room there for the application of sound judgement. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 16 18:32:05 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:32:05 -0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Andrew Lih said: > > >>On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni wrote: >> >> >>>The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it >>>get another consensus >>> >>> >>Text that was voted on says: >>"If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to >>24 hours." >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement >> >>The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or >>guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is >>also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins. >> >> >I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* >drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit >it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to >a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be >holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good >thing. > If an editor has something to add that is not related to the war it will still be just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended. Very little is of such immediate importance as to not survive the application of a little patience. Ec From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 16 19:00:43 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:00:43 -0700 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk) In-Reply-To: <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> Message-ID: <4238825B.7060400@sprintmail.com> Ray Saintonge wrote: > If an editor has something to add that is not related to the war it > will still be just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended. Very > little is of such immediate importance as to not survive the > application of a little patience. > > Ec Sigh. Why is it that so often that obvious things like patience are the answer? Of course you are right. But also keep in mind that the "harm" in protecting pages relates not so much to active editors (both warriors and peacefuls), but to casual passersby who see in a protected page that they can't really "edit this page now". Thus page protection really *is* anti-wiki even though it is a most positive tactic (more positive than blocking a user) for peacemaking. Tom From geniice at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 19:28:05 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:28:05 +0000 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42386620.4090502@houghton.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <42386620.4090502@houghton.net> Message-ID: > You don't "get consensus" in the way you "get a bunch of bananas from > the store." You "get consensus" in the way you "get the joke." > > Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite. It's > something that happens. In fact it is something I cite and try to obtain. We work toward obtaining a cunsensus on article. > Consensus follows action. To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime > directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''. The prime dirrective is to make an encyolpedia. in this case someone else was bold by revting the chage instantly. > The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who > accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior > consensus. Should I be bold and block you under the "don't dissagree with geni" rule and wait to see if a consensus forms or not? > This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the > truth. Ask Galileo sometime. Or ask your 5th-grade science teacher why > you were taught about Galileo's legal problems. (Not that I think I'm > Galileo or these noobs are the Inquisition; but a boy's got to get out > the ''reductio ad absurdum'' sometimes to put a point across.) > > --Blair I fail to see the anology. -- geni From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 20:38:30 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:38:30 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user Message-ID: <20050316203831.801E21F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: "JAY JG" To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonableblock of user Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:41:32 -0500 I really don't think this is helpful. I sense that Blair can be a useful contributor to Wikipedia. He is new and can be engaged. I've seen those more agreesive than he become valuabled members of the community. I would like him to calm down and work with the community, and also for the community to not go out of their way to bait him or any other honest user. And as to the specific comment "Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you are reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and disputed." Nonsense. It can mean that, or it can mean that someone or more people editing the page feel invested in particular wording and are dismissing someone out of hand, or a combination of the two. Sometimes I have excised entire new sections from an article, but I carry them over to Talk, and explain why they are incorrect or problematic and try to suggest ways to make them better. --C > > > From: "Blair P. Houghton" > > > > JAY JG wrote: > >> I hadn't heard "Be bold" referred to as Wikipedia's "prime > >> directive" before; I'm not sure everyone here would agree. In > >> any event, while I don't know the details of this particular > >> case, it amazes me how often people attempting to make major, > >> usually contentious, and often highly POV re-writes to articles > >> cite "Be bold", yet fail to note that the majority of that > >> policy is devoted to when you *should not* "Be bold". In > >> particular, much of the policy clearly points out that on > >> disputed issues and controversial subjects one should, instead, > >> get consensus on Talk: pages first. > > > > Clairvoyance isn't my strongest skill. I don't know who will > > complain until I do what I have a right to do. And I suspect I'm > > "only human" in that regard, as is everyone else. > > Little clairvoyance is needed to know that the very first time you > are reverted, it means that your edits are contentious and > disputed. And it's a bad sign when people start taking about what > they "have a right to do" on Wikipedia; as far as I know, editing > Wikipedia is still not covered under the Constitution, Bill of > Rights, or similar legislation. > > >> I believe we are straying into "argument from silence" logical > >> fallacy territory here. > > > > It's the basis for most of the Wikipedia. What doesn't get > > munged is accepted. And if you see a problem, you fix it. Has a > > lot to do with the way life works, too. Which is one of the > > attractive features of the place. > > As soon as you are reverted, the "argument from silence" is > obviously no longer correct. > > >> Cooperation is something that comes from both sides; it cannot > >> be unilaterally imposed by "Bold" individuals. > > > > Tell that to the guy who reverted me, hollering "consensus!" from > > the back of his mule, then having me jailed for arguing the > > point, then including everything I added > > Referring to one's opponents on Talk: pages as "juvenile > delinquents" and oneself as the "teacher" is a particularly bad > strategy for getting cooperation. > > > (but retaining a bit of stuff that is soon to be gone anyway). > > This statement is an ominous sign. > > Jay. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 2.718281828 at gmail.com Wed Mar 16 20:44:51 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:44:51 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <42386660.9040609@sprintmail.com> References: <42386660.9040609@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd060503161244ecce1c3@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:04:56 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now: > > http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/ Yes, that's great. > And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia > in papers they write. How does the professor feel about this? > The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project > for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We > never resolved the tension between: > > A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, > B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. > > Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't > know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to > fork? I'm not sure how forking would help, but we do need to * get simple tagging/rating software to work (neither templates nor categories are scalable substitutes at present) * have more explicit metadata [license info, article type, article content flags; user licensing info, user flags] * encourage the regular production of static, highly-organized subsets of our dynamic, somewhat chaotic whole. (CDs/DVDs and their preparation steps; a variety of organizations of the encyclopedia, in online and print versions) > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition Sexy. I'm pretty sure we will publish a print edition on our own well before 2008. Would this change their interest in doin the same? Perhaps they want to publish a niche variant that we would not be interested in... > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") Get who out of whose hair? I wish I saw more of you around the mailing list, in fact... don't let the trolls stress you out too much. -- +sj+ On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:01:20 -0700, Tom Haws wrote: > > Poor, Edmund W wrote: > > >I don't have all the answers, but the first idea > >that popped into my mind was: > > > >* Let users (or a subset of them) "tag" an article > > version. > >* A tag (or "flag") could take on any assigned > > meaning. > >* My favorite tag idea: "Vandalism-patrolled by mav" (!) > >* Here's another: "Selected for the print edition" > > > > > This is the right approach. All article versions need to have several > slider flags associated with them in the database. Some of those flags, > like confidence, need to be automatically set according to the > software's judgement of the trustworthiness of the editor (based on some > reputation model). Other flags need to have an interface radio button > setting so readers/editors can rate the article versions on any number > of aspects. > > >Or if a Wikipedian makes a minor correction (like > >spelling, punctuation, grammar; or an obviously > >relevant internal link) to an article version tagged > >by the foundation - then it would be GREAT if the > >software would notify the foundation's editors. They > >could quickly review the change and probably be GLAD > >to endorse the current version. This would PREVENT > >forking, or at least reduce it to a bare minimum. > > > >Better yet, if a Wikipedian makes a SIGNIFICANT > >IMPROVEMENT to a foundation-tagged article version, > >I'd think the foundation would be OVERJOYED to > >endorse it. (I'm planning to educate them about > >using the History and Diff functions.) > > > > > Right, Ed. There is absolutely no reason for a fork. All we need is > some proactive, creative, and *bold* programming experimentation. > > Long live Respectipedia.org!! > > Tom Haws > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 20:46:51 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:46:51 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> Message-ID: <42389B3B.6020206@houghton.net> Ray Saintonge wrote: > has something to add that is not related to the war it will still be > just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended. Very little is of > such immediate importance as to not survive the application of a > little patience. I've done that before. You just put a watch on the page and get on with other things. The problem here though was the constant imputation of consensus that didn't and doesn't exist. The consensus is that my edits were acceptable, so the claims of consensus against them was false. If I'd let the reverts stand, it might have been taken as assent to the false consensus. Didn't help that my intelligence was being insulted at the same time, neither. --Blair From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 20:51:16 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:51:16 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> Message-ID: <1815.192.168.0.9.1111006276.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Ray Saintonge said: > Tony Sidaway wrote: >>> >>I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* >>drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can >>edit it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked >>for up to a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're >>likely to be holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a >>very good thing. >> > If an editor has something to add that is not related to the war it > will still be just as valid afte the lock-up period has ended. Very > little is of such immediate importance as to not survive the > application of a little patience. > And the editors who do not hang around because of some petty usenet flame war being inappropriately conducted on a wiki...? From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 20:55:01 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:55:01 -0400 Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDer k) Message-ID: <20050316205501.F0040101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> "Andrew Lih" wrote: > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:53:44 -0700, Tom Haws wrote: > > Fresh thinking and good point against *enforcing* the 3RR. But I don't > > completely understand the next paragraph. Can you restate? > > > > >The problem with 3RR as it's being practiced now -- it assigns blame > > >much too early in the process, without even an attempt to stabilize > > >the situation and let cooler heads prevail. > > Sure. Before the 3RR, the standard procedure was for an uninvolved > admin to come in and protect a page with an edit war, so no one could > edit it. The parties were forced to go to the Talk page to hash > something out. No one was declared right or wrong, no individuals were > singled out and the admin didn't care about the relative viewpoints. > > After an unspecified amount of time the page would be unprotected so > the article could be updated. > > -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) Exactly. And thank you for making the point that while a page may be protected, the talk for that page is not. In extreme cases (as was done some time ago with "Terrorism," in which the editors were almost literally at each throats) the page is protected, and a "working version" is set up as a subpage. This is not protected (obviously) and everyone can edit it and argue, straw poll, etc., to their heart's content. It took a month or so, but a pretty nice version (IMO) was hacked out and all the "warriors" signed off on it. 3RR is just a meatax, and it's a selected meatax. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 20:57:13 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:57:13 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <42386620.4090502@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42389DA9.2030006@houghton.net> geni wrote: >>You don't "get consensus" in the way you "get a bunch of bananas from >>the store." You "get consensus" in the way you "get the joke." >> >>Consensus isn't something you obtain, demand, husband, or cite. It's >>something that happens. >> >> > >In fact it is something I cite and try to obtain. We work toward >obtaining a cunsensus on article. > > > How can you cite something you don't have? You'd have to take a poll for every edit under a citable system of consensus. And Wikipedia would still have only two pages. >>Consensus follows action. To believe otherwise is to obviate the prime >>directive of Wikipedia, which is to '''be bold'''. >> >> > >The prime dirrective is to make an encyolpedia. in this case someone >else was bold by revting the chage instantly. > > Boldness is constructive. Reverts of good info are not. Continued reverts in the face of continued analysis of the good info are especially not. Owning a page and attempting to appoint oneself a steward of that page are egregiously not. >>The cooperative counterparts in a community of bold people are those who >>accept the boldness of those who are right, regardless of the prior >>consensus. >> >> > >Should I be bold and block you under the "don't dissagree with geni" >rule and wait to see if a consensus forms or not? > > Boldness applies to the construction of the encyclopedia, not the meta-activity that both secures and hinders that process. Editors should be bold. Admins ought to fear for their careers should they make an error in judgment, as should all enforcers and adjudicators of the law. >>This concept of cooperation imbues every organization that relies on the >>truth. Ask Galileo sometime. Or ask your 5th-grade science teacher why >>you were taught about Galileo's legal problems. (Not that I think I'm >>Galileo or these noobs are the Inquisition; but a boy's got to get out >>the ''reductio ad absurdum'' sometimes to put a point across.) >> >> >I fail to see the anology. > > Galileo did not receive cooperation, though he told the truth. He lost his liberty not simply because it was true, but because he did not let the Church vet it and own its dissemination. Yet now the church accepts everything he said. The organization is the human race, its product is its sum of knowledge, and the Church failed to honor the truth until it was embarassed by its ego-driven insistence on bureaucracy. Huh. Turns out the analogy is even more apt than when I first suggested it. --Blair From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 21:02:16 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:02:16 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <20050316203831.801E21F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316203831.801E21F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <42389ED8.8070609@houghton.net> Jim Cecropia wrote: >I really don't think this is helpful. I sense that Blair can be a useful contributor to Wikipedia. He is new and can be engaged. I've seen those more agreesive than he become valuabled members of the community. I would like him to calm down and work with the community, and also for the community to not go out of their way to bait him or any other honest user. > > One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was when GeorgeStepanek claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated December 10. Mine is dated January 1, but if I look around I can find edits I made over a year ago without having created a login. Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure you. Oh, and check through my contribution list. I'm well-engaged, almost whoring myself for barnstars, and not a little peeved that the people railroading me didn't see what they were doing to my reputation. --Blair From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 21:09:04 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:09:04 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316210904.7C3FF164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> > > Andrew Lih said: > > On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:20 +0000, geni wrote: > > > >> The 3RR was supported by comunity conmsensus. If you want to change it > >> get another consensus > > > > Text that was voted on says: > > "If you violate the three revert rule, sysops may block you for up to > > 24 hours." > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Three_revert_rule_enforcement > > > > The policy provides authorization for blocking, but not much wisdom or > > guidance on whether to use it. Just wanted to note that page locking is > > also a viable (and less drastic) option for admins. Tony Sidaway said: > I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* > drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit > it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to > a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be > holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good > thing. No, a block is much different from protection, assuming that the admin protecting is cognizant of the rules--blocks as short as possible, and except in the case of a really steaming revert war, should be applied if one of the active editors on the topic asks. The protecting admin should stand ready to discuss and mediate if need be. 3RR is simply being used too freely and selectively and in a very lazy fashion. As I pointed out elsewhere, it stacks the deck toward editors who may have taken an ownership interest in an article, and provides no means of determining whether this is the case or not. Blocking has tradititionally been considered a severe punishment on Wikiepedia. Protection of appropriate length, at worst, forces the participants into dialog and also gives the protecting admin an opportunity to examine the issue. The 3RR is a punishment and an insult to the non-vandal user. It is does not engage him/her in any but an accusatory way, and it drives away people who often contribute valuable material to Wikipedia. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 21:18:20 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:18:20 -0000 (GMT) Subject: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. Houghton byadminCryptoDer k) In-Reply-To: <20050316205501.F0040101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316205501.F0040101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <1895.192.168.0.9.1111007900.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Jim Cecropia said: > > > 3RR is just a meatax, and it's a selected meatax. > Most of the time it should be just there in the background. But I like that it's there. Selected? Yes, it only targets edit warriors. From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 21:18:53 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:18:53 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonabl eblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316211853.4657A6F027@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> > > Tony Sidaway wrote > > > I dispute any suggestion that protection of a page is in any way *less* > > drastic than blocking a user. If a page is protected, *nobody* can edit > > it. If one or two over-enthusiastic revert warriors are blocked for up to > > a day, only their potential edits are lost--and since they're likely to be > > holding up editing by their reverts, their loss is often a very good > > thing. > Charles Matthews wrote: > > That omits the edits to other pages blocked users cannot make. > > Page protection is unpopular; temp-banning 3RR violaters seems to > have a good consensus behind it. This displays a rational attitude > to the content of the page in question, I think. Edit warring > usually stops the development of a page right in its tracks, often > for the sake of a part of the whole that is not that significant. > Well of course page protection is unpopular and banning has a "good consensus'--page protection affects *me* but banning affects *them*. :) But consider that page protection can be short--just long enough, if the participants calm down, for the admin to look at the situation and put a few choice comments and suggestions on the article talk, and see if he s/he can get some feedback as to how to proceed. Yes, this is some work for the admin, but the admin cannot take a step like that and walk away. In fact, one admin who did that (among other things) was de-admined. With the 3RR block, the admin is walking away: the "winning" side is satisfied, and the "loser" stews in his/her juices for 24 hours. This is easy but doesn't contribute to Wikipedia, the community, or the encyclopedia. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 16 21:25:47 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:25:47 -0000 (GMT) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonabl eblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <20050316211853.4657A6F027@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316211853.4657A6F027@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <1916.192.168.0.9.1111008347.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Jim Cecropia said: > >> > Well of course page protection is unpopular and banning has a "good > consensus'--page protection affects *me* but banning affects *them*. :) Precisely. It's like the speed limit. Only unrestrained editors ever whine about it.> > But consider that page protection can be short--just long enough, if > the participants calm down, for the admin to look at the situation and > put a few choice comments and suggestions on the article talk, and see > if he s/he can get some feedback as to how to proceed. Yes, this is > some work for the admin, but the admin cannot take a step like that and > walk away. In fact, one admin who did that (among other things) was > de-admined. With the 3RR block, the admin is walking away: the > "winning" side is satisfied, and the "loser" stews in his/her juices > for 24 hours. This is easy but doesn't contribute to Wikipedia, the > community, or the encyclopedia. > You're expecting far too much from administrators. We're editors, not fairy godmothers. I should bloody well hope that the "loser" stews. That's what the 3RR is for. Learn to play nice or stew. How hard is it for a bright editor to work out what side of that equation he wants to be on? From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 16 21:51:14 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:51:14 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My position is that you are operating in bad faith at this point if you are not disclosing the name of the Foundation and the sort of things they have done. Depending on who it is and what we are likely to expect this could be very good or very bad. How about a clue before you get us all worked up? Fred > From: "Poor, Edmund W" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:04:56 -0500 > To: > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time > > The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now: > > http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/ > > Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to > MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki > Woes (like vandals). > > And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia > in papers they write. > > I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a > million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability > which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve. > > The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project > for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We > never resolved the tension between: > > A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, > B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. > > Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't > know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to > fork? > > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. > > Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 22:03:18 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:03:18 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[Wik iEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. HoughtonbyadminCryptoDer k) Message-ID: <20050316220318.8328C164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> Tpny Sidaway said: > > Jim Cecropia said: > > > > > > 3RR is just a meatax, and it's a selected meatax. > > > Most of the time it should be just there in the background. But I like > that it's there. Selected? Yes, it only targets edit warriors. > Some edit warriors. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 22:09:07 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:09:07 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: > From: Sj > > And I found a professor of church history whose students cite > > Wikipedia in papers they write. > > How does the professor feel about this? I dunno. I ran into him after lunch, while visiting the seminary where he teaches. I wanted to talk to someone about getting the grad students there, to polish their English skills by contributing to Wikipedia. (Prof. Fuzheado led some of his students in this, and I suppose having their articles edited mercilessly was of some benefit to them.) But he suggested I talk to the academic dean, Dr. Andrew Wilson, who is in charge of their ESL program. Andy was less interested in my ESL idea than in a newly revived project of a colleague of his: Dr. Frank Kaufmann, Director of Interreligious Affairs at the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP). I met with Frank on Monday night about possible incorporation of Wikipedia content in the IIFWP's proposed Encyclopedia. I confess that I was so excited by this latter possibility that I forgot all about the history professor! > Do we need > > to fork? > > I'm not sure how forking would help, but we do need to > * get simple tagging/rating software to work (neither > templates nor categories are scalable substitutes at present) > * have more explicit metadata [license info, article type, > article content flags; user licensing info, user flags] > * encourage the regular production of static, > highly-organized subsets of > our dynamic, somewhat chaotic whole. (CDs/DVDs and their preparation > steps; a variety of organizations of the encyclopedia, in > online and print > versions) I like tagging. Ever since I was a kid ("you're it!"). No, seriously! Maybe mav and I can get Magnus Manke's software in gear for this. I've been asked to propose a budget. > Sexy. I'm pretty sure we will publish a print edition on our > own well before 2008. Would this change their interest in > doing the same? Perhaps they want to publish a niche variant > that we would not be interested in... Well, it would be heavy on World Peace, I guess (not much interest here along those lines, everyone would rather talk about who can ban whom, or fight about the correct name of Danzig/Gdansk. [By the way, Frank seemed to know more about the dispute over the name of that city than I ever picked up by reading Wikipedia.]) The IIFWP isn't looking to make money on a print edition or a DVD. Perhaps they could fulfill Jimbo's dream of distributing a high-quality encyclopedia to schools in poor African countries. (They are an NGO of the UN, by the way.) Uncle Ed From jcecropia at mail.com Wed Mar 16 22:17:57 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:17:57 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonabl eblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk Message-ID: <20050316221757.397051CE304@ws1-6.us4.outblaze.com> From: "Tony Sidaway" > > Jim Cecropia said: > > > >> > > Well of course page protection is unpopular and banning has a "good > > consensus'--page protection affects *me* but banning affects *them*. :) > > Precisely. It's like the speed limit. Only unrestrained editors ever > whine about it.> > > But consider that page protection can be short--just long enough, if > > the participants calm down, for the admin to look at the situation and > > put a few choice comments and suggestions on the article talk, and see > > if he s/he can get some feedback as to how to proceed. Yes, this is > > some work for the admin, but the admin cannot take a step like that and > > walk away. In fact, one admin who did that (among other things) was > > de-admined. With the 3RR block, the admin is walking away: the > > "winning" side is satisfied, and the "loser" stews in his/her juices > > for 24 hours. This is easy but doesn't contribute to Wikipedia, the > > community, or the encyclopedia. > > > You're expecting far too much from administrators. We're editors, not > fairy godmothers. I should bloody well hope that the "loser" stews. > That's what the 3RR is for. Learn to play nice or stew. How hard is it > for a bright editor to work out what side of that equation he wants to be > on? "Learn to play nice or stew." You see, you've made my point and the point of several others, Tony. Application of the 3RR in blocking makes the blocking admin judge and jury, and essentially assigns guilt where we don't know that the admin even examined the issue. Also be aware that a careless 3RR block also stigmatizes that user. It's the same concept that you don't parade a person on trial in front of the jury in prison clothes or cuffs--the jury "knows" that person hasn't been found guilty yet, but with those stripes and chains he sure "looks" guilty. The "bright" editor may do what I've done on certain articles: not edit them any more. But by me I'm not being bright, I'm failing to contribute and, frankly IMO, some articles I've abandoned are not the better for leaving them to the partisans. As to the admin's job. A year ago we had <200 admins, now we're pushing 400. No admin is required to do anything (which is one reason I like people to express positive interest in the job); but if one of these 400 takes the time to step into a situation, they should be ready to at least see it through its initial stages. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 22:18:09 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:18:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: > From: Fred Bauder > Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 4:51 PM > > My position is that you are operating in bad faith at this > point if you are not disclosing the name of the Foundation > and the sort of things they have done. > > Depending on who it is and what we are likely to expect this > could be very good or very bad. How about a clue before you > get us all worked up? IIFWP is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations The put on conferences, like the following on "Universal Values and Lasting Peace: Toward a New Model of Global Governance" http://www.iifwp.org/programs/conferences/summit/5WS2005/index.php?repor t_id=449&event_id=139 You can find some of their peace initiatives here: http://www.iifwp.org/programs/peace/ And if I must spell it out, the foundation is part of the Unification Movement, founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (the well-known founder of the Unification Church). What other foundation would be likely to approach me to help them publish an encyclopedia? The only communities I'm involved in are (a) the Unificationists (27 years) and (2) the Wikipedians (3.5 years). Is that enough of a clue? Ed Poor From fredbaud at ctelco.net Wed Mar 16 22:29:12 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:29:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Googling for "International Federation for World Peace" one gets the following excerpt from the first hit: "On behalf of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, the Founders of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP), we welcome you to..." Fred > From: Fred Bauder > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:51:14 -0700 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time > > My position is that you are operating in bad faith at this point if you are > not disclosing the name of the Foundation and the sort of things they have > done. > > Depending on who it is and what we are likely to expect this could be very > good or very bad. How about a clue before you get us all worked up? > > Fred > >> From: "Poor, Edmund W" >> Reply-To: English Wikipedia >> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 10:04:56 -0500 >> To: >> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time >> >> The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now: >> >> http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/ >> >> Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to >> MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki >> Woes (like vandals). >> >> And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia >> in papers they write. >> >> I think we're finally beginning to be taken seriously. We have half a >> million articles, and we're approaching the level of respectability >> which Encyclopedia Britannica labored for centuries to achieve. >> >> The question is, where do we go from here? Larry Sanger left the project >> for a mix of reasons, but SOME of them made sense (at least to me). We >> never resolved the tension between: >> >> A) Anyone can edit any article, any time; and, >> B) People can count on every article to be accurate and fair. >> >> Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't >> know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. Do we need to >> fork? >> >> I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million >> dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition >> to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me >> out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I >> worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. >> >> Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 16 23:15:40 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:15:40 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time Message-ID: Sorry for misleading you, Fred. I got IIFWP confused with IRFWP. (It's simple mistake, one you have probably made yourself many times ;-) IRFWP is a 25 year old initiative for world peace through interreligious dialogue and harmony. IRFWP is founded by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and draws heavily from spiritual, intellectual, and material resources directly linked to Dr. Moon and related foundations. IRFWP has representatives in 192 countries and a database with thousands of active partners, religionists in the academy, clergy, and grass roots leadership. Then IRFWP carries out its programs through the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP). http://irfwp.org/about/about_goal.shtml But Frank Kaufmann is definitely the point man on the Encyclopedia Project, and his boss in Rev. Moon's right hand man -- the Rev. Dr. Chung Hwan Kwak. There! Now you know even MORE than you probably wanted to know. Uncle Ed From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 23:20:48 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:20:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316232048.23491.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Why do so much > >people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? > Sysops are only > >human. Just asking nicely will have a much better > result. > > > > > Because if a few sysops lost their admin privs > because they failed to > perform due diligence, > then all of them will start performing the diligence > that is due. And > then you'd stop seeing > calls for their ouster for such minor errors. > > --Blair I was right the first time. You really are a jerk. RickK __________________________________________________ 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 Mar 16 23:24:22 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:24:22 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page Message-ID: Hey, Rick, how about knocking off the name calling: << > Because if a few sysops lost their admin privs > because they failed to > perform due diligence, > then all of them will start performing the diligence > that is due. And > then you'd stop seeing > calls for their ouster for such minor errors. > > --Blair I was right the first time. You really are a jerk. RickK >> Uncle Ed _former_ wikien-l mailing list administrator P.S. I still have the password, so I can suspend people's posting privileges, hee hee! From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 23:29:11 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:29:11 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <1815.192.168.0.9.1111006276.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42387BA5.9030903@telus.net> <1815.192.168.0.9.1111006276.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4238C147.7000401@houghton.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: > > And the editors who do not hang around because of some petty usenet flame > war being inappropriately conducted on a wiki...? ...go edit another page for a while... --Blair "Until it's time to come back and clean up, which is what I was doing." From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 23:38:20 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:38:20 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l]Unreasonabl eblock of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <1916.192.168.0.9.1111008347.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050316211853.4657A6F027@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <1916.192.168.0.9.1111008347.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4238C36C.90704@houghton.net> Tony Sidaway wrote: > You're expecting far too much from administrators. We're editors, not > fairy godmothers. I should bloody well hope that the "loser" stews. > That's what the 3RR is for. Learn to play nice or stew. How hard is it Or, in this case, learn to construct a false case for a block and laugh while your victim stews. > for a bright editor to work out what side of that equation he wants to be > on? How hard is it for an admin to warn a talk page that users have been recommended for blocking and give them a chance to address the accusations directly? --Blair From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 23:39:15 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:39:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 3RR again (was Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton.Re:[Wik iEN-l] Unreasonableblock of user Blair P. HoughtonbyadminCryptoDer k) In-Reply-To: <20050316220318.8328C164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050316220318.8328C164005@ws1-4.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4238C3A3.60407@houghton.net> Jim Cecropia wrote: > Tony Sidaway said: >>Most of the time it should be just there in the background. But I like >>that it's there. Selected? Yes, it only targets edit warriors. >> > > Some edit warriors. Transvestite edit warriors. (Just kidding. Hi, Tony!) --Blair From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 23:43:15 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:43:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page In-Reply-To: <20050316232048.23491.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050316232048.23491.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4238C493.5010707@houghton.net> Rick wrote: > --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > >>MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >>Why do so much >> >>>people immediately ask for removal of sysop status? >> >>Sysops are only >> >>>human. Just asking nicely will have a much better >> >>result. >> >>Because if a few sysops lost their admin privs >>because they failed to >>perform due diligence, >>then all of them will start performing the diligence >>that is due. And >>then you'd stop seeing >>calls for their ouster for such minor errors. > > > I was right the first time. You really are a jerk. So you're saying it's okay for admins to do the bidding of people who falsify accusations without any checking of the facts? And you call me a jerk? --Blair From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 16 23:44:27 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 15:44:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050316234428.28954.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was > when GeorgeStepanek > claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated > December 10. Mine is > dated January 1, but if I look around I can find > edits I made over a > year ago without having created a login. > > Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure > you. Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics for him can end now. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 16 23:57:44 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:57:44 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <20050316234428.28954.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050316234428.28954.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4238C7F8.4000106@houghton.net> Rick wrote: > --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > >>One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was >>when GeorgeStepanek >>claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated >>December 10. Mine is >>dated January 1, but if I look around I can find >>edits I made over a >>year ago without having created a login. >> >>Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure >>you. > > Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics for > him can end now. Do your comments ever depend from reality? --Blair From jcecropia at mail.com Thu Mar 17 00:00:44 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:00:44 -0400 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user Message-ID: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick > > > --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: > > One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was > > when GeorgeStepanek claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated > > December 10. Mine is dated January 1, but if I look around I can find > > edits I made over a year ago without having created a login. > > > > Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure > > you. > > Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics for > him can end now. > > RickK > Well, that's kind of a tepid smoking gun. I thought you were going to catch him admitting he was Usama bin Laden or something. If you've read my posts, I've made two points: (1) I believe in engaging "problem" users, not banning them; I've said much the same about others users (172, GBWR, Rei come to mind) that I've been at polar opposites with; (2) 3RR is a new and abusive procedure in a Wikipedia that is moving to control minority users instead of improving the content. Your post here illustrates part of the problem. If you can "prove" Blair is a bad guy (and assert that I am trying to "prove" him a good guy) you don't have to deal with the substantive issues. I think that's called a straw man, and a sort of convoluted way of begging the question. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From sean at epoptic.org Thu Mar 17 00:46:56 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 16:46:56 -0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re: [WikiEN-l] Unreasonable block of user Blair P. Houghton by adminCryptoDerk In-Reply-To: <8098.194.72.110.12.1110995097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> (minorityreport@bluebottle.com) References: <20050316050930.C9ACD6EEF6@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <2ed171fb0503152145685e33d3@mail.gmail.com> <4237CA2F.80807@houghton.net> <2ed171fb050315220510ca78a1@mail.gmail.com> <2ed171fb050316083142052a2c@mail.gmail.com> <49384.194.72.110.12.1110991097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <42386AF5.90602@houghton.net> <42386D7B.9090503@sprintmail.com> <42386F6F.3050902@houghton.net> <8098.194.72.110.12.1110995097.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <200503170046.j2H0kuG6019710@orwen.epoptic.com> > You want a public forum quiet while people are being denied their rights? What is this "rights" thing to which you refer? -- Sean Barrett | Wherever you go, there's always sean at epoptic.com | another tedious Buckaroo Banzai quote. From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 00:51:33 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:51:33 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous? > Who said it was? Read my rebuttal. I didn't violate the 3RR. This turns out not to be the case: 05:22, 15 Mar 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11159169 (the revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159169&oldid=11090304 06:07, 15 Mar 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11159654 (the revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159654&oldid=11159169) 15:13, 15 Mar 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11169234 (the revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11169234&oldid=11159654) 17:43, 15 Mar 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11177874 (the revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11177874&oldid=11169234) 00:06, 16 Mar 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11184398 (the revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11184398&oldid=11177874) That's five reversions in under 19 hours. If you don't think this is a 3RR violation, you have misunderstood the rule and should read it again. Part of the lack of sympathy for your position may be due to your aggressive approach. Personal attacks or apparent personal attacks in edit summaries are *exceedingly* ill-favoured. Please stop making them: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11169234 and many examples in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&action=history Please [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]]. Thanks. - d. From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 01:02:26 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:02:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> No, I didn't violate the 3RR. I read it right before I made the second reversion. I knew what I was doing. After a couple of reversions, I acquiesced to changes others wanted in the edit. The following revert was to that revision of the edit. The 3RR kept me from refusing to move on the issue. That I was then accused of "evading" the 3RR is just another of GeorgeStepanek's prevarications. That you're buying into it is a shame. --Blair David Gerard wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> David Gerard wrote: > > >>> What bit of the 3RR is ambiguous? > > >> Who said it was? Read my rebuttal. I didn't violate the 3RR. > > > > This turns out not to be the case: > > 05:22, 15 Mar 2005: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11159169 > > (the revert: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159169&oldid=11090304 > > > 06:07, 15 Mar 2005: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11159654 > > (the revert: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159654&oldid=11159169) > > > 15:13, 15 Mar 2005: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11169234 > > (the revert: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11169234&oldid=11159654) > > > 17:43, 15 Mar 2005: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11177874 > > (the revert: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11177874&oldid=11169234) > > > 00:06, 16 Mar 2005: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11184398 > > (the revert: > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11184398&oldid=11177874) > > > That's five reversions in under 19 hours. If you don't think this is a 3RR > violation, you have misunderstood the rule and should read it again. > > Part of the lack of sympathy for your position may be due to your > aggressive > approach. Personal attacks or apparent personal attacks in edit summaries > are *exceedingly* ill-favoured. Please stop making them: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=prev&oldid=11169234 > > and many examples in > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&action=history > > Please [[Wikipedia:Assume good faith]]. Thanks. > > > - d. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 01:11:58 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:11:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > No, I didn't violate the 3RR. I read it right before I made the second > reversion. I knew what I was doing. After a couple of reversions, I > acquiesced to changes others wanted in the edit. The following revert > was to that revision of the edit. The 3RR kept me from refusing to move > on the issue. That I was then accused of "evading" the 3RR is just > another of GeorgeStepanek's prevarications. That you're buying into it > is a shame. Reverting to different previous versions is reverting. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 01:18:46 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:18:46 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever Message-ID: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV Better names welcomed. - d. From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 01:31:13 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:31:13 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> David Gerard wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> No, I didn't violate the 3RR. I read it right before I made the >> second reversion. I knew what I was doing. After a couple of >> reversions, I acquiesced to changes others wanted in the edit. The >> following revert was to that revision of the edit. The 3RR kept me >> from refusing to move on the issue. That I was then accused of >> "evading" the 3RR is just another of GeorgeStepanek's prevarications. >> That you're buying into it is a shame. > > Reverting to different previous versions is reverting. I'm not going to argue the point of the rule with you. If you wish to continue being a willing dupe of those who wish to railroad honest people, then just keep on sullying your robes. --Blair From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 17 02:00:42 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:00:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4238E4CA.9070704@apotheon.com> David Gerard wrote: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV > > Better names welcomed. > works for me -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 02:38:51 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 19:38:51 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4238EDBB.7080806@houghton.net> David Gerard wrote: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV > > Better names welcomed. Maybe it's apropos of this: [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] See first item under ''Specific examples of personal attack include''. But maybe that's not what you wanted. --Blair From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 17 03:01:00 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:01:00 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Poor, Edmund W wrote: > The latest issue of Software Development magazine is on-line now: > > http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/sdm0504e/ > > Their excellent article "The Wiki Way" gives significant attention to > MediaWiki software and the Wikipedia. There's even a section on Wiki > Woes (like vandals). > > And I found a professor of church history whose students cite Wikipedia > in papers they write. Ed, out of interest, this wouldn't be Stuart Coulton from SMBC by any chance? TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 17 03:07:24 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:07:24 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> References: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: Tom Haws wrote: > David Geerard wrote: > >> Nah. A massively distributed rating system seems the only workable idea >> to me, because it will harness dilettantism. Editorial committees aren't >> the sort of thing that scales. >> >> And I think a ratings system should be worth a try, on the assumption >> that >> most of the ratings will be good faith. 'Cos if we can't assume that, >> then >> we can't assume good faith for the project in general. And I think we >> can. >> >> If their money can be directed that way, get them to hire a PHP developer >> for a while to get the rating feature polished up ;-) > > > Right, David. Don't think fork; think Add-on. And don't think > editorial committee; think reputation/rating system. And always keep > dilettantism at the front of your cogitations. > > To those considering forking Wikipedia, I say why not simply start an > add-on site where users can register, build reputation, and rate article > versions. All their edits originating from the Add-on site > (credipedia.org or respectipedia.org) go straight into the main > Wikipedia database, and the add-on site sifts articles for presentation > to anonymous users according to its added features of user and article > rating. Any successful feature are sure to find their way back into > MediaWiki. > > Tom Haws You should note that before I left the project, I started this with [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]]. This was designed to have no noticable disruptionn of the main article (I directly linked to a proposed revision, this was done on a subpage that hangs off the article. The discussion of the revision is done on the talk page.) It was my hope this could allow for a "stamped" version of a FA page that we could proudly state is the most reliable version and guaranteed not to be vandalised. Regrettably, it looks like my idea has fallen through. I hope that Wikipedia can find a credible alternative. TBSDY From humble.fool at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 03:17:56 2005 From: humble.fool at gmail.com (David) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:17:56 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4238F6E4.9050800@gmail.com> David Gerard wrote: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV > > Better names welcomed. > > > - d. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > Militant POV? From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 17 03:20:48 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:20:48 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Jim Cecropia wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Rick > >> >>--- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: >> >>>One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was >>>when GeorgeStepanek claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated >>>December 10. Mine is dated January 1, but if I look around I can find >>>edits I made over a year ago without having created a login. >>> >>>Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure >>>you. >> >>Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics for >>him can end now. >> >>RickK >> > > Well, that's kind of a tepid smoking gun. I thought you were going to catch him admitting he was Usama bin Laden or something. > > If you've read my posts, I've made two points: (1) I believe in engaging "problem" users, not banning them; I've said much the same about others users (172, GBWR, Rei come to mind) that I've been at polar opposites with; (2) 3RR is a new and abusive procedure in a Wikipedia that is moving to control minority users instead of improving the content. > > Your post here illustrates part of the problem. If you can "prove" Blair is a bad guy (and assert that I am trying to "prove" him a good guy) you don't have to deal with the substantive issues. I think that's called a straw man, and a sort of convoluted way of begging the question. > > --C > Did I ever vote "Support" for your adminship? I hope so! Cause then I would have been proved correct in my judgement of your suitability as an admin. TBSDY From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 03:56:52 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:26:52 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> David Gerard wrote: > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV > > Better names welcomed. > > > - d. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? I've changed it, anyway. [[en:User:Alphax]] From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 04:01:00 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 14:31:00 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> Message-ID: <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> I wrote: > Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? > > I've changed it, anyway. No I haven't - the database is locked :( From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 17 04:03:22 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:03:22 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: References: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <4239018A.9060505@apotheon.com> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Jim Cecropia wrote: > >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Rick >> >>> >>> --- "Blair P. Houghton" wrote: >>> >>>> One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was >>>> when GeorgeStepanek claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated >>>> December 10. Mine is dated January 1, but if I look around I can find >>>> edits I made over a year ago without having created a login. >>>> >>>> Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can assure >>>> you. >>> >>> >>> Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics for >>> him can end now. >>> >>> RickK >>> >> >> Well, that's kind of a tepid smoking gun. I thought you were going to >> catch him admitting he was Usama bin Laden or something. >> >> If you've read my posts, I've made two points: (1) I believe in >> engaging "problem" users, not banning them; I've said much the same >> about others users (172, GBWR, Rei come to mind) that I've been at >> polar opposites with; (2) 3RR is a new and abusive procedure in a >> Wikipedia that is moving to control minority users instead of >> improving the content. >> >> Your post here illustrates part of the problem. If you can "prove" >> Blair is a bad guy (and assert that I am trying to "prove" him a good >> guy) you don't have to deal with the substantive issues. I think >> that's called a straw man, and a sort of convoluted way of begging the >> question. >> >> --C >> > > Did I ever vote "Support" for your adminship? I hope so! Cause then I > would have been proved correct in my judgement of your suitability as an > admin. > I'm inclined to agree, just based on the fact that it has been about a year since I've seen/heard anyone use the term "begging the question" properly. Considering how many times I've seen/heard it misused, that's really saying something. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From perrin at apotheon.com Thu Mar 17 04:19:46 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:19:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42390562.1080608@apotheon.com> Alphax wrote: > I wrote: > >> Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? >> >> I've changed it, anyway. > > > No I haven't - the database is locked :( "Cluestick" is more appropriate, anyway: it's a stick used to imbue clue upon the clueless, much like a clue-by-four, but less brutal. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 17 05:15:45 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:15:45 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <4239018A.9060505@apotheon.com> References: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <4239018A.9060505@apotheon.com> Message-ID: Chad Perrin wrote: > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > > I'm inclined to agree, just based on the fact that it has been about a > year since I've seen/heard anyone use the term "begging the question" > properly. Considering how many times I've seen/heard it misused, that's > really saying something. > How can you see someone begging the question? TBSDY From markaci at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 05:27:43 2005 From: markaci at gmail.com (Mark Dobrowolski) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 00:27:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: References: <20050317000044.37C186F02D@ws1-5.us4.outblaze.com> <4239018A.9060505@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <4239154F.20000@gmail.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: | Chad Perrin wrote: | |> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: |> |> I'm inclined to agree, just based on the fact that it has been about a |> year since I've seen/heard anyone use the term "begging the question" |> properly. Considering how many times I've seen/heard it misused, |> that's really saying something. |> | | How can you see someone begging the question? In a mailing list, for example. - -- Mark Dobrowolski User:Markaci -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCORVO59vwROae2N0RAkhEAKCFEpVWpxfvCRXFLDmktYh52LcrxACg6V53 CiJmO1D7fwGmUxOTT75f0to= =88ZY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 17 05:41:37 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:41:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050317054137.43051.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jim Cecropia wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Rick > > > > > > --- "Blair P. Houghton" > wrote: > > > One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle > was > > > when GeorgeStepanek claimed I was a newbie. His > account is dated > > > December 10. Mine is dated January 1, but if I > look around I can find > > > edits I made over a year ago without having > created a login. > > > > > > Quite the guffaw around my keyboard, I can > assure > > > you. > > > > Jim Cecropia, please note this. Your apologetics > for > > him can end now. > > > > RickK > > > Well, that's kind of a tepid smoking gun. I thought > you were going to catch him admitting he was Usama > bin Laden or something. > > If you've read my posts, I've made two points: (1) I > believe in engaging "problem" users, not banning > them; I've said much the same about others users > (172, GBWR, Rei come to mind) that I've been at > polar opposites with; (2) 3RR is a new and abusive > procedure in a Wikipedia that is moving to control > minority users instead of improving the content. > > Your post here illustrates part of the problem. If > you can "prove" Blair is a bad guy (and assert that > I am trying to "prove" him a good guy) you don't > have to deal with the substantive issues. I think > that's called a straw man, and a sort of convoluted > way of begging the question. > > --C I think his emails speak for themselves. He came in here with a chip on his shoulder, he keeps making attacks on even the people who are trying to work with him, you keep saying, "He's just a newbie that we need to make concessions to." He objects to the idea that he's a newbie and claims to have been around for about a year and half. He therefore knows the Wikipedia philosophy of Wikiquette and assume good faith, and yet he continues to write these nasty emails in which he's the only person right in the entire world. 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 Thu Mar 17 07:52:52 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:52:52 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <42390562.1080608@apotheon.com> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> <42390562.1080608@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <42393754.7070406@telus.net> Chad Perrin wrote: > Alphax wrote: > >> I wrote: >> >>> Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? >>> >>> I've changed it, anyway. >> >> No I haven't - the database is locked :( > > "Cluestick" is more appropriate, anyway: it's a stick used to imbue > clue upon the clueless, much like a clue-by-four, but less brutal. Thank-clue for that explanation. Ec From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 09:44:30 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:44:30 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <4238EDBB.7080806@houghton.net> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238EDBB.7080806@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4239517E.4010403@thingy.apana.org.au> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MPOV >> Better names welcomed. > Maybe it's apropos of this: > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]] > See first item under ''Specific examples of personal attack include''. > But maybe that's not what you wanted. Indeed not. I know precisely which two examples it was written about, and neither are you. - d. From dgerard at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 09:45:29 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:45:29 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> Message-ID: <423951B9.8080704@thingy.apana.org.au> Alphax wrote: > I wrote: >> Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? >> I've changed it, anyway. > No I haven't - the database is locked :( Definitely a "cluestick". - d. From magnus.manske at web.de Thu Mar 17 10:04:48 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:04:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503161244ecce1c3@mail.gmail.com> References: <42386660.9040609@sprintmail.com> <742dfd060503161244ecce1c3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42395640.20103@web.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Sj schrieb: >>Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't >>know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. > > I'm not sure how forking would help, but we do need to > * get simple tagging/rating software to work (neither templates nor > categories are scalable substitutes at present) I'll have to give the voting/validation/tagging software a major workover for the upcoming MediaWiki 1.5, as that changes version handling (to the better!). Other than that, the feature can handle both yes/no and scaled (like one-to-five) values for multiple "tags" (suitable for DVD, neutrality, completeness, whatever). > * have more explicit metadata [license info, article type, article content > flags; user licensing info, user flags] A quick hack I did during 21C3 can separate current "metadata" (categories, interlanguage links, certain templates) from the article body for editing, and display them in a second edit box. I see that as a first step towards a "real" metadata system. > * encourage the regular production of static, highly-organized subsets of > our dynamic, somewhat chaotic whole. (CDs/DVDs and their preparation > steps; a variety of organizations of the encyclopedia, in online and print > versions) Don't forget the Wikipedia Readers! :-) Magnus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCOVZACZKBJbEFcz0RAsY1AJ4mxD/lT91hoUbirm8liblQXcac/ACfbKd5 hy3cCdVLzqFJoqihdsyoGcI= =6Ot7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From johnleemk at gawab.com Thu Mar 17 10:27:02 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:27:02 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > David Gerard wrote: > >> Blair P. Houghton wrote: >> >>> No, I didn't violate the 3RR. I read it right before I made the >>> second reversion. I knew what I was doing. After a couple of >>> reversions, I acquiesced to changes others wanted in the edit. The >>> following revert was to that revision of the edit. The 3RR kept me >>> from refusing to move on the issue. That I was then accused of >>> "evading" the 3RR is just another of GeorgeStepanek's >>> prevarications. That you're buying into it is a shame. >> >> >> Reverting to different previous versions is reverting. > > > I'm not going to argue the point of the rule with you. If you wish > to continue being a willing dupe of those who wish to railroad honest > people, then just keep on sullying your robes. > > --Blair I've been trying my best to avoid feeding, but I'm going to make an exception for this one. In case you haven't noticed, from the 3RR: *Don't revert any _page_ more than three times within a period of 24 hours.* /(This doesn't apply to self-reverts or correction of simple vandalism .)/ That means you have a maximum of three reverts per page for every 24 hours. It does not matter which revision you choose to revert to; a revert is a revert is a revert. What you must understand is that reverting is bad. It's a slap in the face. If you would stop blabbing about Taxman and George for a minute to understand this, we might get somewhere. Just because they are the aggressors does not give you the right or privilege to go ahead and participate in the fight. Instead, follow the steps of dispute resolution and/or ask an uninvolved party for help (if you were welcomed to Wikipedia by a certain user, asking him/her would probably be a good idea). The problem in a lot of disputes is that one side allows themselves to be dragged down to the other's level. Maintain the moral high ground, and you'll lose the battle but win the war. As for the 3RR, I strongly agree with Fuzheado. I do not believe it should be applied so drastically, though. Need anyone be reminded, the text of the wording voted upon stated that admins *may* block users who violate the 3RR. May, not must. If good will can be demonstrated, and all parties involved (or at least the one who violated the rule) appear to be working towards a solution peacefully, a block shouldn't be required. If the revert is part of a larger pattern of MPOV, article ownership or simply just being an asshole and using reverting as a tool for getting one's way, then, yes, I would support a block. Now, some personal advice for you, Blair: Wikipedians strongly believe in assuming good faith and wikiquette (or whatever it's called). The tone of your messages to this mailing list have certainly been very accusatory and defensive, and reflect more badly on you than George and Taxman. Often this damages your point, even if it is correct. I advise you to be more conciliatory in your manner, and you might get a better hearing from roughnecks like RickK as well as others like David Gerard. Accept you made mistakes. Don't try to pin the blame on others by accusing George and/or Taxman of inciting you into breaking the 3RR. Remember, assume good faith and win the moral high ground. Losing the battle but winning the war is a far better proposition than vice-versa. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From johnleemk at gawab.com Thu Mar 17 10:30:39 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 18:30:39 +0800 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <42389ED8.8070609@houghton.net> References: <20050316203831.801E21F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> <42389ED8.8070609@houghton.net> Message-ID: <42395C4F.3030505@gawab.com> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > Jim Cecropia wrote: > >> I really don't think this is helpful. I sense that Blair can be a >> useful contributor to Wikipedia. He is new and can be engaged. I've >> seen those more agreesive than he become valuabled members of the >> community. I would like him to calm down and work with the community, >> and also for the community to not go out of their way to bait him or >> any other honest user. >> >> > One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was when GeorgeStepanek > claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated December 10. Mine is > dated January 1, but if I look around I can find edits I made over a > year ago without having created a login. In all fairness, how could George possibly know that? > Oh, and check through my contribution list. I'm well-engaged, almost > whoring myself for barnstars, and not a little peeved that the people > railroading me didn't see what they were doing to my reputation. Ignoring the implicit personal attack there, don't be pissed you haven't got a barnstar. I've written two articles featured on the main page, and several more that have been voted as featured articles (which makes them eligible for featuring on the front page). I don't moan about a lack of recognition. Keep up the good work you've been doing, though; some day, our work will be acknowledged. Take pride in the fact you're contributing to history, and write good articles anyway. Barnstars are an important incentive for writing, but shouldn't consume you. Just focus on doing a good job, and slowly acclaim will come to you. :-P Best of luck, John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From james at jdforrester.org Thu Mar 17 11:15:02 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:15:02 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <42390562.1080608@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <20050317111444.22B661AC032F@mail.wikimedia.org> On Thursday, March 17, 2005 4:20 AM, Chad Perrin wrote: > Alphax wrote: > > > I wrote: > > > > > Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? > > > > > > I've changed it, anyway. > > > > > > No I haven't - the database is locked :( > > "Cluestick" is more appropriate, anyway: it's a stick used to imbue > clue upon the clueless, much like a clue-by-four, but less brutal. Indeed. My software engineering project team had one a couple of years ago. Very useful. 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 minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 17 11:44:45 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:44:45 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> Message-ID: <38694.194.72.110.12.1111059885.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> John Lee said: > Remember, assume good faith and > win the moral high ground. Losing the battle but winning the war is a > far better > proposition than vice-versa. The entire email was beautifully put. My whole-hearted endorsements to John's comments. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 17 15:39:26 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 08:39:26 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <42395640.20103@web.de> References: <42386660.9040609@sprintmail.com> <742dfd060503161244ecce1c3@mail.gmail.com> <42395640.20103@web.de> Message-ID: <4239A4AE.6010906@sprintmail.com> Magnus Manske wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > > > >Sj schrieb: > > >>>Not enough people were interested in Larry's "Sifter Project". I don't >>>know if anyone is using Magnus Manke's "tagging" software. >>> >>> >>I'm not sure how forking would help, but we do need to >>* get simple tagging/rating software to work (neither templates nor >>categories are scalable substitutes at present) >> >> > >I'll have to give the voting/validation/tagging software a major >workover for the upcoming MediaWiki 1.5, as that changes version >handling (to the better!). >Other than that, the feature can handle both yes/no and scaled (like >one-to-five) values for multiple "tags" (suitable for DVD, neutrality, >completeness, whatever). > Magnus, this is phenomenal! Huge high-fives to you! Tom Haws From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 16:08:06 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:08:06 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <20050317054137.43051.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050317054137.43051.qmail@web60603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4239AB66.5040007@houghton.net> Rick wrote: >I think his emails speak for themselves. He came in >here with a chip on his shoulder, > Being railroaded will do that to a guy, but thanks for understanding. >he keeps making >attacks on even the people who are trying to work with >him, > I've attacked nobody here; I am defending myself and correcting misconceptions. You, on the other hand, have attacked me several times, calling me a "supercilious jerk" in the first contact between us. What's YOUR problem? >you keep saying, "He's just a newbie that we need >to make concessions to." He objects to the idea that >he's a newbie and claims to have been around for about >a year and half. He therefore knows the Wikipedia >philosophy of Wikiquette and assume good faith, and > > I assumed good faith and it was overwhelmed by evidence. The offending party's courtly manners while performing his bad faith is no more mitigating than saying "please" and "thank you" mitigates rape (yes, I know, that's another reductio ad absurdum; just assume good faith). >yet he continues to write these nasty emails in which >he's the only person right in the entire world. > I've read my emails. Have you? This tautological assertion doesn't seem to reflect that. --Blair From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 16:13:00 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:13:00 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever In-Reply-To: <423951B9.8080704@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4238DAF6.7090907@thingy.apana.org.au> <42390004.2040502@gmail.com> <423900FC.6010600@gmail.com> <423951B9.8080704@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4239AC8C.1080709@houghton.net> David Gerard wrote: > Alphax wrote: > >> I wrote: > > >>> Should that be "beaten with a *cuestick*"? >>> I've changed it, anyway. >> > >> No I haven't - the database is locked :( > > > > Definitely a "cluestick". You'd think someone in this thread would've checked by now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluestick --Blair "I guess some people just like the meta." From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 16:25:21 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:25:21 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> Message-ID: <4239AF71.7080906@houghton.net> I appreciate your explanation, John, as it reflects what I was starting to realize overnight. It's becoming clear to me that by reading the "Ko rule" into the 3RR I am being led to a different interpretation than many take from the rule. The Ko rule allows a repeat of a Ko when progress is made between repeats. That's what I focussed on and believed to be the letter and intent of the law. Perhaps having the Ko rule as an analogy in the rule is a mistake. I will however never hold the Evil Ones blameless for entrapping me. --Blair John Lee wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> David Gerard wrote: >> >>> Blair P. Houghton wrote: >>> >>>> No, I didn't violate the 3RR. I read it right before I made the >>>> second reversion. I knew what I was doing. After a couple of >>>> reversions, I acquiesced to changes others wanted in the edit. The >>>> following revert was to that revision of the edit. The 3RR kept me >>>> from refusing to move on the issue. That I was then accused of >>>> "evading" the 3RR is just another of GeorgeStepanek's >>>> prevarications. That you're buying into it is a shame. >>> >>> >>> >>> Reverting to different previous versions is reverting. >> >> >> >> I'm not going to argue the point of the rule with you. If you wish >> to continue being a willing dupe of those who wish to railroad honest >> people, then just keep on sullying your robes. >> >> --Blair > > > I've been trying my best to avoid feeding, but I'm going to make an > exception for this one. In case you haven't noticed, from the 3RR: > > *Don't revert any > _page_ more than three times within a period of 24 hours.* > /(This doesn't apply to self-reverts or correction of simple vandalism > .)/ > > That means you have a maximum of three reverts per page for every 24 > hours. It does not matter which revision you choose to revert to; a > revert is a revert is a revert. > > What you must understand is that reverting is bad. It's a slap in the > face. If you would stop blabbing about Taxman and George for a minute > to understand this, we might get somewhere. Just because they are the > aggressors does not give you the right or privilege to go ahead and > participate in the fight. Instead, follow the steps of dispute > resolution and/or ask an uninvolved party for help (if you were > welcomed to Wikipedia by a certain user, asking him/her would probably > be a good idea). > > The problem in a lot of disputes is that one side allows themselves to > be dragged down to the other's level. Maintain the moral high ground, > and you'll lose the battle but win the war. > > As for the 3RR, I strongly agree with Fuzheado. I do not believe it > should be applied so drastically, though. Need anyone be reminded, the > text of the wording voted upon stated that admins *may* block users > who violate the 3RR. May, not must. If good will can be demonstrated, > and all parties involved (or at least the one who violated the rule) > appear to be working towards a solution peacefully, a block shouldn't > be required. If the revert is part of a larger pattern of MPOV, > article ownership or simply just being an asshole and using reverting > as a tool for getting one's way, then, yes, I would support a block. > > Now, some personal advice for you, Blair: > > Wikipedians strongly believe in assuming good faith and wikiquette (or > whatever it's called). The tone of your messages to this mailing list > have certainly been very accusatory and defensive, and reflect more > badly on you than George and Taxman. Often this damages your point, > even if it is correct. I advise you to be more conciliatory in your > manner, and you might get a better hearing from roughnecks like RickK > as well as others like David Gerard. Accept you made mistakes. Don't > try to pin the blame on others by accusing George and/or Taxman of > inciting you into breaking the 3RR. Remember, assume good faith and > win the moral high ground. Losing the battle but winning the war is a > far better proposition than vice-versa. > > John Lee > ([[User:Johnleemk]]) > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mar 17 16:29:17 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:29:17 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release References: <742dfd0605031116484ccfba@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Sj wrote > I've put up a draft press release to celebrate the English WP's > 500,000th article here: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005 > It is not quite like our previous press releases; see what you think, > edit and improve on it. The current version looks pretty good to me - not a great deal I could see to add, and it seems tightly and professionally written (I've done a few press releases that have got into national newspapers). Just one aspect, and perhaps not so newsworthy. There is not much emphasis given to the scholarly side. It could say a little more about WP's stature as a reference site. Charles From jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk Thu Mar 17 16:20:57 2005 From: jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk (jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:20:57 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Message-ID: <1111076457_12961@drn10msi01> This is getting ridiculous. This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his detractors and everyone else to stop this discussion. It is a clash between an admin and the 3RR policy, which should be discussed on the wiki and not here. Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for admins? Jfdwolff ____________________________________________________________ This e-mail has been scanned by the StreamShield Protector antivirus system. Doctors.net.uk is used by over 111,000 UK doctors. ____________________________________________________________ From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 16:36:38 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 09:36:38 -0700 Subject: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Re:[WikiEN-l]Unreasonable block of user In-Reply-To: <42395C4F.3030505@gawab.com> References: <20050316203831.801E21F50B1@ws1-2.us4.outblaze.com> <42389ED8.8070609@houghton.net> <42395C4F.3030505@gawab.com> Message-ID: <4239B216.5060801@houghton.net> John Lee wrote: > Blair P. Houghton wrote: > >> Jim Cecropia wrote: >> >>> I really don't think this is helpful. I sense that Blair can be a >>> useful contributor to Wikipedia. He is new and can be engaged. I've >>> seen those more agreesive than he become valuabled members of the >>> community. I would like him to calm down and work with the >>> community, and also for the community to not go out of their way to >>> bait him or any other honest user. >>> >>> >> One of my favorite parts of the whole debacle was when GeorgeStepanek >> claimed I was a newbie. His account is dated December 10. Mine is >> dated January 1, but if I look around I can find edits I made over a >> year ago without having created a login. > > > In all fairness, how could George possibly know that? So it was a private joke. The question is, why should it make the slightest bit of difference? Character is behavior, not attributes. If he'd bothered to read my history instead of jerking his knee towards cognitive closure on the first trivium he could leverage against my reputation, he'd have reached a different conclusion. I certainly never took him to task for that silly suit he's wearing in his profile picture. Only for his behavior towards me, Dan100, and the page. > >> Oh, and check through my contribution list. I'm well-engaged, almost >> whoring myself for barnstars, and not a little peeved that the people >> railroading me didn't see what they were doing to my reputation. > > > Ignoring the implicit personal attack there, don't be pissed you > haven't got a barnstar You keep seeing personal attacks where there are none. And I'm not pissed I don't have a barnstar. They're awarded arbitrarily so I expect if I ever get one it will be for randomly pleasing someone who knows what they are and feels inclined that day to throw one across the room. > I've written two articles featured on the main page, and several more > that have been voted as featured articles (which makes them eligible > for featuring on the front page). I don't moan about a lack of > recognition. Keep up the good work you've been doing, though; some > day, our work will be acknowledged. Take pride in the fact you're > contributing to history, and write good articles anyway. Barnstars are > an important incentive for writing, but shouldn't consume you. Just > focus on doing a good job, and slowly acclaim will come to you. :-P "Take pride in the fact you're contributing to history." Nicely mentioned. It's the only reason I intend to stick around in this Lord of the Flies backwater. I get to remember the feeling of improving the Eddie Merckx page and fixing a problem on the pages for every member of the group of men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Barnstars are arbitrary kudos. Setting the truth right in places it's desperately needed sets your soul on fire. --Blair From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 17 16:42:25 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:42:25 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release In-Reply-To: <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <742dfd0605031116484ccfba@mail.gmail.com> <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <48724.194.72.110.12.1111077745.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Charles Matthews said: > Sj wrote > > >> I've put up a draft press release to celebrate the English WP's >> 500,000th article here: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005 > >> It is not quite like our previous press releases; see what you think, >> edit and improve on it. > > The current version looks pretty good to me - not a great deal I could > see to add, and it seems tightly and professionally written (I've done > a few press releases that have got into national newspapers). The press release should make at least one reference to the fact that this is a multilingual, cross-referenced encyclopedia, which alone makes Wikipedia unique. From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 17 18:32:54 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 10:32:54 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <1111076457_12961@drn10msi01> References: <1111076457_12961@drn10msi01> Message-ID: <4239CD56.6080302@telus.net> jfdwolff at doctors.org.uk wrote: >This is getting ridiculous. >This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his detractors and everyone else to stop this discussion. It is a clash between an admin and the 3RR policy, which should be discussed on the wiki and not here. >Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for admins? > > Perhaps it will do to repeat my previous suggestion. There should be a separate mailing list for disciplinary issues. I can even state now that I will not subscribe to it. Ec From jayjg at hotmail.com Thu Mar 17 18:47:29 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:47:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <1111076457_12961@drn10msi01> Message-ID: >From: >This is getting ridiculous. >This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his >detractors and everyone else >to stop this discussion. It is a clash between an admin and the 3RR policy, >which should be discussed on the wiki and not here. Amen. >Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for admins? I'm sure you're not the only one, but I feel quite the opposite. More importantly, I think it's made it less likely for regular (i.e. non edit-warrior) editors to be scared away from Wikipedia. Jay. From blair at houghton.net Thu Mar 17 19:15:34 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:15:34 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4239D756.5060609@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: >> From: >> >> It is a clash between an admin and the 3RR policy, which should be >> discussed on the wiki and not here. > > > Amen. For the record, I agree, and if the process hadn't locked me totally out of the wiki, that's exactly where it'd be. --Blair From bjourne at gmail.com Thu Mar 17 19:30:47 2005 From: bjourne at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BJ=F6rn_Lindqvist?=) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 20:30:47 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <4239AF71.7080906@houghton.net> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> <4239AF71.7080906@houghton.net> Message-ID: <740c3aec050317113031f4ae91@mail.gmail.com> > to realize overnight. It's becoming clear to me that by reading the "Ko > rule" into the 3RR I am being led to a different interpretation than > many take from the rule. The Ko rule allows a repeat of a Ko when > progress is made between repeats. That's what I focussed on and > believed to be the letter and intent of the law. Perhaps having the Ko > rule as an analogy in the rule is a mistake. That analogy fooled me too. The rules for what constitutes three reverts or not is so unclear that you have to be extremely careful when editing contentious articles. -- mvh Bj?rn From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 17 23:09:46 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:09:46 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: <740c3aec050317113031f4ae91@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050316055934.C1BE4101D0@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> <4237CF73.4090406@houghton.net> <4238175B.9090401@thingy.apana.org.au> <423862EE.7000301@houghton.net> <4238D495.9090103@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238D722.5070008@houghton.net> <4238D95E.2030500@thingy.apana.org.au> <4238DDE1.3020400@houghton.net> <42395B76.4090204@gawab.com> <4239AF71.7080906@houghton.net> <740c3aec050317113031f4ae91@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1418.192.168.0.9.1111100986.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> BJ?rn Lindqvist said: >> to realize overnight. It's becoming clear to me that by reading the >> "Ko rule" into the 3RR I am being led to a different interpretation >> than many take from the rule. The Ko rule allows a repeat of a Ko >> when progress is made between repeats. That's what I focussed on and >> believed to be the letter and intent of the law. Perhaps having the >> Ko rule as an analogy in the rule is a mistake. > > That analogy fooled me too. The rules for what constitutes three > reverts or not is so unclear that you have to be extremely careful when > editing contentious articles. I removed the analogy. Anybody who thinks it's useful, please restore. From cormaggio at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 00:25:49 2005 From: cormaggio at gmail.com (Cormac Lawler) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:25:49 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article cited on Open Democracy Message-ID: There's an interesting article on Open Democracy (diverse site with good debate) about code and copyright, ending with a feature on open source, and which references the en:Wikipedia article on the [[Tragedy of the commons]]. http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-8-40-2370.jsp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons Cormac From csherlock at ljh.com.au Fri Mar 18 01:27:18 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:27:18 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Bug in Wikipedia Message-ID: It appears someone has found a bug in our software. They put in #redirect [[de:en:Goatse.cx]] and this redirects to Goatse WITHOUT the redirect link appearing at the top. I figure you guys should know as they just edited [[Evolution]], which is on the front page. I reverted anonymously but now I can't see Evolution. TBSDY From board at wikimedia.org Fri Mar 18 03:29:57 2005 From: board at wikimedia.org (Wikimedia Foundation) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 03:29:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> ---- Forwarded message from "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" ---- Date: From: "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" To: "'board at wikimedia.org'" Cc: Reply-To: Subject: [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering > Hello, > Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in > your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a > map on > site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png > ) that > originally came from our web site > (http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm > ). The real > source > of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management > Services. > Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it > removes > the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, > but > we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among > other > things). > > Cheers > > David O'Neil, Manager > Population Section, BC Stats > Service BC > Ministry of Management Services > > email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca > tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 > www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca > > ---- End forwarded message ---- -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: file-1 Url: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/attachments/20050318/6d0aabc5/attachment.diff From richholton at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 05:11:52 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:11:52 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia Message-ID: <4a37983b0503172111dfbb337@mail.gmail.com> Mr. ONeil, I am an editor on Wikipedia, though I have no official standing at the Wikimedia Foundation. However, I noticed your request regarding the use of the map of British Columbia that came from your website. I have taken the step of tagging that image as a possible copyright violation. You can see the resulting message on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png This issue is also now listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems Please feel free to add comments on that page. Regarding your question about our policy on use of material from other sites. Wikipedia is committed to respecting copyrights. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights As a citizen and resident of the United States, I know that many people here assume that all government documents are public domain, as that is generally true of the US Federal government. I don't know about this particular case, but it could be that this image was placed on Wikipedia based on that assumption. I also do not know if the same sort of rules apply to the government of Canada and/or British Columbia. Either way, the source of the image should be properly attributed, even if the image is in the public domain. If you have any further questions, you can either contact me at richholton at gmail.com, or respond to the English Wikipedia mailing list at wikien-l at wikipedia.org. Sincerely, Richard J. Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 05:18:15 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:18:15 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release In-Reply-To: <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <742dfd0605031116484ccfba@mail.gmail.com> <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <742dfd060503172118762a7863@mail.gmail.com> Thanks for the feedback, Charles and Tony. I'll make some tweaks in an hour or so to make sure it mentions our amazing multilingualism, and highlights our popularity /as a reference work/, if I can think of a good way to slip it in. I was planning to leave a couple days for people to set up a new press-log, and think about who to contact; and then send out the releases all at once this Sunday. However, people are already starting to write about us reaching the half-million mark, not least b/c of Jimbo's presentation yesterday at e-tech. See for instance the Inquirer: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21909 What do you all think? Should we send out press releases tommorrow/Saturday, to be as timely as possible? Also, what was the 500,000th article? +Sj+ On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:29:17 -0000, Charles Matthews wrote: > Sj wrote > > > > I've put up a draft press release to celebrate the English WP's > > 500,000th article here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases/March_2005 > > > It is not quite like our previous press releases; see what you think, > > edit and improve on it. > > The current version looks pretty good to me - not a great deal I could see > to add, and it seems tightly and professionally written (I've done a few > press releases that have got into national newspapers). > > Just one aspect, and perhaps not so newsworthy. There is not much emphasis > given to the scholarly side. > > It could say a little more about WP's stature as a reference site. > > Charles > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] From richholton at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 05:31:17 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 23:31:17 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503172118762a7863@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd0605031116484ccfba@mail.gmail.com> <003f01c52b0e$784966a0$9e7c0450@Galasien> <742dfd060503172118762a7863@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4a37983b050317213162f7f9aa@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:18:15 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21909 > So, now we're "the Wiki"? -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From wikipedia at earthlink.net Fri Mar 18 06:01:42 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:01:42 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 500k press release In-Reply-To: <20050318053128.B11C11AC1813@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050318053128.B11C11AC1813@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <423A6EC6.9000305@earthlink.net> Sj wrote: >Thanks for the feedback, Charles and Tony. I'll make some tweaks in >an hour or so to make sure it mentions our amazing multilingualism, >and highlights our popularity /as a reference work/, if I can think of >a good way to slip it in. > >I was planning to leave a couple days for people to set up a new >press-log, and think about who to contact; and then send out the >releases all at once this Sunday. However, people are already >starting to write about us reaching the half-million mark, not least >b/c of Jimbo's presentation yesterday at e-tech. See for instance the >Inquirer: > http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21909 > >What do you all think? Should we send out press releases >tommorrow/Saturday, to be as timely as possible? Also, what was the >500,000th article? > > Answers: 1. I think the press release is great work, good job all around. 2. Yes, we should act quickly. Nothing kills the media's interest in a press release quicker than being old news. Although news cycles being what they are, once we hit the weekend it won't matter that much which day it is, so might as well keep sending it out through Sunday. 3. Based on Alterego's calculation of the precise time (I'm not sure how that was determined, but I'll take what I can get), the article that's the closest match seems to be [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union]]. So congratulations to Mikkalai, and of course congratulations to everybody who's helped make Wikipedia into a wonderful resource. Now we just need to go and make that into a featured article! --Michael Snow From ahoerstemeier at spamcop.net Fri Mar 18 09:18:35 2005 From: ahoerstemeier at spamcop.net (Andreas Hoerstemeier) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 10:18:35 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Bug in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > It appears someone has found a bug in our software. They put in > #redirect [[de:en:Goatse.cx]] and this redirects to Goatse WITHOUT the > redirect link appearing at the top. I figure you guys should know as See Bugzilla #1656 - this seems to be the new fun of one of our experienced vandals, often using the infamous Autofellatio porn image. http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1656 [[User:Ahoerstemeier|Andy]] From saintonge at telus.net Fri Mar 18 09:15:38 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:15:38 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> References: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> Wikimedia Foundation wrote: >---- Forwarded message from "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" > ---- > >Date: >From: "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" >To: "'board at wikimedia.org'" >Cc: >Reply-To: >Subject: [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering > > > >>Hello, >> Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in >>your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a >>map on >>site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png >> ) that >>originally came from our web site >>(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm >> ). The real >>source >>of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management >>Services. >>Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it >>removes >>the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, >>but >>we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among >>other >>things). >> >>Cheers >> >>David O'Neil, Manager >>Population Section, BC Stats >>Service BC >>Ministry of Management Services >> >>email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca >>tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 >>www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca >> >> >> >> >---- End forwarded message ---- > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Hello, > Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in >your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a map on >site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png > ) that >originally came from our web site >(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm > ). The real source >of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management Services. >Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it removes >the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, but >we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among other >things). > >Cheers > >David O'Neil, Manager >Population Section, BC Stats >Service BC >Ministry of Management Services > >email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca >tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 >www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca > > I have some serious doubts about the claims of the BC Government in this regard. 1. It is really unclear whether our contributor copied these maps (and similar ones at other articles that Mr. O'Neill did not mention) from the site in question. True our version differs in that we do not include the names for the Regional Districts, but we also do not show an inset map from their site that gives greater detail ton the more heavily populated southwestern corner of the province. 2. The Regional Districts are a creation of legislation. British Columbia does not have counties in the more traditional sense of that term. These districts when they began to be created in 1965 were in some respects equivalent to the establishment. In other jurisdictions Mr.O'neil's claim would be tantamount to claiming that a map of the counties there are not in the public domain. 3. It is not clear that legislative provisions can be copyrighted, and it would therefore seem that Mr. O'Neil's claims are ultra vires, no matter what is said ion the BC government website. Ec (a resident of BC) From maveric149 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 18 12:38:50 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 04:38:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 500k press release In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050318123850.52453.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > What do you all think? Should we send out press releases > tommorrow/Saturday, to be as timely as possible? Also, what was the > 500,000th article? Send now. --mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 13:05:37 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:05:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 500k press release In-Reply-To: <423A6EC6.9000305@earthlink.net> References: <20050318053128.B11C11AC1813@mail.wikimedia.org> <423A6EC6.9000305@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <742dfd0605031805054223e56e@mail.gmail.com> Alright, the press release is finished now, the multilingual portal's stats are updated, the 500k'th article has been chosen... the million-article pool has closed. I suppose we'd better date the press release and announce it! On Michael's advice, let's start sending out the release today, and throughout the weekend. I've updated the text on meta, for those who wish to translate it: http://tinyurl.com/58dnq For the proofreaders out there : please check to make sure there are no stray typos or missing commas. If you have press contacts in your area, please add them to the logbook and send them a release... if you don't have contacts, now's a good time to make some. When you send a release to someone, make sure you enter their name in the logbook, claim it, and then update it with a timestamp. That way we won't spam anyon with more than one notice. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_release_logbook/pr-en-500k -- +sj+ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 13:48:43 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:48:43 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: 500k press release In-Reply-To: <742dfd0605031805054223e56e@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050318053128.B11C11AC1813@mail.wikimedia.org> <423A6EC6.9000305@earthlink.net> <742dfd0605031805054223e56e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050318054823bee16a@mail.gmail.com> Tips on how to send a press release: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_send_a_press_release Which links to the text-only press release, suitable for email: http://tinyurl.com/43t3k +sj+ On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:05:37 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > I suppose we'd better date the press release and announce it! On Mav's advice, too :-) Come, claim media targets while they're hot... From cunctator at kband.com Fri Mar 18 18:12:42 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:12:42 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 3/16/05 10:04 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million > dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition > to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me > out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I > worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. My comment was as much about the enabling behavior of the Wikipedia community was it was about Ed's. That aside: one of the obvious baby steps that should be taken in regards to questions of reliability, tagging versions, etc., is to give people a permanent link to the current version of an article. Ideally in a relatively succinct format. This does not exist--you can link without fear of change to historical revisions, but not to the most recent revision. Not only should this functionality exist, it should be relatively obvious. That would eliminate a *lot* of worries from the academic world--yes, the reliability of the information would still be questionable, but at least they'd know that the reference they make now will be identical at any time in the future. And yes, I know this is difficult in the current code, but it's an important need. From dgerard at gmail.com Fri Mar 18 19:40:26 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 19:40:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423B2EAA.6020200@thingy.apana.org.au> The Cunctator wrote: > That aside: one of the obvious baby steps that should be taken in regards to > questions of reliability, tagging versions, etc., is to give people a > permanent link to the current version of an article. Ideally in a relatively > succinct format. > This does not exist--you can link without fear of change to historical > revisions, but not to the most recent revision. > Not only should this functionality exist, it should be relatively obvious. I believe this is in the current development version, to be released as 1.5. - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 18 19:55:58 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:55:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050318195558.87992.qmail@web60608.mail.yahoo.com> How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of British Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be copyrighted? RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From james at jdforrester.org Fri Mar 18 20:08:23 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 20:08:23 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia In-Reply-To: <20050318195558.87992.qmail@web60608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050318200757.CBD9E1AC01E8@mail.wikimedia.org> On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick wrote: > How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of British > Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be > copyrighted? One imagines that the contention is that the source blank map is in fact held in copyright. > RickK 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 usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk Fri Mar 18 23:44:12 2005 From: usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk (Neil Harris) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 23:44:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423B67CC.4080302@tonal.clara.co.uk> The Cunctator wrote: >On 3/16/05 10:04 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > > >>I was approached by the director of a foundation (with a multi-million >>dollar budget) to create a fork of Wikipedia leading to a print edition >>to be published no later than 2008. If I do this, maybe it will get me >>out of your hair? (The Cunctator wrote, "Rinse, wash, repeat.") But I >>worry whether a fork is the best approach, or even necessary at all. >> >> > >My comment was as much about the enabling behavior of the Wikipedia >community was it was about Ed's. > >That aside: one of the obvious baby steps that should be taken in regards to >questions of reliability, tagging versions, etc., is to give people a >permanent link to the current version of an article. Ideally in a relatively >succinct format. > >This does not exist--you can link without fear of change to historical >revisions, but not to the most recent revision. > >Not only should this functionality exist, it should be relatively obvious. > >That would eliminate a *lot* of worries from the academic world--yes, the >reliability of the information would still be questionable, but at least >they'd know that the reference they make now will be identical at any time >in the future. > >And yes, I know this is difficult in the current code, but it's an important >need. > > As I understand it, this is in the process of being fixed (or at least being made trivial to implement) in 1.5. -- Neil From erik_moeller at gmx.de Sat Mar 19 00:08:28 2005 From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 01:08:28 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikimedia Collaboration of the Week Message-ID: <423B6D7C.9080509@gmx.de> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_COTW is a proposal for a weekly cross-project collaboration similar in process to the English Wikipedia Collaboration of the Week (COTW). To trial this idea, I suggest adding a WM-COTW box to the English Wikipedia Community Portal. Plase comment on this proposal at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Community_Portal (bottom) If this leads to people actually working and voting on the COTW, I will then proceed to propagate the idea to other projects (though hopefully some people will read this list and suggest it on their own on their local Wikimedia project). Ideally, the current WM-COTW would be prominently featured on all the sites, and lead to lots of activity on important tasks such as documentation and promotional materials, as well as an increased group identity, raised awareness of Wikimedia and Meta, and more exposure for our smaller projects. All best, Erik From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 19 08:06:42 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 00:06:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050319080642.34741.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> --- "James D. Forrester" wrote: > On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick > wrote: > > > How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of > British > > Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be > > copyrighted? > > One imagines that the contention is that the source > blank map is in fact > held in copyright. How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would be copyrightable. RickK __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 19 10:05:26 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:05:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] interview with Jimmy Wales on web site of the journal Nature Message-ID: <031920051005.16883.423BF96600063DD7000041F322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050314/full/050314-17.html Not particularly notable, brief discussion of "no original research" and neutrality policy. -- Silverback From james at jdforrester.org Sat Mar 19 11:04:56 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 11:04:56 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia In-Reply-To: <20050319080642.34741.qmail@web60606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050319110512.333D21AC01A9@mail.wikimedia.org> On Saturday, March 19, 2005 8:07 AM, Rick wrote: > --- "James D. Forrester" wrote: > > > On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick > > wrote: > > > > > How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of British > > > Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be > > > copyrighted? > > > > One imagines that the contention is that the source blank map is in > > fact held in copyright. > > How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties > copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would > be copyrightable. The former is a work of art (there is always going to be some imprecision in the drawing of a map vs. the original actual borders as seen on the Earth from a height which might serve to cause the map's creation to be seen as sufficiently intelligent as to warrant copyright status, notwithstanding the selection of transformation to map from an ablate sphere to a plane, itself (the selection, not the mechanical transformation, of course) arguably a concious design creation. Case in point: in the UK, the Ordanance Survey (governmental agency) and the AA (car rescue service) both make maps independently; they alter these maps by adding small deviances (bends in borders, squiggles in rivers, et al.) so that copiers are detectable, but it is the copying of the map itself, not the inclusion of their random squiggles. BICBW. 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 rubenste at ohiou.edu Sat Mar 19 18:10:56 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:10:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050319125051.032bd220@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> A short time ago there was an extensive debate on this list-serve about the nature of our dispute-resolution process, and about the difference between violations of behavioral rules and content rules. Apparently, most people believe that the available processes are adequate to the problems we face. Well, here is a test case and frankly, I do not know -- based on our current policies -- what to do. Over the past couple of weeks there has been vigorous debate at the Capitalism article concerning the introduction. The debate has mostly been between me and Ultramarine on one side, and RJII on the other. Two policies are relevant: NPOV and NOR. RJII insists on writing his own definition of capitalism. He has provided NO evidence of any research, beyond looking up the word "capitalism" on the OED. He consistently provides what he calls a "marxist" definition of capitalism that Ultramarine and I insist is not Marxist, and he refuses to provide a source. Most recently, he posted this comment: >Explanation... I used the term "typically regarded" so that stray >definitions by malcontent college professors don't count. My understanding of this is that he is flagrantly disregarding the basic encyclopedic principle that articles should be based on research. He uses "typically regarded" (and, in other instances, "common knowledge" or "obvious") to explain why he does not need to provide a source for his own definition of capitalism, and to explain why it is intrinsically NPOV, despite my and Ultramarine's vigorous objections. To this he now adds that he is dismissive of definitions provided by scholars! But my problem is not just with RJII, it is with the Wikipedia community, and the community's apparent inability to deal with such problems. Ultramarine and I made several compromises with RJII, but we have reached a point where there can be no compromise (you can't compromise with someone who makes up a definition, refuses to cite sources, and disregards the research other editors do, and thinks that precisely because we can provide a source, which comes from a scholar, that the definition is therefore invalid). On many days we have simply taken turns reverting and reverting -- and as some here have observed, the result was that I was blocked one day for violating the three revert rule. So the first mechanism -- "Most policies and guidelines are thus enforced by individual users editing pages, and discussing matters with each other" -- is not working. I posted a request for comment, and there has been no response. What else can I do? I will not go to the mediation or arbitration committee for two reasons. First, I am not concerned with any possible violations of behavioral guidelines by RJII, I am concerned only with his violation of content guidelines. Second, I do not view this as a personal dispute between he and I, and I do not want others to characterize this as a dispute between he and I. I am not defending my own version of the introduction, or my own definition of capitalism. I do not need someone else to help us come to a compromise definition. I do not want someone else to start investigating my own behavior (for the record, with the exception of the multiple reversions, I have been at pains to avoid any personal attacks. But my point is, my own behavior should not be an issue here. I will gladly voluntarily refrain from editing this article if that would solve anything. But the problem is not the fact that RJII and I do not agree on a definition, the problem is that he consistently refuses to follow basic policies). What we do need is someone who will either make RJII follow our content policies, or who will block him from the article. The introduction, a month ago, was not perfect. But it did introduce the article in an NPOV way. Today it is a shambles, and the discussion on the talk page gives no reason for anyone to believe that it is going to get better in the near future. Is this the process we want to encourage? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sat Mar 19 18:22:35 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:22:35 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: interview with Jimmy Wales on web site of the journal Nature In-Reply-To: <031920051005.16883.423BF96600063DD7000041F322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <031920051005.16883.423BF96600063DD7000041F322058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050314/full/050314-17.html > > Not particularly notable, brief discussion of "no original research" and neutrality policy. > > -- Silverback Not surprisingly the Nature interview discuses Wikispecies. I discuss some of the inaccuracies in the article relating to the Tree of Life Wikipedia pages on my user page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pcb21#Wikispecies Pete From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 19 18:28:23 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:28:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia In-Reply-To: <20050319110512.333D21AC01A9@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050319110512.333D21AC01A9@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <423C6F47.2010902@telus.net> James D. Forrester wrote: >On Saturday, March 19, 2005 8:07 AM, Rick wrote: > > > >>--- "James D. Forrester" wrote: >> >> >> >>>On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>>How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of British >>>>Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be >>>>copyrighted? >>>> >>>> >>>One imagines that the contention is that the source blank map is in >>>fact held in copyright. >>> >>> >>How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties >>copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would >>be copyrightable. >> >> >The former is a work of art (there is always going to be some imprecision in >the drawing of a map vs. the original actual borders as seen on the Earth >from a height which might serve to cause the map's creation to be seen as >sufficiently intelligent as to warrant copyright status, notwithstanding the >selection of transformation to map from an ablate sphere to a plane, itself >(the selection, not the mechanical transformation, of course) arguably a >concious design creation. > >Case in point: in the UK, the Ordanance Survey (governmental agency) and the >AA (car rescue service) both make maps independently; they alter these maps >by adding small deviances (bends in borders, squiggles in rivers, et al.) so >that copiers are detectable, but it is the copying of the map itself, not >the inclusion of their random squiggles. BICBW. > > I don't think that the issue is that simple. The regional districts in British Columbia are a creation of provincial legislation, and although I have not researched in detail the statutes that began creating these in 1965, a formal dexcription (if not a map) of these districts is a part of the law. This then leads to the question of the extent to which crown copyright applies to statutory law. In the recent Supreme Court ruling (CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada) which had to do with photocopying headnotes and other added material from reports of legal cases there was a clear statement that the decisions of judges themselves were not copyrightable, but nothing was said about the underlying statutes. The current BC government is particularly business friendly, and is very keen to put a lot of public services into private hands to the delight of the people who are its most ardent supporters. Where government printing and publishing services are concerned it is clear that the illusion of copyright protection makes the enterprise more marketable. I'm aware of the trick that would make inconsequential changes to geographic features for the purpose of being able to trace the source of a map. But Mr. O'Neil has made no such claim in support of his allegation. Such changes would be probative only, and would be too trivial to generate any kind of derivative copyright Non-trivial changes in this case would be wilfull misrepresentation of laws by government employees, and I doubt that they would want to go down that road Opposition voices might see this differently in the context of the upcoming provincial election in May. I think we should keep the maps. It should be made clear, though, that their status in the public domain existed before they were contributed, and that that status does not arise because of the actions of the contributor. What can O'Neil do about it? Ec From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sat Mar 19 19:49:46 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:49:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050319144535.03308648@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Okay, I have to qualify what I wrote before -- I actually am irritated by the following examples of personal attacks (or at least, very rude behavior) by RJII. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Capitalism&diff=0&oldid=11293681 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Capitalism&diff=11292020&oldid=11291155 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Capitalism&diff=11293352&oldid=11293257 Nevertheless, I am still afraid of requesting mediation or arbitration because however much these irritate me, I maintain that the real problem is the damage RJII is doing to the article by disregarding content policies -- and I do not want my his rude behavior to divert attention from the real problem. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sat Mar 19 20:09:53 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:09:53 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050319144535.03308648@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <000c01c52cbf$9e0d61e0$9e7c0450@Galasien> steven l. rubenstein wrote > Nevertheless, I am still afraid of requesting mediation or arbitration > because however much these irritate me, I maintain that the real problem > is the damage RJII is doing to the article by disregarding content > policies -- > and I do not want my his rude behavior to divert attention from the real > problem. Well, I didn't enjoy getting involved in a mediation. Who would? But you do seem to be implying that content disputes could somehow be separated surgically from the existing processes for conflict resolution. Would that they could. Charles From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sat Mar 19 20:25:56 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:25:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050319152232.032d3630@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Charles Mathews writes: >But you >do seem to be implying that content disputes could somehow be separated >surgically from the existing processes for conflict resolution. Would that >they could. Yes, would that they could. I understand and appreciate your point. But just to be clear: my main concern is simply to focus on what is most important: following content policies. Whatever process is available, I just don't want any personal arguments between me and RJII on the talk pages to divert attention from, or overwhelm, these content-issues. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From george.stepanek at nz.unisys.com Sat Mar 19 21:28:28 2005 From: george.stepanek at nz.unisys.com (Stepanek, George) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:28:28 +1200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Message-ID: From: >This is getting ridiculous. >This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his >detractors and everyone else to stop this discussion. I apologise for adding to an already overlong debate, but my name has been mentioned many times, motivations have been attributed to me, and I would just like an opportunity to respond to the allegations, and to clear my name. Apart from this one email, I will not post further to this mailing list. Even if Blair responds--and I have no doubt he will--I will not be responding. Before I begin, may I first thank Blair for his recent attempts to discuss the issues at hand on the Weight Training talk page. I hope that a compromise can be achieved that will be satisfactory to all parties concerned. The fact is that the first revert was made by Blair, not myself. I'm sorry if this sounds like a kindergarten justification ("he started it", "no he did"), but this fact sheds light on what follows, so please bear with me. Here are Blair's original changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11090304& oldid=11088511 I left the bulk of the changes as they were, and only undid changes to the lead section that I felt removed information, or put in information that had already been disputed by three other editors (Sfahey, Taxman and myself): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11158163& oldid=11090304 The information that was removed was: * that whether weight training is effective at building strength depends upon how it is done * that weight training provides functional benefits (etc.) only via increases to strength and muscle size * that the progressive overload principle is essential to building strength via weight training The disputed fact was Blair's assertion that weight training is aerobic if done at a sufficiently low intensity. I explained my reasoning on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Weight_training#Article_summary This was, at least, an opportunity for Blair to discuss the proposed changes, and seek consensus before putting in place an agreed text, but instead he simply reverted my last edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159169& oldid=11158163 Why did I revert his revert? Because I didn't want to see one stubborn individual override the consensus that had been achieved by the other interested parties. Why did I count my reverts (first, second, third) in the edit summaries? Because I didn't want to break the 3RR myself, or give Blair any opportunity to accuse me of doing so. And because I knew that the revert war was futile, since we were both limited by the 3RR, and I wanted to make this fact totally obvious. After my third revert, Blair made the following changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11177874& oldid=11171514 While not exactly the same as his previous edits, this edit implemented all four of the changes that I had discussed on the talk page. I felt that this was an attempt to subvert the 3RR. I therefore flagged it as a possible 3RR violation, while mentioning the fact that the 4 edits were not exactly alike. I left the matter to the discretion of the admins monitoring the 3RR page. I mentioned the potential 3RR violation to Taxman while asking his advice whether to open an RfC. He suggest not to do so yet, and to "try as hard as you can to see what part of what he has to say is helpful and incorporate those changes." Being an admin Taxman could have blocked Blair at that point, but he chose instead to merely revert once more, and leave it to another admin to block Blair. Taxman's behaviour has been beyond reproach at all times. After Taxman's last revert, I attempted to create a compromise version that included as many of Blair's grammatical and phrasing changes as possible, but including all of the information that Blair had removed, and without the disputed assertion: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11226439& oldid=11185482 From: Blair P. Houghton >It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but >only after I was blocked. >Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was just >reverting the page to goad me into re-reverting it. This is simply not true. I did not, and still do not agree with the four changes described above, and that I have discussed at some length on the talk page. I utterly reject the insinuations that I somehow "tricked" Blair into breaking the 3RR. Indeed, by counting the reverts, I was making it as obvious as possible just how many reverts we were each doing. From: John Lee >If you would stop blabbing about Taxman and George for a minute to >understand this, we might get somewhere. Just because they are the >aggressors does not give you the right or privilege to go ahead and >participate in the fight. I hope that the above evidence is sufficient to show that I was not "the aggressor" in this "fight". I do not wish to have such aspersions against my name left on the record. I am aware that this issue has become a political football between those who support the 3RR, and those who oppose it. I do not wish to enter this debate, except to mention some aspects that no-one has yet mentioned: 1. Yes, Cecropia had every right to unblock Blair. But think about it: isn't this just reverting CryptoDerk's actions? What efforts did Cecropia make to discuss the issue with CryptoDerk, and achieve consensus? As the admin community grows, are we going to see more and more "admin revert wars" pitting one admin against another? Isn't this just going to motivate troublemakers to try to exploit differences of opinion between admins? 2. Yes, a 24-hour block is ineffective in itself at resolving ongoing disputes between long-time users. But a 3RR sanction is not ipso facto meaningless in such cases. To compare it to a real-world example, why do we have $50 parking fines if most people can easily spare $50? A sanction like this is effective because it unequivocally conveys the message that you have broken the rules. It also serves as evidence of poor conduct for any future investigation of the dispute. 3. The 3RR prevents edit wars with hundreds of reverts on each side. Does anyone seriously want to go back to that? It's an arbitrary rule, to be sure, but rules help people to work together by clearly indicating where the boundaries of acceptable conduct lie. 4. Does a paraphrase count as a revert? If not, then won't we see edit-warriors adding and removing the same information over and over again in slightly different words? A strict interpretation of the 3RR rule will simply convert revert-wars to paraphrase-wars. It will be just another way to game the system. 5. No-one can build the Wikipedia alone. Indeed, given how hard it is to write to a strict NPOV, I would argue that no-one can even create a single article alone. Jimbo's primary goal--creating an encyclopedia--is impossible without a community that can work together effectively. We should find ways to identify, sanction and eliminate any and all forms of disruptive behaviour, simply because they just stop us from achieving our primary goal. From: JAY JG >>Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for >>admins? > >I'm sure you're not the only one, but I feel quite the opposite. More >importantly, I think it's made it less likely for regular (i.e. non >edit-warrior) editors to be scared away from Wikipedia. May I note some of Blair's assertions that no-one has yet challenged. He refers to me as one of the "Evil Ones", disparages my appearance and compares my actions to "rape". Is this kind of language and conduct acceptable in Wikipedia? I have found this dispute to be deeply unpleasant and stressful, and I really do not wish to find myself in this kind of situation again. I am therefore withdrawing from Wikipedia. I will still read articles, and fix typos when I find them, but I will no longer be working seriously on any more Wikipedia articles. Thank you for reading my comments. George Stepanek From christiaan at last-straw.net Sat Mar 19 22:24:19 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 22:24:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions Message-ID: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such as crediting authors: http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images Or am I misunderstanding the process? Christiaan From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sat Mar 19 22:30:05 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 23:30:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> Message-ID: > Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL > or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such as > crediting authors: > > http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images > > Or am I misunderstanding the process? > > Christiaan Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? Mgm From christiaan at last-straw.net Sat Mar 19 22:52:15 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 22:52:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <33cb073c492b223d6f10dc925e7e62da@last-straw.net> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they > following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? It's specifically the images I'm talking about, not the articles. Christiaan From dpbsmith at verizon.net Sat Mar 19 23:44:57 2005 From: dpbsmith at verizon.net (dpbsmith at verizon.net) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:44:57 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Blank maps In-Reply-To: <20050319200956.279261AC1853@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050319200956.279261AC1853@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <3ffb85e31ab75a0adb1110680aee49ae@verizon.net> > From: Rick > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia map of British Columbia > --- "James D. Forrester" > wrote: >> On Friday, March 18, 2005 7:56 PM, Rick >> wrote: >> >>> How can a red dot on an otherwise blank map of >> British >>> Columbia with the county lines listed, possibly be >>> copyrighted? >> >> One imagines that the contention is that the source >> blank map is in fact >> held in copyright. > > How is a blank map with the outlines of the counties > copyrighted? Any more than a list of counties would > be copyrightable. > > RickK Off-topic, yet, somehow, I feel, relevant: He had bought a large map representing the sea, Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be A map they could all understand. "What`s the good of Mercator`s North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?" So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply "They are merely conventional signs! "Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes! But we`ve got our brave Captain to thank: (So the crew would protest) "that he`s bought us the best-- A perfect and absolute blank!" --Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark" And the iTunes Music Store sells completely silent tracks with DRM protection for $0.99... ...and John Cage's publisher claims copyright protection for the work 4'33", consisting of that quantity of silence, and claimed infringement and demanded a quarter of the royalties for a work by Mike Batt consisting of a minute of silence, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2133426.stm . (Batt insisted his silence was original and not a quotation a portion of Cage's work...) By the way, anyone who thinks that's ludicrous had better be aware that it's nothing but... and should consider joining the Electronic Frontier Foundation. -- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/ From rkscience100 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 20 01:00:43 2005 From: rkscience100 at yahoo.com (Robert) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:00:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL violation - Laborlawtalk.com In-Reply-To: <20050318234521.431741AC1719@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050320010043.91855.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> I have come across a website that mirrors Wikipedia, but does not note that all of their text is copied from Wikipedia, nor do they note that the text is licensed under a GFDL license. Someone should drop them a line and let them know they are violating the conditions for using our material. http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/The_Foundation_Series http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Impact_event Robert (RK) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 20 01:21:46 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 17:21:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use of Wikipedia content Message-ID: <20050320012146.26131.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Note: I've CC'd this note to the public English Wikipedia mailing list. Hello - I noticed you use content from Wikipedia - that's great! However I do not see any attempt to comply by the Wikipedia license that is required in order to use their content. Specifically, there is no link back to the copied article and no link or mention of the GNU Free Documentation License. LaborLawTalk.com also incorrectly claims ownership and control of the copied articles with this notice on the bottom of every page: Copyright ? 2004 LaborLawTalk.com All rights reserved. Legal notices. Please fix this situation as soon as possible. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights#Example_notice Thank you, Daniel Mayer, Wikipedia author __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From el.ceeh at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 04:03:39 2005 From: el.ceeh at gmail.com (El C) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 23:03:39 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: Indeed, there is no reason to have a purely intellectual impass, whereby one side consistently refuses to cite their sources, turn into a 'personal' dispute. I realize that, in a certain sense, when one fails to provide references after being requested to do so, might be counted as a form of misconduct; but that's really a stretch since it can take place with all due civility. Of course, when dragged for too long, the exchanges almost invariably turn uncivil, which, I think, Steve is alluding to as something that can, and should be, avoided. There is no need for such needless, eliptical stress, on the article and those editing it if the content policies (providing verifiable sources when requested to do so) are adhered to, as a matter of principle, not merely loose convention. This is another instance in which Conduct/Community, by design, muddles and places Content/Encyclopedia to 2ndry role; in needlessly -driving- intellectual disputes towards the personal after much waste of genuine effort and potential (including amongst the content policy violators themselevs, who are, yes, encouraged, but not urged, to follow said policies) ensue. In short, it's not a republic. El_C >I just don't want any personal arguments between me and RJII on the talk >pages to divert attention from, or overwhelm, these content-issues. From elian at djini.de Sun Mar 20 04:30:53 2005 From: elian at djini.de (Elisabeth Bauer) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 05:30:53 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423CFC7D.8010600@djini.de> El C wrote: > Indeed, there is no reason to have a purely intellectual impass, > whereby one side consistently refuses to cite their sources, turn into > a 'personal' dispute. I realize that, in a certain sense, when one > fails to provide references after being requested to do so, might be > counted as a form of misconduct; but that's really a stretch since it > can take place with all due civility. Of course, when dragged for too > long, the exchanges almost invariably turn uncivil, which, I think, > Steve is alluding to as something that can, and should be, avoided. Fine analysis. > There is no need for such needless, eliptical stress, on the article > and those editing it if the content policies (providing verifiable > sources when requested to do so) are adhered to, as a matter of > principle, not merely loose convention. So there is a policy to provide sources when requested? Then enforce it. *greetings* elian From redgum46 at lycos.com Sun Mar 20 06:37:26 2005 From: redgum46 at lycos.com (Arno M) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:37:26 +0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Blair witch-hunting project Message-ID: <20050320063726.272FC86B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> "I have found this dispute to be deeply unpleasant and stressful, and I really do not wish to find myself in this kind of situation again. I am therefore withdrawing from Wikipedia. I will still read articles, and fix typos when I find them, but I will no longer be working seriously on any more Wikipedia articles." Having been through this kind of crap myself (c/o net-you-know-who) I know how he feels. This whole affair has been yet another bit of public muckraking sand brawling that has resulted in a longterm contributor leaving (how long has jdwolff been here?) I haven't followed this saga closely, but this certainly stands out as another example of why this kind of dispute needs to be contained and resolved immediately, especially if real names are involved. -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 20 07:20:49 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 08:20:49 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. We should mention this to Jimbo Ant MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >>Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL >>or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such as >>crediting authors: >> >>http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >> >>Or am I misunderstanding the process? >> >>Christiaan > > > Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they > following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? > > Mgm From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 20 08:27:45 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 08:27:45 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032020050827.28606.423D340100066C3E00006FBE22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > So there is a policy to provide sources when requested? Then enforce it. That is an over simplification. There is composition, explaining and summarizing in the introduction to a complex subject. According to Jimbo, in his nature interview, the no original research was intended for things like keeping crackpot physics theories from getting into wikipedia. Disallowing a particular word order or a dependent clause just because someone hasn't used it in a citation before is abusing the rule and results in a lot of the awkward language so many complain about in our articles. I've read the proposed introductions to the capitalism article most have seemed good faith attempts to capture the various nuances. Perhaps critics of capitalism want to keep the definitions fluid so that it can be used as a perjorative, but the very ways they use it, usually mean they have identified some negative property they want to claim is intrinsically associated with it, rather than merely co-existing with it anecdotally. In its simplist form, capitalism is using tools to increase the productivity of labor, a rather intrinsic, almost definitional human characteristic. Because this is not the direct use of labor to meet ones needs, it requires a little forsight, planning, investment, and even the forgoing of some current consumption. Because it flourishes so vibrantly in a system that rewards deferral of consumption with profit (surprise, surprise), the term capitalism has come to be associated and confused with and ultimately to actually MEAN those conditions which allow it to flourish, i.e., systems with low information and transaction costs (free markets, contract law, a culture of honesty and opposition to fraud) and which ease the raising of capital with limited liability artificial legal entities. -- Silverback From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 20 09:06:56 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 04:06:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Blair witch-hunting project In-Reply-To: <20050320063726.272FC86B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: >This whole affair has been yet another bit of public muckraking sand >brawling that has resulted in a >longterm contributor leaving (how long has jdwolff been here?) I'm not sure why it's relevant, but according to Jfdwolff's user page he's been here since Feb 2004, and an admin since May 2004. Jay. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 20 10:32:50 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:32:50 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content References: <032020050827.28606.423D340100066C3E00006FBE22007503309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <002401c52d38$2ba2b870$9e7c0450@Galasien> actionforum at comcast.net wrote > I've read the proposed introductions to the capitalism article most have > seemed good faith attempts to capture the various nuances. Generalising from a couple of cases (republic, capitalism) is not much better than generalising from a single example. But perhaps the area of political science (plus socio-economic whatever) is particularly subject to this sort of definitional snarl. Anyway, 'definition of capitalism' sounds like an essay topic to me. Charles From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 20 10:34:14 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:34:14 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content References: <423CFC7D.8010600@djini.de> Message-ID: <002c01c52d38$5da65ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Elisabeth Bauer wrote > So there is a policy to provide sources when requested? Then enforce it. Doesn't that go too far? Charles From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Mar 20 10:50:39 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:50:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <002c01c52d38$5da65ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <423CFC7D.8010600@djini.de> <002c01c52d38$5da65ed0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <423D557F.4020705@thingy.apana.org.au> Charles Matthews wrote: > Elisabeth Bauer wrote >> So there is a policy to provide sources when requested? Then enforce it. > Doesn't that go too far? It would mostly be enforced by peer pressure, i.e. "provide something plausibly a source and that goes in. If you can't manage that after repeated requests, it's original research and we're removing it." Presumably this is failing in this case. - d. From mapellegrini at comcast.net Sun Mar 20 11:44:20 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:44:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL violation - Laborlawtalk.com Message-ID: <423D6214.9060604@comcast.net> /http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/The_Foundation_Series / I wrote the vast majority of that article. (Seriously) That's my copyright they're violationg. Burn them to the ground and salt the earth! --Mark From brian1954 at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 12:03:20 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:03:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <547b297e0503200403145e202c@mail.gmail.com> Most content disputes are associated with *behaviour* that oversteps one or more Wikipedia policies, and while there is no arbitration or mediation process for content, there are numerous dispute resolution systems that do focus on behaviour. A problematic editor who is "wrong", is also probably violating the policies on "no original research", "cite your sources", and "neutral point of view". It also usually works out that a person who persists in adding invalid material to articles in violation of these policies will also violate the policies against "personal attacks" and on "civility". This isn't always the case, and unfortunately it often happens that the dispute becomes so heated that nobody maintains the moral high ground on these points. Nevertheless, I think most content disputes can be treated as behavioural issues and resolved on the basis of existing policies without anybody needing to decide the actual content issue. The [[Capitalism]] article is not a test case for content disputes because the problem editor has violated a number of Wikipedia policies, such as "cite your sources". A real test case would be one where a person was politely and civilly putting a kooky point of view into an article, while cheerfully admitting that it was only one of the valid points of view that must be presented under NPOV, and happily citing sources -- all kooky as well. As long as it was not original research, and there were some sources for it, however laughable, such a dispute could not be resolved without a decision on the merits. At present, the only mechanism for that is weight of numbers: the side with the most editors wins. From mapellegrini at comcast.net Sun Mar 20 12:05:21 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:05:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true / /*...* / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. ... ---------- Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is the author of "How to Know." /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and compared us to a public toilet- http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html --Mark From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 20 12:56:57 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:56:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- > A real test case would be one where a person was politely and civilly > putting a kooky point of view into an article, while cheerfully > admitting that it was only one of the valid points of view that must > be presented under NPOV, and happily citing sources -- all kooky as > well. As long as it was not original research, and there were some > sources for it, however laughable, such a dispute could not be > resolved without a decision on the merits. At present, the only > mechanism for that is weight of numbers: the side with the most > editors wins. Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it. Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible. -- Silverback From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 20 12:58:04 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 04:58:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050320125804.84012.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mark Pellegrini wrote: > /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and > compared us to a public toilet- > http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html And the same guy that is going to have dinner with Jimbo soon. I'd like to be a fly on a wall in that room (or is it, a spider under the table?). :) -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 20 13:13:38 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:13:38 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Inability or refusal to provide sources is a violation of policy which is compounded by failure to accept replacement of that material with sourced material. It can, if one chooses, be handled through the dispute resolution process. Or, if that process is not acceptable or unavailable for some reason, be accepted. Fred > From: El C > Reply-To: El C , English Wikipedia > Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 23:03:39 -0500 > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > Indeed, there is no reason to have a purely intellectual impass, > whereby one side consistently refuses to cite their sources, turn into > a 'personal' dispute. I realize that, in a certain sense, when one > fails to provide references after being requested to do so, might be > counted as a form of misconduct; but that's really a stretch since it > can take place with all due civility. Of course, when dragged for too > long, the exchanges almost invariably turn uncivil, which, I think, > Steve is alluding to as something that can, and should be, avoided. > There is no need for such needless, eliptical stress, on the article > and those editing it if the content policies (providing verifiable > sources when requested to do so) are adhered to, as a matter of > principle, not merely loose convention. > > This is another instance in which Conduct/Community, by design, > muddles and places Content/Encyclopedia to 2ndry role; in needlessly > -driving- intellectual disputes towards the personal after much waste > of genuine effort and potential (including amongst the content policy > violators themselevs, who are, yes, encouraged, but not urged, to > follow said policies) ensue. In short, it's not a republic. > > El_C > >> I just don't want any personal arguments between me and RJII on the talk >> pages to divert attention from, or overwhelm, these content-issues. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 20 13:17:31 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:17:31 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <423CFC7D.8010600@djini.de> Message-ID: Under our current policy, the only way to enforce the policy requiring providing sources is to use the dispute resolution policy. Perhaps slrubenstein, or someone else, can offer an alternative... I believe that is the point of this discussion. Fred > From: Elisabeth Bauer > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 05:30:53 +0100 > To: El C , English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > El C wrote: >> Indeed, there is no reason to have a purely intellectual impass, >> whereby one side consistently refuses to cite their sources, turn into >> a 'personal' dispute. I realize that, in a certain sense, when one >> fails to provide references after being requested to do so, might be >> counted as a form of misconduct; but that's really a stretch since it >> can take place with all due civility. Of course, when dragged for too >> long, the exchanges almost invariably turn uncivil, which, I think, >> Steve is alluding to as something that can, and should be, avoided. > > Fine analysis. > >> There is no need for such needless, eliptical stress, on the article >> and those editing it if the content policies (providing verifiable >> sources when requested to do so) are adhered to, as a matter of >> principle, not merely loose convention. > > So there is a policy to provide sources when requested? Then enforce it. > > *greetings* > elian > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 20 13:44:14 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:44:14 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <547b297e0503200403145e202c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The content of Wikipedia articles ought not be decided by majority vote of those who edit that particular article. For one thing, that policy would encourage conflict. After all, who is interested and why? It is not necessary for use of the dispute resolution procedure that there be personal attacks or lack of civility. Simple persistance in violation of a policy, however politely done, is enough. And, in my opinion, that does include insistence on placing a kooky point of view in an article. Fred > From: Brian M > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:03:20 -0500 > To: El C , English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > Most content disputes are associated with *behaviour* that oversteps > one or more Wikipedia policies, and while there is no arbitration or > mediation process for content, there are numerous dispute resolution > systems that do focus on behaviour. > > A problematic editor who is "wrong", is also probably violating the > policies on "no original research", "cite your sources", and "neutral > point of view". It also usually works out that a person who > persists in adding invalid material to articles in violation of these > policies will also violate the policies against "personal attacks" and > on "civility". This isn't always the case, and unfortunately it often > happens that the dispute becomes so heated that nobody maintains the > moral high ground on these points. > > Nevertheless, I think most content disputes can be treated as > behavioural issues and resolved on the basis of existing policies > without anybody needing to decide the actual content issue. The > [[Capitalism]] article is not a test case for content disputes because > the problem editor has violated a number of Wikipedia policies, such > as "cite your sources". > > A real test case would be one where a person was politely and civilly > putting a kooky point of view into an article, while cheerfully > admitting that it was only one of the valid points of view that must > be presented under NPOV, and happily citing sources -- all kooky as > well. As long as it was not original research, and there were some > sources for it, however laughable, such a dispute could not be > resolved without a decision on the merits. At present, the only > mechanism for that is weight of numbers: the side with the most > editors wins. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 13:57:06 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 08:57:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> References: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> Message-ID: <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:15:38 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Wikimedia Foundation wrote: > > >---- Forwarded message from "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" > > ---- > > > >Date: > >From: "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" > >To: "'board at wikimedia.org'" > >Cc: > >Reply-To: > >Subject: [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering > > > > > > > >>Hello, > >> Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in > >>your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a > >>map on > >>site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png > >> ) that > >>originally came from our web site > >>(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm > >> ). The real > >>source > >>of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management > >>Services. > >>Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it > >>removes > >>the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, > >>but > >>we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among > >>other > >>things). > >> > >>Cheers > >> > >>David O'Neil, Manager > >>Population Section, BC Stats > >>Service BC > >>Ministry of Management Services > >> > >>email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca > >>tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 > >>www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca > >> > >> > >> > >> > >---- End forwarded message ---- > > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >Hello, > > Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in > >your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a map on > >site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png > > ) that > >originally came from our web site > >(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm > > ). The real source > >of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management Services. > >Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it removes > >the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, but > >we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among other > >things). > > > >Cheers > > > >David O'Neil, Manager > >Population Section, BC Stats > >Service BC > >Ministry of Management Services > > > >email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca > >tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 > >www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca > > > > > I have some serious doubts about the claims of the BC Government in this > regard. > 1. It is really unclear whether our contributor copied these maps > (and similar ones at other articles that Mr. O'Neill did not mention) > from the site in question. True our version differs in that we do not > include the names for the Regional Districts, but we also do not show an > inset map from their site that gives greater detail ton the more heavily > populated southwestern corner of the province. > 2. The Regional Districts are a creation of legislation. British > Columbia does not have counties in the more traditional sense of that > term. These districts when they began to be created in 1965 were in > some respects equivalent to the establishment. In other jurisdictions > Mr.O'neil's claim would be tantamount to claiming that a map of the > counties there are not in the public domain. > 3. It is not clear that legislative provisions can be copyrighted, > and it would therefore seem that Mr. O'Neil's claims are ultra vires, no > matter what is said ion the BC government website. > > Ec (a resident of BC) I hope you're right about this. However, when I mentioned the complaint on the uploader (Denelson83)'s talk page, I received a most unpleasant and uninformative response. It would seem to be easy for the uploader to help resolve the issue, rather than ranting about it... -- +sj+ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 20 13:57:57 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:57:57 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again References: <20050320125804.84012.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001e01c52d54$d3411dd0$9e7c0450@Galasien> > And the same guy that is going to have dinner with Jimbo soon. I'd like to > be a > fly on a wall in that room (or is it, a spider under the table?). :) > > -- mav You could volunteer as a food-taster for Jimbo. Charles From sean at epoptic.org Sun Mar 20 15:11:48 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:11:48 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423D92B4.2070408@epoptic.com> actionforum at comcast.net stated for the record: > ... all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. > > -- Silverback I suspect that our salvation lies in that phrase. I doubt that the grad student exercise that you are suggesting would be hard to include can't be found somewhere in print -- in physics, frex, we have the Feynmann Lecture Series. -- Sean Barrett | If I knew then what I know now, I would sean at epoptic.com | have said, 'I don't recall.' --Frank | Doyle, FBI agent, testifying under oath | about his previous deposition under oath. From richholton at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 15:28:35 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:28:35 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> References: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4a37983b05032007282d91b033@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 08:57:06 -0500, Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > > I hope you're right about this. However, when I mentioned the > complaint on the uploader (Denelson83)'s talk page, I received a most > unpleasant and uninformative response. It would seem to be easy for > the uploader to help resolve the issue, rather than ranting about > it... > Denelson83's expressed attitude on his/her talk page seems to be in direct contradiction to the Wikipedia policy on [[Wikipedia:Civility]]. His/her talk page says, in part: "any time I am sent a message with regard to bad edits, copyright violations, or any other alleged negative contributions, it is involuntarily interpreted as either an assault on my intelligence, an action I take extremely personally, or a pure threat..." Taken at face value, this leads me to believe that Denelson83 has issues that preclude civil participation on a collaborative project such as Wikipedia. Also, Denelson83 is not the first user I've come across who insists on maintaining a blank user page. It seems that one likely motive for this is the desire for their user name to "stand out" in various listings. Another possibility is the desire to discourage the use of their talk page. Either way, I think this is a practice that we should actively discourage, with changes to the software if necessary. -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 20 15:36:08 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:36:08 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032020051536.14875.423D98680003583300003A1B22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > actionforum at comcast.net stated for the record: > > > ... all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. > > > > -- Silverback > > I suspect that our salvation lies in that phrase. I doubt that the grad > student exercise that you are suggesting would be hard to include can't > be found somewhere in print -- in physics, frex, we have the Feynmann > Lecture Series. Yes, the Fynmann series is a prized possession and I highly recommended them. That said, I think I have an example in Fred's "kooky source" vein, Christiaan, in the [[Depleted uranium]] article has a source that claims outlandish disability figures from the first Gulf war, that I can't confirm from any official source, are unrelated to depleted uranium, and depart substantially and incredibly from the official disability figures from one year earlier. I haven't succeeded in deleting this information, so I just contrapose the official figures with it. It would be such a minor thing to bring an arb case on. Much of wikipedia, is forced to contrapose to achieve NPOV or even mere correctness. -- Silverback From brian1954 at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 15:38:58 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:38:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: References: <547b297e0503200403145e202c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <547b297e050320073867de9101@mail.gmail.com> Fred, I wasn't suggesting that the "weight of numbers" mechanism method of dispute resolution is *desirable* in the case of content disputes. However, I'm afraid that is effectively the mechanism we have today, as long as everyone stays within such policies as NPOV, NOR, civility, etc, which define proper behaviour. By the way, "weight of numbers" doesn't necessarily translate to a vote. Despite no vote being taken, a single editor -- even one who right and truth on his side (as he will generally believe) -- cannot maintain his position against a larger number of editors on the other "side", unless he violates the behavioural policies, such as 3RR. A single editor insisting on his position against the consensus of other editors will generally be considered to be edit-warring, even if he happens to be right. Wikipedia policies generally work when truth aligns with the numerical majority. Our policies have problems when this is not the case. I think, fortunately, our policies generally do work -- especially in the long run. But it isn't hard to find exceptions in the short run. On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 06:44:14 -0700, Fred Bauder wrote: > The content of Wikipedia articles ought not be decided by majority vote of > those who edit that particular article. For one thing, that policy would > encourage conflict. After all, who is interested and why? > > It is not necessary for use of the dispute resolution procedure that there > be personal attacks or lack of civility. Simple persistance in violation of > a policy, however politely done, is enough. And, in my opinion, that does > include insistence on placing a kooky point of view in an article. > > Fred > > > From: Brian M > > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > > > Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:03:20 -0500 > > To: El C , English Wikipedia > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > > > Most content disputes are associated with *behaviour* that oversteps > > one or more Wikipedia policies, and while there is no arbitration or > > mediation process for content, there are numerous dispute resolution > > systems that do focus on behaviour. > > > > A problematic editor who is "wrong", is also probably violating the > > policies on "no original research", "cite your sources", and "neutral > > point of view". It also usually works out that a person who > > persists in adding invalid material to articles in violation of these > > policies will also violate the policies against "personal attacks" and > > on "civility". This isn't always the case, and unfortunately it often > > happens that the dispute becomes so heated that nobody maintains the > > moral high ground on these points. > > > > Nevertheless, I think most content disputes can be treated as > > behavioural issues and resolved on the basis of existing policies > > without anybody needing to decide the actual content issue. The > > [[Capitalism]] article is not a test case for content disputes because > > the problem editor has violated a number of Wikipedia policies, such > > as "cite your sources". > > > > A real test case would be one where a person was politely and civilly > > putting a kooky point of view into an article, while cheerfully > > admitting that it was only one of the valid points of view that must > > be presented under NPOV, and happily citing sources -- all kooky as > > well. As long as it was not original research, and there were some > > sources for it, however laughable, such a dispute could not be > > resolved without a decision on the merits. At present, the only > > mechanism for that is weight of numbers: the side with the most > > editors wins. > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 Sun Mar 20 17:53:26 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:53:26 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Blair witch-hunting project References: <20050320063726.272FC86B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <001f01c52d75$b946b6d0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Arno M wrote >This whole affair has been yet another bit of public muckraking sand >brawling that has resulted in a longterm contributor leaving (how long has >jdwolff been here?) I think this was an unfortunate way to start a rumour. [[User:Jfdwolff]] has made over 100 edits today, I'm glad to say. This isn't the first time people have tried to score points on this list by saying or implying 'X left because ...'. Could we have a truce on all of that, please? Charles From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 20 17:59:08 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:59:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <547b297e050320073867de9101@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The single editor needs to stop when he realizes the situation and use the dispute resolution procedure rather than reverting and edit warring. And the case needs to be taken up on that basis alone, not rejected until there are a bunch of reverts and personal attacks. By only taking cases which exhibit an emotional blowup, we, in effect, demand that as a threshold requirement. Fred > From: Brian M > Reply-To: Brian M , English Wikipedia > > Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 10:38:58 -0500 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > Fred, I wasn't suggesting that the "weight of numbers" mechanism > method of dispute resolution is *desirable* in the case of content > disputes. > > However, I'm afraid that is effectively the mechanism we have today, > as long as everyone stays within such policies as NPOV, NOR, civility, > etc, which define proper behaviour. > > By the way, "weight of numbers" doesn't necessarily translate to a > vote. Despite no vote being taken, a single editor -- even one who > right and truth on his side (as he will generally believe) -- cannot > maintain his position against a larger number of editors on the other > "side", unless he violates the behavioural policies, such as 3RR. A > single editor insisting on his position against the consensus of other > editors will generally be considered to be edit-warring, even if he > happens to be right. Wikipedia policies generally work when truth > aligns with the numerical majority. Our policies have problems when > this is not the case. I think, fortunately, our policies generally > do work -- especially in the long run. But it isn't hard to find > exceptions in the short run. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Mar 20 18:13:53 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:13:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423DBD61.20606@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it. > Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible. Do you have real-life examples of this happening? I think it's important that it always remain on-topic for someone to ask, at a given assertion or definition, for a reference for it. As [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] points out, it may be obvious to *you*. But if someone comes along in five years and asks, backup would be a very useful thing. I've been spreading {{unreferenced}} tags with great (slightly restrained, after the TFD nomination ;-) glee, and I see others have taken to it too. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Mar 20 18:18:53 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:18:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <423D92B4.2070408@epoptic.com> References: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <423D92B4.2070408@epoptic.com> Message-ID: <423DBE8D.4030502@thingy.apana.org.au> Sean Barrett wrote: > actionforum at comcast.net stated for the record: >> ... all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. > I suspect that our salvation lies in that phrase. I doubt that the grad > student exercise that you are suggesting would be hard to include can't > be found somewhere in print -- in physics, frex, we have the Feynmann > Lecture Series. Yes. Or the expert can refer to the standard textbook they have several of ... or wrote. (If they want to avoid referring to their own work, they can note it on talk for another to put on the page.) I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Sun Mar 20 18:23:50 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:23:50 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <423DBFB6.7060001@thingy.apana.org.au> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > You should note that before I left the project, I started this with > [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]]. This was designed to have no noticable > disruptionn of the main article (I directly linked to a proposed > revision, this was done on a subpage that hangs off the article. The > discussion of the revision is done on the talk page.) It was my hope > this could allow for a "stamped" version of a FA page that we could > proudly state is the most reliable version and guaranteed not to be > vandalised. This is of course still sorta possible: anyone can link to chosen good versions of articles. The problem is that the selection person/committee won't scale ... > Regrettably, it looks like my idea has fallen through. I hope that > Wikipedia can find a credible alternative. ... however, Magnus Manske has announced that he will be getting the [[m:Article validation feature]] into shape for MediaWiki 1.5. w00t! This may be useful to supply baseline versions by consensus, with comparatively very little human tweaking needed afterward for a distribution. - d. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Sun Mar 20 19:14:26 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:14:26 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content References: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net><423D92B4.2070408@epoptic.com> <423DBE8D.4030502@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <000501c52d81$09ec7650$9e7c0450@Galasien> David Gerard wrote > I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference. OTOH - I thought I had a good argument by analogy with knowledge engineering. There it is common ground that so-called expert systems, that can justify arguments step-by-step from rules, do _not_ imitate real experts, but plodders without a real feel or mastery for a topic. That is, if you have a real expert, you distort the expertise by doing that to it. Then I discovered that [[expert system]] is a POV piece of selling ... Charles From blair at houghton.net Sun Mar 20 19:36:57 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 12:36:57 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423DD0D9.4080209@houghton.net> No, George, the page history shows Sfahey and I were working on it, including one revert that I made on 10 March, then on 11 March you made several edits that removed the facts I'd installed, then on 13 March I edited again, and you reverted it and the actual edit war began. BTW, the link you posted to what you claim was my first revert went to the last edit on the page. I don't know why and I don't care. Yes, I compared your actions to a rape, and I explained right along with the comparison why taking that personally would be inane. That you would take it out of context in order to grandstand is telling. Learn the difference between an analogy and an attack. I was not acting unilaterally, I was imbuing the article with factual truth and including some of the elements of the discussion. I wasn't participating in the discussion initially because I assumed reasonable people would accept the facts. You don't seem to be a reasonable person, preferring to use your revert to try to hold me hostage in the talk page. Your desire to pretend to be the owner of the page precipitated what followed. Both Dan100 and I have called you on that. I am happy to see that you have taken a step back from the page, but not happy that you spent the time to create this laughable case. You persistently force people into unnecessary discussion of innocuous edits. The fact that you reverted then later included all of my additions, but refused to elide any of yours, is the most telling evidence of all. You just don't understand how Wikipedia works. And if you don't think that embargoing the truth and twisting the facts and playing politics are less civil than using figurative language to point out someone else's flawed reasoning, then you don't understand yourself. --Blair From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 20 19:43:00 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:43:00 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032020051256.16213.423D731900006AF000003F5522058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: > >Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a >scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly >states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't >been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, >and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine >his/her frustration at being asked >for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide >one, even though he >can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it. > >Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big >hole in making the subject >more accessible. Another strawman argument against the No original research rule. Basic concepts of scientific fields are stated basically and simply in all sorts of introductory texts. If they are not stated there, then they are not basic concepts at all. Jay. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Sun Mar 20 20:21:56 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:21:56 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050320151313.030580b8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Silverback wrote: >Disallowing a particular word order or a dependent clause just because >someone hasn't used it in a citation before is abusing the rule and >results in a lot of the awkward language so many complain about in our >articles. This is not the first time that SIlverback has misrepresented a conflict in order to trivialize the importance of content and contents policies. The specific issue with RJII is this: he has added -- several times over the past several weeks, this definition of capitalism -- "private ownership of capital" and he has claimed, on the talk page and in the edit summary, that this definition comes from Marx. I am certain that this definition does not come from Marx, and is not Marxist, as RJII claims. So how do we resolve this dispute? I asked RJII to tell me where Marx said this or anything like this, to provide a citation. I have asked him repeatedly. He refuses to provide a citation. This has nothing to do with word order or grammar, and for Silverback to insinuate that it does serves no constructive purpose. Elian was right to say, "Enforce it" (our policy). The problem is -- how do we enforce it? Through what mechanism? Since RJII persists in adding this definition and refuses to provide a source, I personally want to block him from the article. But if I do so, I will be accused of abusing my admin powers by using them against someone "I am in a dispute with." Okay, I will leave it for others to do something. But I have to reiterate -- the problem is not that I am in a dispute with him, the problem is he won't follow policy. And it doesn't help that whenever Silverback has an opportunity, he belittles our policies. Silverback, your own "definition" of capitalism only further muddies the waters. As you should know by now, your own definition of capitalism (like mine, or RJII's) is irrelevant here. We are researching an encyclopedia, and we are committed to NPOV and NOR. That means providing different people's definitions of capitalism in a verifiable way. Please stop trivializing our project to write a good encyclopedia. Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From blair at houghton.net Sun Mar 20 20:26:05 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:26:05 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Blair witch-hunting project In-Reply-To: <20050320063726.272FC86B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> References: <20050320063726.272FC86B0F@ws7-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: <423DDC5D.2060603@houghton.net> I'd just like to add that I wish they'd never named that movie that. --Blair From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sun Mar 20 21:48:16 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:48:16 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050320151313.030580b8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Yes, the problem seems to be: How can a dispute be resolved without using the dispute resolution process? Fred > From: "steven l. rubenstein" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:21:56 -0500 > To: > Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > The problem is -- how > do we enforce it? Through what mechanism? Since RJII persists in adding > this definition and refuses to provide a source, I personally want to block > him from the article. But if I do so, I will be accused of abusing my > admin powers by using them against someone "I am in a dispute with." From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 20 22:02:05 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:02:05 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423DF2DD.9020409@telus.net> Fred Bauder wrote: >Under our current policy, the only way to enforce the policy requiring >providing sources is to use the dispute resolution policy. Perhaps >slrubenstein, or someone else, can offer an alternative... > >I believe that is the point of this discussion. > The other thing that can happen is that if a contributor can't provide sources when asked and nobody else wants to add them within a reasonable time the questionable material is simply deleted. At the same time there should not be an extremist interpretation of "no original research". In some instances a basic textbook can be used as a resource, and a reasonable level of interpretation should be acceptable. I consider citing sources to be far more important that no original research. I view this mostly from a Wiktionary context where in their attempt to avoid infringing copyrights contributors tend to write their own definitions, and these can be far from accurate. Ec From saintonge at telus.net Sun Mar 20 23:20:54 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:20:54 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> References: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423E0556.5000801@telus.net> Sj wrote: >On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:15:38 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > > >>Wikimedia Foundation wrote: >> >> >> >>>---- Forwarded message from "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" >>> ---- >>> >>>Date: >>>From: "O'Neil, David MSER:EX" >>>To: "'board at wikimedia.org'" >>>Cc: >>>Reply-To: >>>Subject: [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>Hello, >>>> Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in >>>>your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a >>>>map on >>>>site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png >>>> ) that >>>>originally came from our web site >>>>(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm >>>> ). The real >>>>source >>>>of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management >>>>Services. >>>>Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it >>>>removes >>>>the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, >>>>but >>>>we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among >>>>other >>>>things). >>>> >>>>Cheers >>>> >>>>David O'Neil, Manager >>>>Population Section, BC Stats >>>>Service BC >>>>Ministry of Management Services >>>> >>>>email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca >>>>tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 >>>>www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>---- End forwarded message ---- >>> >>> >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>>Hello, >>> Just wondering what the policy on materials that are embedded in >>>your pages, when the material is taken from other sites? I noticed a map on >>>site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BCMap-doton-Victoria.png >>> ) that >>>originally came from our web site >>>(http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/maps/rdmap.htm >>> ). The real source >>>of this image really should be BC Stats, Ministry of Management Services. >>>Descriptive bits were removed from the image, but I don't think it removes >>>the reality of the actual source of the image. I'm not that retentive, but >>>we try to always properly attribute source, to avoid confusion (among other >>>things). >>> >>>Cheers >>> >>>David O'Neil, Manager >>>Population Section, BC Stats >>>Service BC >>>Ministry of Management Services >>> >>>email: Dave.ONeil at gems8.gov.bc.ca >>>tel: 250-387-0335 fax: 250-387-0329 >>>www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca >>> >>> >>> >>> >>I have some serious doubts about the claims of the BC Government in this >>regard. >> 1. It is really unclear whether our contributor copied these maps >>(and similar ones at other articles that Mr. O'Neill did not mention) >>from the site in question. True our version differs in that we do not >>include the names for the Regional Districts, but we also do not show an >>inset map from their site that gives greater detail ton the more heavily >>populated southwestern corner of the province. >> 2. The Regional Districts are a creation of legislation. British >>Columbia does not have counties in the more traditional sense of that >>term. These districts when they began to be created in 1965 were in >>some respects equivalent to the establishment of counties. In other jurisdictions >>Mr.O'neil's claim would be tantamount to claiming that a map of the >>counties there are not in the public domain. >> 3. It is not clear that legislative provisions can be copyrighted, >>and it would therefore seem that Mr. O'Neil's claims are ultra vires, no >>matter what is said ion the BC government website. >> >>Ec (a resident of BC) >> >> > >I hope you're right about this. However, when I mentioned the >complaint on the uploader (Denelson83)'s talk page, I received a most >unpleasant and uninformative response. It would seem to be easy for >the uploader to help resolve the issue, rather than ranting about >it... > It looks as if our friend believes himself to be immune from criticism. :-) He is not the only one to have used the same map. See also [[Image:Bcmap.PNG]]. This one was added by [[User:Earl Andrew]] who also claims that he created the image. The end of his talk page has a cryptic comment about not responding to inquiries about images. Personally, I believe in a copyright policy where we give ourselves a significant benefit of the doubt. However, doing that involves an open expression of the reasons for doubting a putative claimant's rights. What irritates me most in this situation, where I believe that we have a strong argument for keeping the images, is the questionable claim that these contributors drew the maps themselves. A copyright argument based on a misrepresentation is difficult to sustain. At least one of them should site his source. I do not believe that the simple addition of a red dot implies the creation of a whole new work. Ec From alphasigmax at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 23:36:28 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:06:28 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <423E08FC.8070403@gmail.com> Anthere wrote: > I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where > is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. > > We should mention this to Jimbo > > Ant > > > MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: > >>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL >>> or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such as >>> crediting authors: >>> >>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>> >>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>> >>> Christiaan >> >> >> >> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they >> following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? >> >> Mgm > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > The biggest problem is when bandwidth leaching occurs, which they are not doing in this case. See [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]]. However, we do need to do something about this. [[en:User:Alphax]] From alphasigmax at gmail.com Sun Mar 20 23:58:50 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:28:50 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] GFDL violation - Laborlawtalk.com In-Reply-To: <423D6214.9060604@comcast.net> References: <423D6214.9060604@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423E0E3A.5040606@gmail.com> Mark Pellegrini wrote: > /http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/The_Foundation_Series > / > I wrote the vast majority of that article. (Seriously) That's my > copyright they're violationg. > Burn them to the ground and salt the earth! > --Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > Now /that/ is bad. Check the [http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Main%20page Main page] - some stuff is recent, other stuff is not. Needs listing on [[Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks]]. We need a project group to deal with these. [[en:User:Alphax]] From jcecropia at mail.com Sun Mar 20 23:59:00 2005 From: jcecropia at mail.com (Jim Cecropia) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:59:00 -0400 Subject: [WikiEN-l] The Blair witch-hunting project Message-ID: <20050320235900.90E114BE6D@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Blair P. Houghton said: > I'd just like to add that I wish they'd never named that movie that. > > --Blair They were originally going to call it "The Cecropia Witch Project." I dodged that bullet. --C -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From morven at gmail.com Mon Mar 21 00:10:06 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:10:06 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <4a37983b05032007282d91b033@mail.gmail.com> References: <1111116597.240584.974412525.15049.23@ticket.wikimedia.org> <423A9C3A.8040004@telus.net> <742dfd060503200557783fcc7d@mail.gmail.com> <4a37983b05032007282d91b033@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc0050320161023e016a6@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:28:35 -0600, Richard Holton wrote: > Denelson83's expressed attitude on his/her talk page seems to be in > direct contradiction to the Wikipedia policy on > [[Wikipedia:Civility]]. I would strongly agree, having gone to look at it. This user does not answer ANY questions or comments about their behavior or actions, instead replacing the question with "" and the like, in red. They state: "If you are going to post a message on this page, it must be a positive comment. Any comments that I interpret as destructive will be disregarded and removed from this page. Thank you." They also attempt to place conditions on the use of article history: "n.b. All past revisions of this page are considered to be deleted, and may not be reviewed. To review past messages, see my archive subpages." This is, IMO, completely ridiculous. -Matt (User:Morven) From james at jdforrester.org Mon Mar 21 00:45:45 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 00:45:45 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <42f90dc0050320161023e016a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050321004559.8914B1AC02CA@mail.wikimedia.org> On Monday, March 21, 2005 12:10 AM, Matt Brown wrote: > On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:28:35 -0600, Richard Holton > wrote: > > > Denelson83's expressed attitude on his/her talk page seems to be in > > direct contradiction to the Wikipedia policy on > > [[Wikipedia:Civility]]. > > I would strongly agree, having gone to look at it. This user does not > answer ANY questions or comments about their behavior or actions, > instead replacing the question with " violation ("Negative criticism not tolerated")>" and the like, in red. > They state: "If you are going to post a message on this page, it must > be a positive comment. Any comments that I interpret as destructive > will be disregarded and removed from this page. Thank you." > > They also attempt to place conditions on the use of article history: > > "n.b. All past revisions of this page are considered to be deleted, > and may not be reviewed. To review past messages, see my archive > subpages." > > This is, IMO, completely ridiculous. It's not ridiculous, though it is mildly amusing (in a rather sad way). "Ridiculous" suggests that the comments are actually evaluated in a rational light, which these do not qualify for. People making such demands have no basis to make them, and can be ignored as safely as those who demand payment for the oxygen plants on their land have produced which has found its way into one's lungs. However, it is probably for the best for such users to be given a friendly word that their posturing and posing merely serves to make themselves look foolish in the eyes of a great many people, and does not serve their cause (which one could, perhaps somewhat unkindly, term 'Narcissism'), if only for their perceived image. 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 actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 00:52:42 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 00:52:42 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050052.26352.423E1AD9000DE9F9000066F022070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > This is not the first time that SIlverback has misrepresented a conflict in > order to trivialize the importance of content and contents policies. It probably isn't, but are you sure in this case? > The specific issue with RJII is this: he has added -- several times over the > past several weeks, this definition of capitalism -- "private ownership of > capital" and he has claimed, on the talk page and in the edit summary, that > this definition comes from Marx. I am certain that this definition does > not come from Marx, and is not Marxist, as RJII claims. So how do we > resolve this dispute? I asked RJII to tell me where Marx said this or > anything like this, to provide a citation. I have asked him > repeatedly. He refuses to provide a citation. > This has nothing to do with word order or grammar, and for Silverback to > insinuate that it does serves no constructive purpose. Are you being difficult and taking the point of view, that if it doesn't come from Marx then it isn't "marxist"? What if such a reasonable inference is involved, say for instance that marxism is defined as public ownership of the means of production and marxist rhetoric is constantantly raving about the capitalists and the private ownership of capital, and private property being a property of capitalism. Do marxists actually have to have written a dictionary themselves or formatlly defined the terms in one of their signature works? It seems a fairly reasonable inference from marxist uses of the word what their meaning is. What is your objection? It is not as if his definition misrepresents or is perjorative of the marxist position. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 01:25:49 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 01:25:49 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050125.12568.423E229D0000DA870000311822007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > And it doesn't help that whenever Silverback has an opportunity, he > belittles our policies. Silverback, your own "definition" of capitalism > only further muddies the waters. As you should know by now, your own > definition of capitalism (like mine, or RJII's) is irrelevant here. We are > researching an encyclopedia, and we are committed to NPOV and NOR. That > means providing different people's definitions of capitalism in a > verifiable way. Marx was complementary of capitalism for demonstrating that wealth was not static but could be created. If one were to point out that Marx appreciated that capitalism was not a zero sum game, would one be doing original research because he is using language that did not exist in Marx's time, or is he merely being descriptive in modern language of Marx's position? When does mere description or translation (in this case into modern language) become original research? Scientists often define their terms at the beginning of a publication. More precision or a specific nuance of a term is needed in order to communicate clearly, sometimes the "definition" is simply to rule out specific possible ambiguous interpretations of the term. The term still contains a recognizable essence of the original meaning, but has become a term of art. The recognizable essence may not be the same essence that YOU would have selected, but you should adopt that meaning when reading the rest of the paper. Now if at the end, in the conclusions, the author tries to make rhetorical generalizations to the usual definition of the term, you are entitled to object. Yes, I define terms, or rather select reductionists nuances of terms in an attempt at communication, but if you insist for instance that capitalism is a subset of fascism (BTW, you haven't as far as I know, perhaps "mercantilism" would be a better example), you are trying to denigrate and not communicate. What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? Or do you think he would avoid giving one as a rhetorical technique to avoid being pinned down and put on the defensive? -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 01:45:23 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 01:45:23 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > I've been spreading {{unreferenced}} tags with great (slightly > restrained, after the TFD nomination ;-) glee, and I see others > have taken to it too. What are your standards for applying an "unreferenced" tag? Do you apply it to every statement in an article that doesn't have a reference? Or do you just select statements that appear to be outliers or unlikely from your experience? I think in a scientific article, indescriminate use of the unreferenced tag would collide with the assumption of good faith. Many facts in our articles are not referenced, but if you were to challenge for instance the statement that beta blockers inhibit the nocturnal release of melatonin, especially after the statement had been in the article for awhile, the burden should be on you to at least have checked the PDR and have done a medline search. -- Silverback From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Mar 21 01:49:05 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 01:49:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032120050125.12568.423E229D0000DA870000311822007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032120050125.12568.423E229D0000DA870000311822007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423E2811.7020600@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? I'd say it's off topic for this list. Silverback, you never did give me that example I asked for. Do you have one? - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Mar 21 01:56:52 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 01:56:52 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423E29E4.8080005@thingy.apana.org.au> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>I've been spreading {{unreferenced}} tags with great (slightly >>restrained, after the TFD nomination ;-) glee, and I see others >>have taken to it too. > What are your standards for applying an "unreferenced" tag? To articles that have *no references whatsoever* and no external links and aren't stubs. i.e. not "your references are crap" but literally, "this article has no references at all." Now then, the question I asked before. You wrote: > Nah, the kooky view is too easy. A better case would be a passage in a scientific article written by one of our inhouse experts that correctly states the basic concept of a scientific field, but in a way that hasn't been "published" because it is trivial grad student exercise the derive it, and all published work is at the bleeding edge of the field. Imagine his/her frustration at being asked for a citation for something that is obvious, and not being able to provide one, even though he can explain it so well that even the arbitrators understand it. > Sorry, no original research, no insightful explanations and yes, a big hole in making the subject more accessible. I asked: Do you have real-life examples of this happening? - d. From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 02:12:51 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 02:12:51 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050212.8671.423E2DA30001872E000021DF22007614389B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Yes. Or the expert can refer to the standard textbook they have several > of ... or wrote. (If they want to avoid referring to their own work, > they can note it on talk for another to put on the page.) > > I remain utterly unconvinced of this alleged impossibility of reference. I tend to agree that things are ultimately referencable, although some derivation or application of a form of analysis may sometimes be needed. I am probably more concerned about the difficulty of providing a reference, an example that comes to mind is when something is in the literature, not in the textbooks, but the literature is too old too have abstracts online, if I recall correctly, this difficulty actually occurred when I was researching whether the theory that thalidomide caused birth defects by inhibiting angiogenesis. Although, research into its possible application in cancer did not occur until the early 1990s, the theory was first proposed back in the late 60s or early 70s. In terms of "real life" wikipedia examples I may not have a perfectly apropo example but I can probably bracket it. Consider the difficulty of defending this statement (fortunately I haven't had to) in the [[Global warming]] article "Climate models that pass the above tests while only modeling the direct effects of increases in solar activity will have attributed too much of the historical warming to greenhouse gas forcing, and will predict larger increases in temperature in the future." Yes, it may ulitimately be referencable as an APPLICATION of basic understanding of modeling, parameterization and correlation, but frankly, I am glad that some in the community will apply their basic scientific understanding and not insist that every nuance be documented. Consider also, consider whether one should object to Connelly's refutation of Singer in the SEPP article, which I tried to revert but have not insisted, since I think, good faith in controversial scientific articles requires the allowance of some argumentation and derivation. Others, however, are in a continuing revert war with him, and I disagree with his interpretation. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Science_%26_Environmental_Policy_Project&diff=10911317&oldid=10895572 -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 02:42:48 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 02:42:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050242.21920.423E34A80009B1F1000055A022058864429B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> ------------- Original message -------------- d. wrote: > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > > What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? > > I'd say it's off topic for this list. Well, I didn't self righteously bring it to the list as if someone I disagreed with was obviously wrong. As long as we are agreed the issue of which side was "correct" or acting in good faith is NOT obvious. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Mon Mar 21 03:07:03 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 03:07:03 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032120050307.13754.423E3A570004B550000035BA22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> By the way there is another nuance to the Global warming example: > "Climate models that pass the above tests while only > modeling the direct effects of increases in solar activity will > have attributed too much of the historical warming > to greenhouse gas forcing, and will predict larger increases > in temperature in the future." Should wikipedia strive to be "actually" correct or just "technically" correct? In the same vein as the above quote, recently published research on "climate commitment" already cited on the page, means that the predictions made by the models that do not incorporate this "lag" effect are invalid. Those models will have been parameterized to attribute to greenhouse gasses warming that was actually due to a lag effect (due to the heat capacity of the ocean) from warming earlier in the 20th century and in the 19th century. So, not only could a qualifying statement such as the one above be put into the article, the predictions of future warming should be deleted. However, the statements of those predictions would be technically correct because they are attributed to the IPCC. But is a straight forward application of published research "original research" by the wikipedia definition? How would one defend a technically correct statement analogous to the one above? It is newly published research so no one has said the particular application before. But it is pretty basic text book stuff, that if you parameterize a model to data and the model does not contain a critical variable, if the model can fit the data at all, it will attribute the effect to the variables that it does contain. This stuff is so basic and correct that one could not get a peer reviewed journal to publish it, because sorry it is just an application of mathmatics. But would it be "original research" on wikipedia? Frankly, I would put it in the article, defend it on the talk page, would NOT insist that the now incorrect facts be taken out. But if some were to engage in a revert war crying "original research", I would just blow it off, because they are not showing good faith. I wouldn't want to bother trying to rally a poll on the issue because that is not the way factual issues should be decided, that is not how you "win" in science. -- Silverback From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 21 05:04:18 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:04:18 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> Message-ID: Mark Pellegrini wrote: > Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- > http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true > > / > /*...* > / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free > online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize > the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and > the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the > communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better > understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what > someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this > openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. > ... > ---------- > Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is > the author of "How to Know." > > /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and > compared us to a public toilet- > http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html > > --Mark "In each of these examples, a small and self-selected group convinces itself not so much that it represents the greater world beyond the computer screen but that it is in some ineffable way superior to it, that it has transcended the need for the hard lessons the rest of us have learned about how things actually work." Can anyone say irony? The Encyclopedia Britannica uses an even smaller number of people to write their articles. Through the years, the EB has proven wrong in many of their editions. That they are more correct in their latest works shows that they have the same issues as Wikipedia. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 21 05:25:06 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:25:06 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Interesting new Taipei Times feature Message-ID: I find this particularly interesting: the Taipei times have a Wikipedia link that seems to get their normal stories and run an automated filter over the text and link directly to Wikipedia articles. Example: Non wikipedia linked: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/03/21/2003247221 Wikipedia linked: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/03/21/2003247221/wiki Kinda cool. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 21 05:41:31 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 16:41:31 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: <423DBFB6.7060001@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> <423DBFB6.7060001@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: David Gerard wrote: > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > >> You should note that before I left the project, I started this with >> [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]]. This was designed to have no >> noticable disruptionn of the main article (I directly linked to a >> proposed revision, this was done on a subpage that hangs off the >> article. The discussion of the revision is done on the talk page.) It >> was my hope this could allow for a "stamped" version of a FA page that >> we could proudly state is the most reliable version and guaranteed not >> to be vandalised. > > > > This is of course still sorta possible: anyone can link to chosen good > versions of articles. > > The problem is that the selection person/committee won't scale ... > > >> Regrettably, it looks like my idea has fallen through. I hope that >> Wikipedia can find a credible alternative. > > > > ... however, Magnus Manske has announced that he will be getting the > [[m:Article validation feature]] into shape for MediaWiki 1.5. w00t! > > This may be useful to supply baseline versions by consensus, with > comparatively very little human tweaking needed afterward for a > distribution. > > > - d. Cool :) Even if my idea doesn't scale, it would still be good for reviewing articles. TBSDY From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Mon Mar 21 02:13:09 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:13:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <20050321004559.8914B1AC02CA@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, James D. Forrester wrote: > On Monday, March 21, 2005 12:10 AM, Matt Brown wrote: > > > On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:28:35 -0600, Richard Holton > > wrote: > > > > > Denelson83's expressed attitude on his/her talk page seems to be in > > > direct contradiction to the Wikipedia policy on > > > [[Wikipedia:Civility]]. > > > > I would strongly agree, having gone to look at it. This user does not > > answer ANY questions or comments about their behavior or actions, > > instead replacing the question with " > violation ("Negative criticism not tolerated")>" and the like, in red. > > They state: "If you are going to post a message on this page, it must > > be a positive comment. Any comments that I interpret as destructive > > will be disregarded and removed from this page. Thank you." > > > > They also attempt to place conditions on the use of article history: > > > > "n.b. All past revisions of this page are considered to be deleted, > > and may not be reviewed. To review past messages, see my archive > > subpages." > > > > This is, IMO, completely ridiculous. > > It's not ridiculous, though it is mildly amusing (in a rather sad way). Actually, I'd say it is either suspicious or imitative. ISTR an incarnation of [[User:Lir]] doing this many moons ago. What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity? (I don't pay attention to this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if Lir is banned, rehabilitated, or quietly making useful & valued contributions.) And if this is isn't one of Lir's identities, why would this user bother behaving in a manner that is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively disfunctional? Geoff From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 21 11:30:17 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:30:17 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content References: <423DF2DD.9020409@telus.net> Message-ID: <002e01c52e09$5ccc6690$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ray Saintonge wrote > I consider citing sources to be far more important that no original > research. Well, a much higher proportion of what is on WP will be wrong and embarrassingly so, because it was just one man's idea, than because it is unsupported by chapter and verse. It clearly depends where you sit, and Ray was talking about Wiktionary in particular. But I do worry, now, that the contemporary-politics-and-history issues are driving policy which then is supposed to apply WP-wide. It seems clear that the most bitter and generic disputes are going to be along those faultlines. Those involved use policy instrumentally, where I much prefer to see it as a style guide: write within policy, but still try to write well and attractively. The point here surely is that even with stringent policies, WP can hardly expect to transcend completely the intellectual scuffling outside its walls. Charles From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Mar 21 12:31:19 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:31:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <423EBE97.5040909@thingy.apana.org.au> Geoff Burling wrote: > What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity? (I don't pay attention to > this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if Lir is banned, rehabilitated, > or quietly making useful & valued contributions.) And if this is isn't one > of Lir's identities, why would this user bother behaving in a manner that > is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively disfunctional? Currently banned for a year. Keeps coming back, acting like Lir, getting noticed and resetting the ban. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Mon Mar 21 13:11:35 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:11:35 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia hits the big time In-Reply-To: References: <42384E76.5010809@thingy.apana.org.au> <42385B32.4010703@sprintmail.com> <423DBFB6.7060001@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <423EC807.2020801@thingy.apana.org.au> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> ... however, Magnus Manske has announced that he will be getting the >> [[m:Article validation feature]] into shape for MediaWiki 1.5. w00t! >> This may be useful to supply baseline versions by consensus, with >> comparatively very little human tweaking needed afterward for a >> distribution. > Cool :) Even if my idea doesn't scale, it would still be good for > reviewing articles. See also [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team]] and the talk page - they have the right idea, but it's a bit early for it IMO and a wikilike sifting system may help reduce their load to something humanly possible. - d. From george.stepanek at nz.unisys.com Fri Mar 18 03:28:59 2005 From: george.stepanek at nz.unisys.com (Stepanek, George) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 16:28:59 +1300 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: I have unblocked Blair P. Houghton. Message-ID: From: >This is getting ridiculous. >This issue has now generated close to 60 messages. I urge Blair, his >detractors and everyone else to stop this discussion. I apologise for adding to an already overlong debate, but my name has been mentioned many times, motivations have been attributed to me, and I would just like an opportunity to respond to the allegations, and to clear my name. Apart from this one email, I will not post further to this mailing list. Even if Blair responds--and I have no doubt he will--I will not be responding. Before I begin, may I first thank Blair for his recent attempts to discuss the issues at hand on the Weight Training talk page. I hope that a compromise can be achieved that will be satisfactory to all parties concerned. The fact is that the first revert was made by Blair, not myself. I'm sorry if this sounds like a kindergarten justification ("he started it", "no he did"), but this fact sheds light on what follows, so please bear with me. Here are Blair's original changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11090304& oldid=11088511 I left the bulk of the changes as they were, and only undid changes to the lead section that I felt removed information, or put in information that had already been disputed by three other editors (Sfahey, Taxman and myself): http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11158163& oldid=11090304 The information that was removed was: * that whether weight training is effective at building strength depends upon how it is done * that weight training provides functional benefits (etc.) only via increases to strength and muscle size * that the progressive overload principle is essential to building strength via weight training The disputed fact was Blair's assertion that weight training is aerobic if done at a sufficiently low intensity. I explained my reasoning on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Weight_training#Article_summary This was at least an opportunity for Blair to discuss the proposed changes, and seek consensus before putting in place an agreed text, but instead he simply reverted my last edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11159169& oldid=11158163 Why did I revert his revert? Because I didn't want to see one stubborn individual override the consensus that had been achieved by the other interested parties. Why did I count my reverts (first, second, third) in the edit summaries? Because I didn't want to break the 3RR myself, or give Blair any opportunity to accuse me of doing so. And because I knew that the revert war was futile, since we were both limited by the 3RR, and I wanted to make this fact totally obvious. After my third revert, Blair made the following changes: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11177874& oldid=11171514 While not exactly the same as his previous edits, this edit implemented all four of the changes that I had discussed on the talk page. I felt that this was an attempt to subvert the 3RR. I therefore flagged it as a possible 3RR violation, while mentioning the fact that the 4 edits were not exactly alike. I left the matter to the discretion of the admins monitoring the 3RR page. I mentioned the potential 3RR violation to Taxman while asking his advice whether to open an RfC. He suggest not to do so yet, and to "try as hard as you can to see what part of what he has to say is helpful and incorporate those changes." Being an admin Taxman could have blocked Blair at that point, but he chose instead to merely revert once more, and leave it to another admin to block Blair. Taxman's behaviour has been beyond reproach at all times. After Taxman's last revert, I attempted to create a compromise version that included as many of Blair's grammatical and phrasing changes as possible, but including all of the information that Blair had removed, and without the disputed assertion: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weight_training&diff=11226439& oldid=11185482 From: Blair P. Houghton >It was a trap. GeorgeStepanek accepted almost all of my edits, but only after >I was blocked. >Clearly he wasn't disagreeing with everything I was saying, he was just reverting >the page to goad me into re-reverting it. This is simply not true. I did not, and still do not agree with the four changes described above, and that I have discussed at some length on the talk page. I utterly reject the insinuations that I somehow "tricked" Blair into breaking the 3RR. Indeed, by counting the reverts, I was making it as obvious as possible just how many reverts we were each doing. From: John Lee >If you would stop blabbing about Taxman and George for a minute to >understand this, we might get somewhere. Just because they are the >aggressors does not give you the right or privilege to go ahead and >participate in the fight. I hope that the above evidence is sufficient to show that I was not "the aggressor" in this "fight". I do not wish to have such aspersions against my name left on the record. I am aware that this issue has become a political football between those who support the 3RR, and those who oppose it. I do not wish to enter this debate, except to mention some aspects that no-one has yet mentioned: 1. Yes, Cecropia had every right to unblock Blair. But think about it: isn't this just reverting CryptoDerk's actions? What efforts did Cecropia make to discuss the issue with CryptoDerk, and achieve consensus? As the admin community grows, are we going to see more and more "admin revert wars" pitting one admin against another? Isn't this just going to motivate troublemakers to try to exploit differences of opinion between admins? 2. Yes, a 24-hour block is ineffective in itself at resolving ongoing disputes between long-time users. But a 3RR sanction is not ipso facto meaningless in such cases. To compare it to a real-world example, why do we have $50 parking fines if most people can easily spare $50? A sanction like this is effective because it unequivocally conveys the message that you have broken the rules. It also serves as evidence of poor conduct for any future investigation of the dispute. 3. The 3RR prevents edit wars with hundreds of reverts on each side. Does anyone seriously want to go back to that? It's an arbitrary rule, to be sure, but rules help people to work together by clearly indicating where boundaries of acceptable conduct lie. 4. No-one can build the Wikipedia alone. Indeed, given how hard it is to write to a strict NPOV, I would argue that no-one can even create a single article alone. Jimbo's primary goal--creating an encyclopedia--is impossible without a community that can work together effectively. We should find ways to identify, sanction and eliminate any and all forms of disruptive behaviour, simply because they just stop us from achieving our primary goal. From: JAY JG >>Am I the only one who feels that the 3RR is making life harder for admins? > >I'm sure you're not the only one, but I feel quite the opposite. More >importantly, I think it's made it less likely for regular (i.e. non >edit-warrior) editors to be scared away from Wikipedia. May I note two of Blair's assertions that no-one has yet challenged. He says that I am one of the "Evil Ones", and that I "raped" him. Is this kind of language and conduct acceptable in Wikipedia? My impression from the events so far is that it is. I have found this dispute to be extremely unpleasant and stressful, and I really do not wish to find myself in this kind of situation again. I am therefore going to withdraw from the Wikipedia community. I will still read articles, and fix typos when I find them, but I will no longer be working seriously on any more Wikipedia articles. Thank you for reading my comments. George Stepanek From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 21 19:01:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 11:01:12 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032120050125.12568.423E229D0000DA870000311822007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032120050125.12568.423E229D0000DA870000311822007507849B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423F19F8.4080706@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >------- Original message --------- > > >>And it doesn't help that whenever Silverback has an opportunity, he >>belittles our policies. Silverback, your own "definition" of capitalism >>only further muddies the waters. As you should know by now, your own >>definition of capitalism (like mine, or RJII's) is irrelevant here. We are >>researching an encyclopedia, and we are committed to NPOV and NOR. That >>means providing different people's definitions of capitalism in a >>verifiable way. >> >> >Marx was complementary [sic! = complimentary?] of capitalism for demonstrating that wealth was >not static but could be created. If one were to point out that Marx appreciated >that capitalism was not a zero sum game, would one be doing original research >because he is using language that did not exist in Marx's time, or is he merely >being descriptive in modern language of Marx's position? When does mere >description or translation (in this case into modern language) become original >research? > Sorry about the "sic!" I try to limit that comment to places where it could make a difference. This sort of thing only illustrates the ridiculous interpretations that have recently come out of the NOR policy. It's certainly a fact that Marx wrote in the 19th century and from a 19th century perspective. He wrote in German, but his 19th century translator also wrote from that perspective. Marx may certainly have had his own definition of "capitalism", but a lot has happened to the term since then; the evolution of the term is essential to its understanding. Taken to its extreme the NOR policy is in a paradoxical conflict with the extremes of our copyright policy. We can't use our own interpretation of a concept because it conflicts with NOR policy, but we also have to be careful about using the work of others because it could be in improper derivative work. >Scientists often define their terms at the beginning of a publication. More precision >or a specific nuance of a term is needed in order to communicate clearly, sometimes >the "definition" is simply to rule out specific possible ambiguous interpretations of >the term. The term still contains a recognizable essence of the original meaning, >but has become a term of art. The recognizable essence may not be the same >essence that YOU would have selected, but you should adopt that meaning >when reading the rest of the paper. Now if at the end, in the conclusions, >the author tries to make rhetorical generalizations to the usual definition of >the term, you are entitled to object. > A definition at the beginning is perfectly valid for the entire book even if that definition flies in the face of the definition used by everybody else. One can only hope that that author maintains consistency in the use of his term. Others like Rummell invent their own words (democide) to avoid the nuances of a more widely used term (genocide). Using a particular interpretation of a term is not obligatory beyond a particular book or a particular author's works generally. For "capitalism" we should perhaps have a series of dated quotes in Wikiquote. Wikipedia would do best to reduce the definition to its essential elements, without becoming mired in convoluted prose. When I looked at the article a couple days ago (without knowing whose version was current) I found that the definition there was difficult to follow. That's not what a casual reader looking to be enlightened wants to see. If he has difficulty reading the first paragraph, his presumption will be that reading the rest of the article will be just as difficult. A lead paragraph should draw readers in, not drive them away. >Yes, I define terms, or rather select reductionists nuances of terms in an >attempt at communication, but if you insist for instance that capitalism is >a subset of fascism (BTW, you haven't as far as I know, perhaps "mercantilism" >would be a better example), you are trying to denigrate and not communicate. > When you treat capitalism as a subset of fascism (or vice-versa which to me would seem more plausible) you are muddling an economic concept with a political one. >What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? Or do you think >he would avoid giving one as a rhetorical technique to avoid being pinned >down and put on the defensive? > Marx is not engaged in rhetorical debates; he's too long dead to do that. If you want Marx's definition of capitalism use a properly cited quote. If you want the view of the MarxISTS then properly cite them. The same goes for anti-Marxists. Ec From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 21 20:08:56 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:08:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050321200856.30155.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > Geoff Burling wrote: > > > What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity? > (I don't pay attention to > > this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if > Lir is banned, rehabilitated, > > or quietly making useful & valued contributions.) > And if this is isn't one > > of Lir's identities, why would this user bother > behaving in a manner that > > is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively > disfunctional? > > > Currently banned for a year. Keeps coming back, > acting like Lir, getting > noticed and resetting the ban. I've never understood why somebody would keep committing obvious vandalism (like repeatedly vandalizing Raul's User page) so that they can get rebanned. If Lir was ever interested in editing, he could just come in as an anon and make valid edits, but he seems more interested in disruption than in contribution. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 21 20:17:32 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:17:32 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <423F2BDC.2030500@telus.net> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >-------------- Original message -------------- > > >>I've been spreading {{unreferenced}} tags with great (slightly >>restrained, after the TFD nomination ;-) glee, and I see others >>have taken to it too. >> >> >What are your standards for applying an "unreferenced" tag? Do you apply it to every statement in an article that doesn't have a reference? Or do you just select statements that appear to be >outliers or unlikely from your experience? > >I think in a scientific article, indescriminate use of the unreferenced tag would collide with the assumption of good faith. Many facts in our articles are not referenced, but if you were to challenge for instance the statement that beta blockers inhibit the nocturnal release of melatonin, especially after the statement had been in the article for awhile, the burden should be on you to at least have checked the PDR and have done a medline search. > Indiscriminate unreferenced tags could be a problem anywhere, not just in scientific articles. The primary obligation for someone challenging a statement should be to put a polite question on the contributor's talk page and give him at least a week to respond. Doing that would be prima facie evidence that you have assumed good faith. If the wrong facts have been there for a year another week won't make a big difference. Ec From morven at gmail.com Mon Mar 21 21:51:18 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:51:18 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <20050321200856.30155.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050321200856.30155.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc005032113517ce197d2@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:08:56 -0800 (PST), Rick wrote: > > I've never understood why somebody would keep > committing obvious vandalism (like repeatedly > vandalizing Raul's User page) so that they can get > rebanned. If Lir was ever interested in editing, he > could just come in as an anon and make valid edits, > but he seems more interested in disruption than in > contribution. I have the strong suspicion that editing itself was not high on the list of Lir's reason to be on Wikipedia, by the sheer fact of the above. Other banned users have come back and edited quietly for quite a while before anyone realised, and I'm sure there are others who are editing to this day. -Matt From csherlock at ljh.com.au Mon Mar 21 23:52:58 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 10:52:58 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> Message-ID: I received this in my email (I'm disguising parts of my mail header). Received: from xxx [999.999.999.999] by mail.whatever.com.au (SMTPD32-7.13) id ABFFAF640142; Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:18:07 +1100 Received: from smtp3.hushmail.com(65.39.178.135) by medusa.ljh.com.au via smtp id 353d_5d4abf3c_9a46_11d9_9d27_00304811e5bb; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 20:18:19 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp3.hushmail.com (localhost.hushmail.com [127.0.0.1]) by smtp3.hushmail.com (Postfix) with SMTP id A4816A332F for ; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:20:22 -0800 (PST) Received: from mailserver1.hushmail.com (mailserver1host.hushmail.com [65.39.178.45]) by smtp3.hushmail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP for ; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:20:22 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nobody at localhost) by mailserver1.hushmail.com (8.12.8p1/8.12.8/Submit) id j2LKKLof055924 for csherlock at ljh.com.au; Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:20:21 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <200503212020.j2LKKLof055924 at mailserver1.hushmail.com> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:20:18 -0800 To: csherlock at blah.com.au Cc: Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content From: X-RCPT-TO: Status: U X-UIDL: 409887403 "Can anyone say irony? The Encyclopedia Britannica uses an even smaller number of people to write their articles. Through the years, the EB has proven wrong in many of their editions. That they are more correct in their latest works shows that they have the same issues as Wikipedia. TBSDY " You utter moron. The difference is they're a proper encyclopedia and the wikipedia is just a web noticeboard. (The worst of all the web's trash boards for geeks and flamers and dirty arrogant morons.) csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Mark Pellegrini wrote: > >> Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- >> http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true >> >> / >> /*...* >> / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free >> online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize >> the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and >> the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the >> communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better >> understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what >> someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this >> openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. >> ... >> ---------- >> Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is >> the author of "How to Know." >> >> /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and >> compared us to a public toilet- >> http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html >> >> --Mark > > > "In each of these examples, a small and self-selected group convinces > itself not so much that it represents the greater world beyond the > computer screen but that it is in some ineffable way superior to it, > that it has transcended the need for the hard lessons the rest of us > have learned about how things actually work." > > Can anyone say irony? The Encyclopedia Britannica uses an even smaller > number of people to write their articles. Through the years, the EB has > proven wrong in many of their editions. That they are more correct in > their latest works shows that they have the same issues as Wikipedia. > > TBSDY From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 01:14:44 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:14:44 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Why can't they learn? (was [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering) In-Reply-To: <20050321200856.30155.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050321200856.30155.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <423F7184.4070100@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: > I've never understood why somebody would keep > committing obvious vandalism (like repeatedly > vandalizing Raul's User page) so that they can get > rebanned. If Lir was ever interested in editing, he > could just come in as an anon and make valid edits, > but he seems more interested in disruption than in > contribution. I'm currently trying to flesh out my 'addiction' model of pathological behaviour on Wikipedia. You can see this in editors who are hardworking, but seem to love Wikipedia *just a little too much* and possibly in ways nature didn't really intend. And when they get banned, they go fucking batshit with junkie rage at being cut off from their fix, c.f. Wik and the vandalbot. I'll probably write it up as a "ha ha only serious" page on meta, to go with [[m:MPOV]] and [[m:Don't be a dick]]. In the meantime, it gives the ArbCom considerable flexibility for more creative remedies for bad behaviour than a mere ban, which the real addicts tend to sockpuppet anyway. "You *really* want your fix? Write two 500-word essays on why NPOV and No Personal Attacks are good ideas. If we score each 9/10 or better, you can edit again." I think there's a lot of scope there for really *fixing* behaviour. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 01:16:58 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:16:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <423F2BDC.2030500@telus.net> References: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <423F2BDC.2030500@telus.net> Message-ID: <423F720A.6060708@thingy.apana.org.au> Ray Saintonge wrote: > Indiscriminate unreferenced tags could be a problem anywhere, not just > in scientific articles. The primary obligation for someone challenging > a statement should be to put a polite question on the contributor's talk > page and give him at least a week to respond. Doing that would be prima > facie evidence that you have assumed good faith. If the wrong facts > have been there for a year another week won't make a big difference. It's not for indiscriminate use - it's for *nothing resembling a reference of any sort*. You'll see a pile of these articles if you middle-click "Random page" twenty times - four- to six-paragraph things which look like okay articles, but have nothing resembling a source, reference or even external link. That's what it's for. The debate on WP:TFD made it *very* clear its use was to be for unambiguous cases. And not for stubs either. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 01:36:41 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 01:36:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? Message-ID: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> I wrote this in passing on wikitech-l and thought I might run it past wikien-l as an idea. Go on new article patrol. You'll see decent stuff from old hands, but a lot of new stuff is awful. Well-meaning awful, but awful. When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the following: '''Article name''' is ... Detail on Article name ... Further detail on Article name ... ==References== *List your sources here. ==External links== *List relevant external links that are not already references. The idea is that this isn't compulsory at all - but may be a helpful starter for newbies. An analogy is writing bug reports in Bugzilla. You can more or less write something freeform, but the avg. quality of Mozilla's bug reports went way up when they started using a default reporting form (Bugzilla Helper) which set out a good bug report step by step. The above resembles my idea of how to write a short article (see my recent creations [[Federated Naming Service]] and [[LBX]] for how I write new short articles). Others will doubtless have their own ideas. Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help? - d. ps: both articles named above were cases of "I wonder what that actually is, oh! there's no articles yet, I think I'll find out and write them up." Helped by being temporarily stuck on dialup, which gives one more writing time than reading time. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 01:30:46 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 17:30:46 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <423F720A.6060708@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <032120050145.5298.423E27330009A453000014B222007348309B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <423F2BDC.2030500@telus.net> <423F720A.6060708@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <423F7546.10102@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: > Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> Indiscriminate unreferenced tags could be a problem anywhere, not >> just in scientific articles. The primary obligation for someone >> challenging a statement should be to put a polite question on the >> contributor's talk page and give him at least a week to respond. >> Doing that would be prima facie evidence that you have assumed good >> faith. If the wrong facts have been there for a year another week >> won't make a big difference. > > It's not for indiscriminate use - it's for *nothing resembling a > reference > of any sort*. You'll see a pile of these articles if you middle-click > "Random page" twenty times - four- to six-paragraph things which look > like > okay articles, but have nothing resembling a source, reference or even > external link. That's what it's for. The debate on WP:TFD made it *very* > clear its use was to be for unambiguous cases. And not for stubs either. I don't dispute that at all. Still, givng people the first opportunity to fix their own deficiencies is good for the social atmosphere. Ec From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 22 01:49:31 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:49:31 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> Message-ID: Well look at that! Gmane disguises email addresses automatically for you. I didn't know it would do that... TBSDY csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > I received this in my email (I'm disguising parts of my mail header). > > Received: from xxx [999.999.999.999] by mail.whatever.com.au > (SMTPD32-7.13) id ABFFAF640142; Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:18:07 +1100 > Received: from smtp3.hushmail.com(65.39.178.135) by > medusa.ljh.com.au via smtp id > 353d_5d4abf3c_9a46_11d9_9d27_00304811e5bb; > Mon, 21 Mar 2005 20:18:19 +0000 (UTC) > Received: from smtp3.hushmail.com (localhost.hushmail.com [127.0.0.1]) > by smtp3.hushmail.com (Postfix) with SMTP id A4816A332F > for ; Mon, 21 Mar > 2005 12:20:22 -0800 (PST) > Received: from mailserver1.hushmail.com (mailserver1host.hushmail.com > [65.39.178.45]) > by smtp3.hushmail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP > for ; Mon, 21 Mar > 2005 12:20:22 -0800 (PST) > Received: (from nobody at localhost) > by mailserver1.hushmail.com (8.12.8p1/8.12.8/Submit) id j2LKKLof055924 > for csherlock at ljh.com.au; Mon, 21 Mar > 2005 12:20:21 -0800 (PST) > Message-Id: > <200503212020.j2LKKLof055924 at mailserver1.hushmail.com> > From originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 02:49:01 2005 From: originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com (Deathphoenix) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:49:01 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> That sounds like a great idea. Since the "well-meaning awful" often comes from people who might not know where to look for such templates, maybe it would be a good idea to provide a link in the "Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name" template, to the edit page, or maybe provide a button that inserts that template (similar to the buttons that help you insert bolded text, italicised text, signatures, and so on). Cheers, James David Gerard wrote: > I wrote this in passing on wikitech-l and thought I might run > it past wikien-l as an idea. > > Go on new article patrol. You'll see decent stuff from old hands, > but a lot of new stuff is awful. Well-meaning awful, but awful. > > When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be > useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the > following: > > > '''Article name''' is ... > > Detail on Article name ... > > Further detail on Article name ... > > ==References== > > *List your sources here. > > ==External links== > > *List relevant external links that are not already references. > > > The idea is that this isn't compulsory at all - but may be a > helpful starter for newbies. > > An analogy is writing bug reports in Bugzilla. You can more or > less write something freeform, but the avg. quality of Mozilla's bug > reports went way up when they started using a default reporting form > (Bugzilla Helper) which set out a good bug report step by step. > > The above resembles my idea of how to write a short article (see my > recent creations [[Federated Naming Service]] and [[LBX]] for how I > write new short articles). Others will doubtless have their own ideas. > > Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help? > > > - d. > > > ps: both articles named above were cases of "I wonder what that actually > is, oh! there's no articles yet, I think I'll find out and write them > up." > Helped by being temporarily stuck on dialup, which gives one more writing > time than reading time. > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From fastfission at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 03:57:24 2005 From: fastfission at gmail.com (Fastfission) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:57:24 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> Message-ID: <98dd099a050321195732fe610f@mail.gmail.com> "Damned kids! A horseless carriage is pure nonsense! Dangerous, even! Why, nobody will ever want to go more than 5 miles an hour! What foolishness! Horse-and-buggy is here to STAY!" Sure, Wikipedia has some issues that will never be easily resolved. But so does every encyclopedia production system -- need I allude to the troubles of Diderot and d'Alembert? What's wonderful is the obvious threat he sees to his way of life, the encyclopedia he cherishes. I mean, if he's right about its inaccuracy, inconsequentialness, and inherently ridiculous nature, then what's he got to fear? How's it any worse than any other of the million webpages out there full of nonsense? Surely if it was so obvious how much better EB was, he'd have nothing to fear! But all this bravado is nothing more than howl of a shaken man. Wikipedia alone isn't behind the problems (current or looming) faced by print encyclopedia manufacturers. The internet as a whole is behind that. Wikipedia's just one aspect of a greater shift in the technologies of communication and representation which makes massive tomes less likely and makes expensive subscriptions seem unnecessary. I doubt print encyclopedias will go the way of the dinosaurs, but I can understand their dis-ease. The die has been cast -- their authority has been questioned and directly challenged by a legion of people willing to work for nothing at all. It's an understandable concern, but it's far too late at this point. FF On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:05:21 -0500, Mark Pellegrini wrote: > Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- > http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true > / > /*...* > / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free > online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize > the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and > the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the > communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better > understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what > someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this > openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. > ... > ---------- > Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is > the author of "How to Know." > > /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and > compared us to a public toilet- > http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html > > --Mark > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 06:21:51 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:21:51 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050321195732fe610f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> <98dd099a050321195732fe610f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <423FB97F.5090508@telus.net> Fastfission wrote: >Wikipedia alone isn't behind the problems (current or looming) faced >by print encyclopedia manufacturers. The internet as a whole is behind >that. Wikipedia's just one aspect of a greater shift in the >technologies of communication and representation which makes massive >tomes less likely and makes expensive subscriptions seem unnecessary. >I doubt print encyclopedias will go the way of the dinosaurs, but I >can understand their dis-ease. The die has been cast -- their >authority has been questioned and directly challenged by a legion of >people willing to work for nothing at all. It's an understandable >concern, but it's far too late at this point. > > Agreed, what we are witnessing (or better still experiencing) is a major paradigm shift in the full sense that Kuhn had forseen. It is as great as anything seen since Gutenberg. Gutenberg laid the way for unilateral mass communication. The present shift lies in what has made two way mass communication technologically possible. That can be pretty brutal on those who had invested in the permanence of unidirectional communications. Ec From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Tue Mar 22 06:54:13 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:54:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <423EBE97.5040909@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, David Gerard wrote: > Geoff Burling wrote: > > > What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity? (I don't pay attention to > > this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if Lir is banned, rehabilitated, > > or quietly making useful & valued contributions.) And if this is isn't one > > of Lir's identities, why would this user bother behaving in a manner that > > is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively disfunctional? > > > Currently banned for a year. Keeps coming back, acting like Lir, getting > noticed and resetting the ban. > That was meant as a rhetorical question -- mostly. Although I have to wonder why someone who wants to be annoying would adopt one of the least effective tactics that has been attempted, refuted, & is well-known to those who know. And if one does *not* want to be annoying & taken seriously, why not avoid behaving like a known nuisence. Then David Gerard wrote later that same day: > I'm currently trying to flesh out my 'addiction' model of > pathological behaviour on Wikipedia. You can see this in > editors who are hardworking, but seem to love Wikipedia > *just a little too much* and possibly in ways nature didn't > really intend. And when they get banned, they go fucking > batshit with junkie rage at being cut off from their fix, > c.f. Wik and the vandalbot. To David: You're familiar with Usenet. I'm sure it's the same psycho-social dynamic. To everyone else: There's a phrase that Spike Lee helped to circulate, "Get a life; the one you have ain't no good." I suspect that for many of these folks that Wikipedia *is* their life. However, this is how they manage it. Now consider that there are a fair number of folks on Wikipedia for whom this is a major part of their life -- it is that important for them. (And before anyone assumes I am being snarky or insulting here, I consider myself one of them.) Their role at Wikipedia helps give their life some meaning; it's the reason that they get out of bed in the morning. Some people take this identification very seriously, & treat their relationship to Wikipedia seriously, hoping to leave something better after their efforts. Vandalism is dealt with. Typos get fixed. They take the time to introduce Wikipedia to potential users & contributors. And some of us try to add content. Some people act as if they were slovenly teenagers & Wikipedia was their unkept bedroom. They do the equivalent of scattering their clothes over the floor, leave the bedsheets unwashed for months, insist on covering the walls with posters of their favorite music idols -- & get nasty when someone tries to clean things up because Wikipedia isn't really their own private bedroom. Life, like Wikipedia, is what you make of it. Unfortunately some of us not only are unable to make our life work, we can't make Wikipedia work either. It becomes one more failure in an oppressive collection that has become too heavy, & makes the person feel trapped like a animal, & lashes out at everyone within reach. Only, unlike a trapped animal, this person does not look for an opening & escape; this person fights to keep hold of what she/he thinks is theirs -- only to find, in the end, they have nothing. FWIW, if I were kicked off Wikipedia for some reason, it wouldn't be the end of my world. I wouldn't be happy being unable to make contributions to Wikipedia, but I would find something else to fill the loss. Geoff From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 11:27:19 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:27:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> Deathphoenix wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be >> useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the >> following: >> Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help? > That sounds like a great idea. Since the "well-meaning awful" often > comes from people who might not know where to look for such templates, > maybe it would be a good idea to provide a link in the "Wikipedia does > not yet have an article with this exact name" template, to the edit > page, or maybe provide a button that inserts that template (similar to > the buttons that help you insert bolded text, italicised text, > signatures, and so on). If they don't know how to format an article, they wouldn't know what a button meant, though ... The only downside I can see is the possibility for function creep, and idiots using this inappropriately as a hammer to use on others. - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 11:42:55 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:42:55 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424004BF.1030902@thingy.apana.org.au> Geoff Burling wrote: > FWIW, if I were kicked off Wikipedia for some reason, it wouldn't be > the end of my world. I wouldn't be happy being unable to make contributions > to Wikipedia, but I would find something else to fill the loss. Yes, but that's why such a thing is unlikely. It'll need a link to a "Dealing with wikiholism" article, if there isn't one already. I'll add this to it: * Stop looking at your watchlist. My wikistress went *so far down* after that. - d. From zoney.ie at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 11:54:12 2005 From: zoney.ie at gmail.com (Zoney) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:54:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4418c60e0503220354d7c9403@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:27:19 +0000, David Gerard wrote: > Deathphoenix wrote: > > David Gerard wrote: > > >> When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be > >> useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the > >> following: > >> Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help? > > > That sounds like a great idea. Since the "well-meaning awful" often > > comes from people who might not know where to look for such templates, > > maybe it would be a good idea to provide a link in the "Wikipedia does > > not yet have an article with this exact name" template, to the edit > > page, or maybe provide a button that inserts that template (similar to > > the buttons that help you insert bolded text, italicised text, > > signatures, and so on). > > If they don't know how to format an article, they wouldn't know what > a button meant, though ... > > The only downside I can see is the possibility for function creep, and > idiots using this inappropriately as a hammer to use on others. > > > - d. > > Indeed. For a start, many new articles are stubs, and for stubs, I prefer the following format, rather than sections on a short article: :''See also:'' [[Article a]], [[Article b]] :''External links:'' [[site a]], [[site b]] For an example of this format, check many of the towns listed on [[List of towns in the Republic of Ireland]] (the talk page to-do list lists the stub ones specifically). Also, I would consider it optimistic at best to expect references for the more humdrum stub articles. I'm not discouraging the practice of encouraging references - but for stubs - which mostly just relate basic information, contributors shouldn't be beaten with the "provide references" mantra. Even beyond stubs, to shorter/average size articles, this may be the case. Zoney -- ~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds... From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 22 12:10:17 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:10:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Zoney wrote: > Also, I would consider it optimistic at best to expect references for > the more humdrum stub articles. I'm not discouraging the practice of > encouraging references - but for stubs - which mostly just relate > basic information, contributors shouldn't be beaten with the "provide > references" mantra. > > Even beyond stubs, to shorter/average size articles, this may be the case. Perhaps, but for stubs, providing "References", "External links" or "Further reading" brings a practical benefit that doesn't apply quite the same way for more mature articles: namely, recording the location of useful material can be very helpful to subsequent editors looking to expand the article. -- Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 22 12:19:17 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:19:17 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? References: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> Matt R wrote > Perhaps, but for stubs, providing "References", "External links" or > "Further > reading" brings a practical benefit that doesn't apply quite the same way > for > more mature articles: namely, recording the location of useful material > can be > very helpful to subsequent editors looking to expand the article. Providing an _optional_ template might not do a lot of harm; but given the way stubs operate, thought should be given as to which 'fields' are really compulsory. I've been seeing quite a number of Indian/Chinese music and dance articles recently - do we really expect references and web sites for these? From the point of view of increasing Wiki-en's reach, we do need the stub that simply points out a gap. WP is founded on stubs, after all. There is a tension: the more complete WP is on things about which being fairly complete is not so hard, the more difficult it is to make articles in the less-favoured areas match up. I don't want to see this develop into a your-reach-is-greater-than-your-grasp faultline. Charles From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 13:12:21 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:12:21 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <4418c60e0503220354d7c9403@mail.gmail.com> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> <4418c60e0503220354d7c9403@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424019B5.6090605@thingy.apana.org.au> Zoney wrote: > Indeed. For a start, many new articles are stubs, and for stubs, I > prefer the following format, rather than sections on a short article: > :''See also:'' [[Article a]], [[Article b]] > :''External links:'' [[site a]], [[site b]] > For an example of this format, check many of the towns listed on > [[List of towns in the Republic of Ireland]] (the talk page to-do list > lists the stub ones specifically). It's a matter of taste, yes. > Also, I would consider it optimistic at best to expect references for > the more humdrum stub articles. I'm not discouraging the practice of > encouraging references - but for stubs - which mostly just relate > basic information, contributors shouldn't be beaten with the "provide > references" mantra. If they know what a stub is, they can remove the template. Remember that I'm just thinking of some preloaded wikitext here. > Even beyond stubs, to shorter/average size articles, this may be the case. That I would question, actually. I don't write a three-para new article these days without at least an external link. The template doesn't force a section to be filled in, it just tries to get across that this is a good idea. Hmm. How would you write such a preloaded text? I was thinking in terms of an outline for beginners to write something that wasn't crap, not something to be used as a constraint on those who know what they're doing. "The format below is suggested but not compulsory." - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 13:25:45 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:25:45 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <42401CD9.3060600@thingy.apana.org.au> Charles Matthews wrote: > Providing an _optional_ template might not do a lot of harm; but given > the way stubs operate, thought should be given as to which 'fields' are > really compulsory. I've been seeing quite a number of Indian/Chinese > music and dance articles recently - do we really expect references and > web sites for these? From the point of view of increasing Wiki-en's > reach, we do need the stub that simply points out a gap. WP is founded > on stubs, after all. If they know what a stub is and to put in {{stub}}, they don't need the template. > There is a tension: the more complete WP is on things about which being > fairly complete is not so hard, the more difficult it is to make > articles in the less-favoured areas match up. I don't want to see this > develop into a your-reach-is-greater-than-your-grasp faultline. There is that. OTOH, refs are a good way for a newbie stub not to take a quick journey via Votes For Deletion. It depends whether the ego bruising from the VFD process is worse than the effort to say where they got some piece of information. - d. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 22 13:55:47 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:55:47 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? References: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> <42401CD9.3060600@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <000301c52ee6$da939cf0$9e7c0450@Galasien> David Gerard wrote > There is that. OTOH, refs are a good way for a newbie stub not to take a > quick journey via Votes For Deletion. There is that too. For me, though, a category on a stub is more likely than a page reference (to a college text, say) to make it prosper and grow. Trouble is, you just have to know whether it is [[Category:Greek islands]] or [[Category:Islands of Greece]]. One day our categories will redirect, I suppose. C From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 22 14:25:57 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 07:25:57 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <000301c52ee6$da939cf0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> <42401CD9.3060600@thingy.apana.org.au> <000301c52ee6$da939cf0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <42402AF5.4040401@sprintmail.com> Charles Matthews wrote: > David Gerard wrote > >> There is that. OTOH, refs are a good way for a newbie stub not to take a >> quick journey via Votes For Deletion. > > > There is that too. For me, though, a category on a stub is more > likely than a page reference (to a college text, say) to make it > prosper and grow. Trouble is, you just have to know whether it is > [[Category:Greek islands]] or [[Category:Islands of Greece]]. One day > our categories will redirect, I suppose. In any case, it sounds like there is enough general support to immediately implement *some* sort of helpful skeleton. Its actual form can evolve, especially if based on a standard template. Tom Haws From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Mar 22 17:58:19 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:58:19 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million articles is rather big, eh? Message-ID: How many words are there in the English Wikipedia's article base? And how many volumes (formatted like the Britannica or Americana) would it take to publish them all? Ed Poor From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 17:59:10 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 09:59:10 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42405CEE.6040504@telus.net> Geoff Burling wrote: >On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, David Gerard wrote: > > >>Geoff Burling wrote: >> >> >>>What is Lir's current status, out of curiousity? (I don't pay attention to >>>this editor's actions at all, so I'm not sure if Lir is banned, rehabilitated, >>> >>> >>>or quietly making useful & valued contributions.) And if this is isn't one >>>of Lir's identities, why would this user bother behaving in a manner that >>>is at best annoying, & at worst self-destructively disfunctional? >>> >>> >>Currently banned for a year. Keeps coming back, acting like Lir, getting >>noticed and resetting the ban. >> >> >That was meant as a rhetorical question -- mostly. Although I have to wonder >why someone who wants to be annoying would adopt one of the least effective >tactics that has been attempted, refuted, & is well-known to those who know. >And if one does *not* want to be annoying & taken seriously, why not avoid >behaving like a known nuisence. > It can probably be summarized in one word - "maturity" ... or lack thereof. >Then David Gerard wrote later that same day: > > >>I'm currently trying to flesh out my 'addiction' model of >>pathological behaviour on Wikipedia. You can see this in >>editors who are hardworking, but seem to love Wikipedia >>*just a little too much* and possibly in ways nature didn't >>really intend. And when they get banned, they go fucking >>batshit with junkie rage at being cut off from their fix, >>c.f. Wik and the vandalbot. >> >> > >Now consider that there are a fair number of folks on Wikipedia for >whom this is a major part of their life -- it is that important for >them. (And before anyone assumes I am being snarky or insulting here, >I consider myself one of them.) Their role at Wikipedia helps give >their life some meaning; it's the reason that they get out of bed in >the morning. > >Some people take this identification very seriously, & treat their >relationship to Wikipedia seriously, hoping to leave something better >after their efforts. Vandalism is dealt with. Typos get fixed. They >take the time to introduce Wikipedia to potential users & contributors. >And some of us try to add content. > For some the recognition and ownership of their efforts is important. I've remarked how on some user pages there is a very long list of the articles on which they have worked. They are often dilligent about keeping it up to date. When they stop keeping it up the list it's a good sign that they have begun learning to submerge their ego. Most of us can't be bothered to go through somebody else's list unless we are trying to track down POV warrioring. >FWIW, if I were kicked off Wikipedia for some reason, it wouldn't be >the end of my world. I wouldn't be happy being unable to make contributions >to Wikipedia, but I would find something else to fill the loss. > For some of us that reality doesn't even get close. We know that there is probably some room for edit wars and personal comments, but we don't carried away with it. Even more importantly, we know when to stop and take time to listen to others. Ec From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 22 18:41:18 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 10:41:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million articles is rather big, eh? In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050322184118.5609.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > How many words are there in the English Wikipedia's article base? And > how many volumes (formatted like the Britannica or Americana) would it > take to publish them all? I'd tell you, but Special:Statistics does not seem to work right now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From cormaggio at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 18:43:09 2005 From: cormaggio at gmail.com (Cormac Lawler) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 18:43:09 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: <98dd099a050321195732fe610f@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050320040349.D57371AC19E9@mail.wikimedia.org> <423D6701.7000904@comcast.net> <98dd099a050321195732fe610f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:05:21 -0500, Mark Pellegrini > wrote: > > Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again --- > > http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true > > / > > /*...* > > / A similar hyperbole surrounds such projects as the Wikipedia, a free > > online encyclopedia open to all. The Wikipedia's apologists emphasize > > the great number of volunteers who have taken part in the project and > > the number of entries they have contributed. They emphasize also the > > communal nature of the undertaking, in which anyone with a better > > understanding of a subject, or a bigger ax to grind, can edit what > > someone else has created. Their prime article of faith is that this > > openness will inevitably lead to a high level of accuracy and quality. > > ... > > ---------- > > Robert McHenry is former editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and is > > the author of "How to Know." > > > > /This is the same guy who called us the Faith-based encyclopedia and > > compared us to a public toilet- > > http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html > > > > --Mark > > That link that Mark posted didn't work for me but this one does: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0503200191mar20,1,26199.story?ctrack=1&cset=true It seemed to me from reading the article that McHenry's answers to his own concerns were inherent in Wikipedia's structure: "There is no guarantee that truth will win out; there is only our hard-won and too-seldom-employed knowledge of what gives us the best chance: the free exchange and clash of ideas." (Is Wikipedia not an obvious example of this?) In his final recommendations, he advocates "clear thinking", a "genial skepticism" to both one's own and others' opinions and "toleration" (tolerance, surely?). Theoretically, this is covered in NPOV, [[assume good faith]], and [[no personal attacks]] but as we all know these are violated daily. My question is: how do you (I,we) work this in practice from a personal perspective rather than looking at others? Cormac [[User:Cormaggio]] (en,m) From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 18:57:39 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 10:57:39 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42406AA3.4030402@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: > Deathphoenix wrote: > >> David Gerard wrote: > >>> When the page for creating a new article comes up, would it be >>> useful to include an article skeleton? Something like the following: >>> Is this a useful idea? Do new article patrollers think it will help? >> > > That sounds like a great idea. Since the "well-meaning awful" often > > comes from people who might not know where to look for such templates, > > maybe it would be a good idea to provide a link in the "Wikipedia does > > not yet have an article with this exact name" template, to the edit > > page, or maybe provide a button that inserts that template (similar to > > the buttons that help you insert bolded text, italicised text, > > signatures, and so on). > > If they don't know how to format an article, they wouldn't know what > a button meant, though ... > > The only downside I can see is the possibility for function creep, and > idiots using this inappropriately as a hammer to use on others. A big factor in Wikipedia's success has been the ease of editing. No-one should be discouraged from editing because they are unfamiliar with categories, templates, tables or inter-wiki links, nor should they need to know about special accomodations for math or music unless they are directly involved in those topics. The list of what a beginner needs to know to start editing should fit on one screen without scrolling. Even something as simple as four-tilde signatures doesn't need to be there. It is not essential to basic editing, but when told about it a few days later the newbie appreciates this information that makes his work easier. (One can even say it's a bit like giving him a free joint to encourage him on the road to Wikiholism. :-) ) Pandering to idiots can be a terrible waste of time, and most technical solutions to the idiot problems can be more damaging than the problems they are trying to solve. And what's so awful about "well-meaning awful"? That lot of people is often willing to discuss and take advice when they are approached politely. Why should we make life more difficult for them? What could be more simple than that blue means there is a linked article, red means there isn't? When I joined up we didn't have those buttons, so I still don't use them. Is it really ergonomically simpler to take your hands off the keyboard to point your mouse at a button, click, and put your hands back on the keyboard than to type three apostrophes (no shift key required) without moving your hands away from the keyboard? I personally like to avoid most templates if there is an equally valid way of doing things available. I find it difficult to reconcile the use of complications intended to make my life simpler with making my life simpler. Ec From dgerard at gmail.com Tue Mar 22 19:09:02 2005 From: dgerard at gmail.com (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:09:02 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Why checkable references and sources are more than just a good idea Message-ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-02-14/Misinformation_on_Wikipedia I really can't understand what some people have against even the principle of putting sources and references in articles. The arguments against have so far been long on analogies and short on real-life examples. Above is an example going the other way. - d. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 19:08:09 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:08:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <424004BF.1030902@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <424004BF.1030902@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <42406D19.5040900@telus.net> David Gerard wrote: > Geoff Burling wrote: > >> FWIW, if I were kicked off Wikipedia for some reason, it wouldn't be >> the end of my world. I wouldn't be happy being unable to make >> contributions >> to Wikipedia, but I would find something else to fill the loss. > > Yes, but that's why such a thing is unlikely. > > It'll need a link to a "Dealing with wikiholism" article, if there > isn't one > already. I'll add this to it: > > * Stop looking at your watchlist. > > My wikistress went *so far down* after that. It all depends on how you use your watchlist. If it contains more than 200 items it probably needs trimming. Maybe we should each have two watchlists. One normal watchlist would have the things we like to do, or the routine tasks for which we accept responsibility. The other, probably much longer, would be the "idiot watch" where we keep an eye on certain topics that are in constant need of high-Wikistress repair. A person who enjoys dealing with idiots could still have everything on one watchlist. Ec From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 19:29:09 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:29:09 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <42405CEE.6040504@telus.net> References: <42405CEE.6040504@telus.net> Message-ID: <42407205.5060409@thingy.apana.org.au> Ray Saintonge wrote: > For some the recognition and ownership of their efforts is important. > I've remarked how on some user pages there is a very long list of the > articles on which they have worked. They are often dilligent about > keeping it up to date. When they stop keeping it up the list it's a > good sign that they have begun learning to submerge their ego. I must say it never occurred to me until I saw others doing it. I might put articles I got through FAC on such a list, because that *is* quite a personal effort. Then I could list with it the ones I failed to get through ... - d. From saintonge at telus.net Tue Mar 22 19:25:30 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:25:30 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <000301c52ee6$da939cf0$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050322121018.31899.qmail@web25004.mail.ukl.yahoo.com><000701c52ed9$5f5e6590$9e7c0450@Galasien> <42401CD9.3060600@thingy.apana.org.au> <000301c52ee6$da939cf0$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <4240712A.8020302@telus.net> Charles Matthews wrote: > David Gerard wrote > >> There is that. OTOH, refs are a good way for a newbie stub not to take a >> quick journey via Votes For Deletion. > > There is that too. For me, though, a category on a stub is more > likely than a page reference (to a college text, say) to make it > prosper and grow. Trouble is, you just have to know whether it is > [[Category:Greek islands]] or [[Category:Islands of Greece]]. One day > our categories will redirect, I suppose. Sure. Having [[Category:Greece]] and [[Category:Islands]] that could be searched with a Boolean "AND" would even avoid having redirects because the order would not matter. Ec From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 22 20:26:46 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:26:46 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Preloaded new article forms to help the newbies? In-Reply-To: <42406AA3.4030402@telus.net> References: <423F76A9.9000901@thingy.apana.org.au> <423F879D.1010105@gmail.com> <42400117.1040505@thingy.apana.org.au> <42406AA3.4030402@telus.net> Message-ID: <42407F86.2080206@sprintmail.com> Ray Saintonge wrote: > The list of what a beginner needs to know to start editing should fit > on one screen without scrolling. Exactly. I think David's original proposal was perfect with additions below. Just getting the bold name in the first sentence does a lot. '''Article name''' is ... Detail on Article name ... Further detail on Article name ... ==References== *List your sources here *or delete this section*. ==External links== *List relevant external links that are not already references *or delete this section*. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 22 20:28:35 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:28:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Why can't they learn? (was [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050322202835.71867.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Gerard wrote: > I'm currently trying to flesh out my 'addiction' > model of > pathological behaviour on Wikipedia. You can see > this in > editors who are hardworking, but seem to love > Wikipedia > *just a little too much* and possibly in ways nature > didn't > really intend. And when they get banned, they go > fucking > batshit with junkie rage at being cut off from their > fix, > c.f. Wik and the vandalbot. I'll probably write it > up as > a "ha ha only serious" page on meta, to go with > [[m:MPOV]] > and [[m:Don't be a dick]]. In the meantime, it gives > the > ArbCom considerable flexibility for more creative > remedies > for bad behaviour than a mere ban, which the real > addicts > tend to sockpuppet anyway. "You *really* want your > fix? > Write two 500-word essays on why NPOV and No > Personal Attacks > are good ideas. If we score each 9/10 or better, you > can > edit again." I think there's a lot of scope there > for really > *fixing* behaviour. That's a creative approach. I can't wait to see what you come up with. :) RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 22 20:51:39 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:51:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050322205139.1238.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> Ray Saintonge wrote: > For some the recognition and ownership of their > efforts is important. > I've remarked how on some user pages there is a very long list of the > articles on which they have worked. They are often dilligent about > keeping it up to date. When they stop keeping it up the list it's a > good sign that they have begun learning to submerge their ego. The reason why I do it is because I'm always getting idiots claiming that I do nothing but Recent Changes trolling and making minor changes. It's for self defense. There have been several times when these people try to claim that I don't contribute to Wikipedia, and all I have to do is to point to that page. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 22 20:54:58 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:54:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Why can't they learn? (was [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering) In-Reply-To: <20050322202835.71867.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050322202835.71867.qmail@web60610.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42408622.70209@thingy.apana.org.au> Rick wrote: >--- David Gerard wrote: [addiction model of wikipedia] >> In the meantime, it gives >>the >>ArbCom considerable flexibility for more creative >>remedies >>for bad behaviour than a mere ban, which the real >>addicts >>tend to sockpuppet anyway. "You *really* want your >>fix? >>Write two 500-word essays on why NPOV and No >>Personal Attacks >>are good ideas. If we score each 9/10 or better, you >>can >>edit again." I think there's a lot of scope there >>for really >>*fixing* behaviour. > That's a creative approach. I can't wait to see what > you come up with. :) The above is of course ridiculously elaborate. Ha! Ha! Though we just handed down a requirement that an editor read through the policies they broke and then post a note on their talk page saying they'd done so, and are on a policy-violation parole for a length of time. We'll see how that goes. Given the best result of an arbcom case would be for everyone to behave well afterwards, we are happily experimenting on our HOPELESSLY ADDICTED lab rats to see what will work. It's fun! And, we hope, lovingly productive in getting an encyclopedia out the door. It's nice not being bound by precedent too. Don't forget that anyone interested in a case is welcome to suggest remedies on the proposed decision talk page! - d. From csherlock at ljh.com.au Wed Mar 23 01:18:27 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 12:18:27 +1100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiWax Message-ID: I found this the other day: it's an index for Wikipedia! See http://www.wikiwax.com/ TBSDY From el.ceeh at gmail.com Wed Mar 23 07:44:21 2005 From: el.ceeh at gmail.com (El C) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:44:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiWax Message-ID: Wow, nice, TBSDY! And hi! :) /little song n' dance El_C >I found this the other day: it's an index for Wikipedia! >See http://www.wikiwax.com/ >TBSDY From el.ceeh at gmail.com Wed Mar 23 08:48:40 2005 From: el.ceeh at gmail.com (El C) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 03:48:40 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again Message-ID: The answer and key to that revolves around an unremitting application of the No Original Reserach and Cite Sources policies. So long as an item is empirically-grounded (for my own purposes as an editor, at least, in the critical scholarship), there's good likelihood for a reliable, verifiable NPOV content/exposition. It's easy to give editorial advice through innuendo; yes, everyone's for clear, critical thinking, including and not limited to people who are far from clear or critical thinkers. With all their money-bought and tradition of expertise, Britanica simply cannot produce as much quality content as Wikipedia: they don't have the (intellectual) labour power for it. The more the abovementioned content policies are adhered to, the more Wikipedia's credibility, as an authoritative source (compared to its Print counterparts) will continue to rise. I want to make another point, about Wikipedia as an 'immediately reliable' and 'scholarly' resource, a point that I think the Print Encyclopedia critiques are consistently neglecting and, perhaps, even misrepresenting (this might even strike a few editors here as peculiar, but I do think it makes a lot of sense). Example: Let say, upon reading the article [[Snuh?]], which I find articulates this or that well and is well-referenced, I wish to cite a passage from it on a Peer Review publication; but let's also consider that [[Snuh?]] is a contencious topic which, for much of the time, undergoes POV wars/vandalism which, at times, dramatically alter its 'reliable' from, including perhaps the specific passage I intend to cite. I am, however, not under any obligation to merely have [[Snuh?]] per se. in a footnote, rather, I can easily use [[Snuh? -- that specific revision]]. That, then, easily solves the problem of 'immediate reliability and stability.' But, again, and to sum up, the key is to have that reliable, verifiable element in a given article from the outset; not only that, but as the predominant component (the aim for noting a specific revision history in that way, after all, should be limited to serving as a contingency measure, in case of drastic distortions due to POV wars/vandalism at any given time). Thus, to ensure that that basis exists, we arrive back full-circle to that dimension of NPOV: the I'd-rather-not-just-take-your-word-for-it NOR and CS policies. El_C >It seemed to me from reading the article that McHenry's answers to his >own concerns were inherent in Wikipedia's structure: >"There is no guarantee that truth will win out; there is only our >hard-won and too-seldom-employed knowledge of what gives us the best >chance: the free exchange and clash of ideas." (Is Wikipedia not an >obvious example of this?) >In his final recommendations, he advocates "clear thinking", a "genial >skepticism" to both one's own and others' opinions and "toleration" >(tolerance, surely?). Theoretically, this is covered in NPOV, [[assume >good faith]], and [[no personal attacks]] but as we all know these are >violated daily. My question is: how do you (I,we) work this in >practice from a personal perspective rather than looking at others? >Cormac >[[User:Cormaggio]] (en,m) From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 10:03:12 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 10:03:12 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42413EE0.9070909@thingy.apana.org.au> El C wrote: > I want to make another point, about Wikipedia as an 'immediately > reliable' and 'scholarly' resource, a point that I think the Print > Encyclopedia critiques are consistently neglecting and, perhaps, even > misrepresenting (this might even strike a few editors here as > peculiar, but I do think it makes a lot of sense). Example: > Let say, upon reading the article [[Snuh?]], which I find articulates > this or that well and is well-referenced, I wish to cite a passage > from it on a Peer Review publication; but let's also consider that > [[Snuh?]] is a contencious topic which, for much of the time, > undergoes POV wars/vandalism which, at times, dramatically alter its > 'reliable' from, including perhaps the specific passage I intend to > cite. > I am, however, not under any obligation to merely have [[Snuh?]] per > se. in a footnote, rather, I can easily use [[Snuh? -- that specific > revision]]. That, then, easily solves the problem of 'immediate > reliability and stability.' Yep. Please have a glance over [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]] and [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]] . I understand the next version of MediaWiki will include a constant revision ID for the *current* version of an article as well as past versions, so you won't need to do an add-a-space edit to generate a version number. - d. From el.ceeh at gmail.com Wed Mar 23 10:32:25 2005 From: el.ceeh at gmail.com (El C) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 05:32:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l] Everyone's favorite FUD-master is at it again Message-ID: Will do. Good, that approach sounds like it's very much on the right track to further standardize that practice, by making it as inteligable as possible. It makes sense to expect ongoing development (and progress) there. And yet, it still seems to elude the Print Encyclopedia's critics in terms of some of its claims regarding an allegedly 'inherent' unreliability and instability. El_C > Yep. Please have a glance over [[Category:Wikipedia 1.0]] and > [[Wikipedia:Baseline revision]] . > > I understand the next version of MediaWiki will include a constant > revision ID for the *current* version of an article as well as past > versions, so you won't need to do an add-a-space edit to generate > a version number. > > > - d. From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 23 14:33:12 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 07:33:12 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiWax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42417E28.3080603@houghton.net> csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > I found this the other day: it's an index for Wikipedia! > > See http://www.wikiwax.com/ That's got to be a total blast over a third-world dialup connection... --Blair From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 14:57:27 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:57:27 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiWax In-Reply-To: <42417E28.3080603@houghton.net> References: <42417E28.3080603@houghton.net> Message-ID: <424183D7.6020208@thingy.apana.org.au> Blair P. Houghton wrote: > csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: >> I found this the other day: it's an index for Wikipedia! >> See http://www.wikiwax.com/ > That's got to be a total blast over a third-world dialup connection... I'm stuck on dialup this week - not third world, but distinctly crappy (starts at 40kbps but drops out quite a bit) - and it had a time-delay effect but was quite usable. - d. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 23 17:35:00 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 12:35:00 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD Message-ID: Will Wikipedia fit on a CD or DVD? How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text of all previous versions, because some articles have been modified over 500 times!) What are Wikipedia's plans to move toward 1.0 and issue a Disk, Book, or Multi-volume set? How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia (in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any public libraries in Africa?) If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? Uncle Ed From estel at f2s.com Wed Mar 23 17:54:15 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:54:15 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >Will Wikipedia fit on a CD or DVD? > > It would fit on a DVD - well, the sQL database would anyway. >How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text >of all previous versions, because some articles have been >modified over 500 times!) > > > 1460 MB according to http://download.wikimedia.org/ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 23 18:02:02 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:02:02 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: Message-ID: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien> Ed Poor wrote >If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? I have some experience at the YMCA Kampala (Uganda) - which has its own computer room; and my mother is just back from a secondary school in the coffee-growing area of Tanzania. The latter has no working computers, and is not likely to be able to get technician-level help. Those are relatively typical, I suppose, of the capital city/up-country constrasts in Africa, where things are relatively hopeful (for example, high uptakes of primary education). Any donated software is likely to find its way to institutions, rather than individuals - that's one point. Charles From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 23 18:44:08 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 11:44:08 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> Charles Matthews wrote: > I have some experience at the YMCA Kampala (Uganda) - which has its > own computer room; and my mother is just back from a secondary school > in the coffee-growing area of Tanzania. The latter has no working > computers, and is not likely to be able to get technician-level help. > > Those are relatively typical, I suppose, of the capital > city/up-country constrasts in Africa, where things are relatively > hopeful (for example, high uptakes of primary education). > > Any donated software is likely to find its way to institutions, rather > than individuals - that's one point. Of course we have to get Wikipedia ready with a working Wiki rating/tagging/validation system. That is really our whole job. I work with a help-Africa charity called Care For Life that is based in Mozambique, and I think if Wikipedia could provide reliable, selectable content, that humanitarian organizations like Care For Life could creatively solve the problem of distribution. I could ask the board of Care For Life, but it seems it would be a small matter to create a Wikipedia Appliance that was optimized for price and utility in a given area. For example, Care For Life could purchase or receive donations of cheap computers and provide them with Wikipedia 1.0 loaded at their Literacy Centers. Tom Haws "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, July 2004 From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 19:04:26 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:04:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4241BDBA.4010901@thingy.apana.org.au> [cc to wikipedia-l] Poor, Edmund W wrote: > Will Wikipedia fit on a CD or DVD? > How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text > of all previous versions, because some articles have been > modified over 500 times!) The en: SQL dump is over 500MB compressed (.bz2) - that'd be well over a gig uncompressed. > What are Wikipedia's plans to move toward 1.0 and issue a Disk, > Book, or Multi-volume set? So far my plan [[User:David Gerard/1.0]] appears to be the closest to a coherent plan. It relies on [[m:Article validation feature]], which Magnus has decided will be polished up for inclusion in MediaWiki 1.5. This plan is so far a way to produce a 1.0-ready distribution. We have a paper publisher who might be interested, but it would have to be a CONSIDERABLY cut down version - think single-volume encyclopedia, because the current en: text would be bigger than Britannica if printed in full ... > How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia > (in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or > Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any > public libraries in Africa?) > If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked > for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? We can do a dump to DVD very easily ;-) en: and fr: would at least make a start on covering Africa. We could probably include *all* the local languages with that, as their Wikipedias are much smaller. (There are small considerations like copyright liability in an environment where you can't just remove violations from the online history ... but never mind that for the moment.) I have no idea if anyone's investigated the practicalities of distribution in Africa. However, I can guess that Africa is blanketed in minute detail by other charities, and I have no doubt we could hitch a ride with several, which would get a DVD into every school. Possibly even something to run the DVD on, and something to power the thing to run the DVD on ;-) (Or just a cheap PC with a hard disk full of Wikipedia and a DVD for backup.) - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 19:07:09 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:07:09 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> References: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien> <4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4241BE5D.7050905@thingy.apana.org.au> Tom Haws wrote: > Of course we have to get Wikipedia ready with a working Wiki > rating/tagging/validation system. That is really our whole job. > I work with a help-Africa charity called Care For Life that is based in > Mozambique, and I think if Wikipedia could provide reliable, selectable > content, that humanitarian organizations like Care For Life could > creatively solve the problem of distribution. I could ask the board of > Care For Life, but it seems it would be a small matter to create a > Wikipedia Appliance that was optimized for price and utility in a given > area. For example, Care For Life could purchase or receive donations of > cheap computers and provide them with Wikipedia 1.0 loaded at their > Literacy Centers. You can hardly *buy* a hard disk smaller than 20GB these days. Heck, with 40GB disks we could just dump the whole of Wikimedia on each one. Of course, tagging/metadata on good article versions would be a good thing to have ;-) - d. From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 23 19:13:57 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:13:57 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien><4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> <4241BE5D.7050905@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <001501c52fdc$77bca710$9e7c0450@Galasien> David Gerard wrote > You can hardly *buy* a hard disk smaller than 20GB these days. Heck, with > 40GB disks we could just dump the whole of Wikimedia on each one. Well, in the context, planning on using second-hand/obsolescent PCs makes sense. Charles From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 23 19:48:16 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 19:48:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Wikipedia on handhelds in schools (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050323194817.36345.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> -- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia > (in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or > Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any > public libraries in Africa?) Another medium could be handheld computers. This is used by an organisation called EduVision to distribute content in schools in Kenya: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4304375.stm Quotes: "It is a pilot project run by EduVision, which is looking at ways to use low cost computer systems to get up-to-date information to students who are currently stuck with ancient textbooks." "...uses a combination of satellite radio and handheld computers called E-slates. The E-slates connect via a wireless connection to a base station in the school. This in turn is connected to a satellite radio receiver. The data is transmitted alongside audio signals." "The system is cheaper than installing and maintaining an internet connection and conventional computer network...We plan to put a solar panel at the school with the base station, have the E-slates charge during the day when the children are in school, then they can take them home at night and continue working." Matt R -- [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From magnus.manske at web.de Wed Mar 23 20:55:18 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:55:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I would like to remind everyone that the German Wikipedia has just been published on a combined CD-DVD-set, at a price of about 10 Euros. The DVD contains de.wikipedia in a special format for the DirectMedia Reader (Windows, Linux, Mac?), XML, and several PDA formats (TomeRaider), AFAIK. It also is filled up with images. The CD contains just text and a special bootable Linux, thought to be useful for a quick lookup when the computer is turned off (Linux-CD boots faster than Windows). Magnus Poor, Edmund W schrieb: > Will Wikipedia fit on a CD or DVD? > > How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text > of all previous versions, because some articles have been > modified over 500 times!) > > What are Wikipedia's plans to move toward 1.0 and issue a Disk, > Book, or Multi-volume set? > > How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia > (in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or > Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any > public libraries in Africa?) > > If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked > for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? > > Uncle Ed > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCQde2CZKBJbEFcz0RAi7ZAJ4jbiGRHORp1ERbJe68gdLN42NRTgCdHM/z aSeznj408wuW2au1QEd5V+E= =uHVr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From estel at f2s.com Wed Mar 23 21:10:39 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:10:39 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> Message-ID: <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> Magnus Manske wrote: >The DVD contains de.wikipedia in a special format for the DirectMedia >Reader (Windows, Linux, Mac?), XML, and several PDA formats >(TomeRaider), AFAIK. It also is filled up with images. > I think that that's a good format, which accounts for most circumstances imaginable; it's unlikely then the the english wikipedia would be able to fit on in this format then - being about twice the size of the German one. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 21:46:16 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:46:16 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> Message-ID: <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> Nathan Wong wrote: > Magnus Manske wrote: >> The DVD contains de.wikipedia in a special format for the DirectMedia >> Reader (Windows, Linux, Mac?), XML, and several PDA formats >> (TomeRaider), AFAIK. It also is filled up with images. > I think that that's a good format, which accounts for most circumstances > imaginable; it's unlikely then the the english wikipedia would be able > to fit on in this format then - being about twice the size of the German > one. The English current text is still just under CD size as one big SQL dump bzipped. Presumably some sort of inelegant hackery could be performed to cram it all onto a CD of gzipped/bzipped articles and a viewer app for several OSes (since modern web browsers will accept gzipped HTTP but won't gunzip files by default). Are there compression algorithms good for text that go smaller than bzip2 and are fast to uncompress even though they may be slow to compress? - d. From magnus.manske at web.de Wed Mar 23 22:00:10 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 23:00:10 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4241E6EA.60807@web.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 David Gerard schrieb: > Are there compression algorithms good for text that go smaller than bzip2 > and are fast to uncompress even though they may be slow to compress? There's a commercial variant of the public domain sqlite engine (database in a single file, "server" as a linkable library, understands most of SQL) which can store fields in the sqlite database as zipped BLOBs. A better alternative might be to write a wrapper around sqlite that can read a bzip2ed sqlite file. Ultimately though, en.wikipedia will grow beyond any compression algorithm's capability. Maybe we should go ahead to DVD, waste an additional half a gig or so on an uncompressed sqlite file, and have a fulltext index and some pretty images. Magnus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCQebqCZKBJbEFcz0RAprlAJ4xWlWMOpZZOaoco31aePUGfcgBegCdEN7r F7GhElGDCw3C8cmTkaF9N9o= =KAVY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 23 21:53:46 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 13:53:46 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4241E56A.5070809@telus.net> Poor, Edmund W wrote: >If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked >for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? > A possible problem - 1. What good are CDs when you don't have a computer? 2. What good are computers when you don't have electricity? Ec From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 23 22:07:16 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:07:16 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> References: <000d01c52fd2$6c03c070$9e7c0450@Galasien> <4241B8F8.3050007@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4241E894.3080107@telus.net> Tom Haws wrote: > Charles Matthews wrote: > >> I have some experience at the YMCA Kampala (Uganda) - which has its >> own computer room; and my mother is just back from a secondary school >> in the coffee-growing area of Tanzania. The latter has no working >> computers, and is not likely to be able to get technician-level help. >> >> Those are relatively typical, I suppose, of the capital >> city/up-country constrasts in Africa, where things are relatively >> hopeful (for example, high uptakes of primary education). >> >> Any donated software is likely to find its way to institutions, >> rather than individuals - that's one point. > > Of course we have to get Wikipedia ready with a working Wiki > rating/tagging/validation system. That is really our whole job. > I work with a help-Africa charity called Care For Life that is based > in Mozambique, and I think if Wikipedia could provide reliable, > selectable content, that humanitarian organizations like Care For Life > could creatively solve the problem of distribution. I could ask the > board of Care For Life, but it seems it would be a small matter to > create a Wikipedia Appliance that was optimized for price and utility > in a given area. For example, Care For Life could purchase or receive > donations of cheap computers and provide them with Wikipedia 1.0 > loaded at their Literacy Centers. One needs to consider what requirements should be a part of a "cheap computer". CD drives are relatively recent in the technological history, and the older slower drives may be made available for these machines. On the other hand, it may not be cost effective to upgrade these machines to have great graphics. This would suggest that there should be a 1.0 version with all pictures stripped out so that the recipients can at least benefit from the text. Ec From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 23 22:21:04 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 15:21:04 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4241EBD0.9080009@sprintmail.com> David Gerard wrote: > The English current text .... Hang on. Let me make sure I understand this. We are not ready for 1.0 right now, but we are talking about starting making early distributions so we can get the mechanics down right? So now we are saying, Toward 0.1? There's not much downside to that, anyone who mocks a version 0.1 distribution for vandalism won't get much sympathy. But will there be any real demand for a 0.1 version from the people we are hoping to serve, and does it serve our reputation to foist early versions on unsuspecting customers? From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 22:46:58 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:46:58 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241E6EA.60807@web.de> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> <4241E6EA.60807@web.de> Message-ID: <4241F1E2.2060301@thingy.apana.org.au> Magnus Manske wrote: > Ultimately though, en.wikipedia will grow beyond any compression > algorithm's capability. Maybe we should go ahead to DVD, waste an > additional half a gig or so on an uncompressed sqlite file, and have a > fulltext index and some pretty images. That's probably more sensible. Hopefully en: won't outgrow a DVD before Blu-Ray or HD-DVD win ;-) - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 23 22:49:05 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:49:05 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241EBD0.9080009@sprintmail.com> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> <4241EBD0.9080009@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4241F261.2040409@thingy.apana.org.au> Tom Haws wrote: > David Gerard wrote: >> The English current text .... > Hang on. Let me make sure I understand this. We are not ready for 1.0 > right now, but we are talking about starting making early distributions > so we can get the mechanics down right? So now we are saying, Toward > 0.1? There's not much downside to that, anyone who mocks a version 0.1 > distribution for vandalism won't get much sympathy. But will there be > any real demand for a 0.1 version from the people we are hoping to > serve, and does it serve our reputation to foist early versions on > unsuspecting customers? I assume ISOs and so on will be used! I'd see what the reaction to de: is like. Possibly we should be publicising quite a bit that de: is now available and being sold. - d. From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Mar 23 23:01:56 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:31:56 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia on handhelds in schools In-Reply-To: <20050323194817.36345.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050323194817.36345.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4241F564.4060007@gmail.com> Matt R wrote: >-- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > > >>How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia >>(in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or >>Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any >>public libraries in Africa?) >> >> > >Another medium could be handheld computers. This is used by an organisation >called EduVision to distribute content in schools in Kenya: > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4304375.stm > Ah yes, the [[PADD]]. You never need to worry about what you do with it, because you can always get another one. [[en:User:Alphax]] From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Thu Mar 24 01:06:11 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 17:06:11 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> References: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> Message-ID: <42421283.1070209@shaw.ca> Nathan Wong wrote: >> How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text of all >> previous versions, because some articles have been modified over 500 >> times!) >> >> > 1460 MB according to http://download.wikimedia.org/ That's for the current article databases for all languages combined, though. English is 585MB, which should fit onto a CD with a little room to spare. If one were frugal with the markup, I wonder if perhaps an HTML version would fit. There'd be no images, though; you'd need to do a DVD version (or multi-CD, maybe split up alphabetically like a traditional encyclopedia :) for that. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 24 05:38:40 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:38:40 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: Message-ID: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: > Will Wikipedia fit on a CD or DVD? > > How big is the "current article" database? (Excluding the text > of all previous versions, because some articles have been > modified over 500 times!) The French Wikipedia has been looking to do such a cd/dvd in the past 6 months (hence the drive launched by Yann Forget to tag all images, included in the english wikipedia). Last time I heard, a cd was necessary for fr and a dvd for en. We are in relationship with a firm called MandrakeSoft to do such a distribution. They distribute a version of Linux and wanted to add Wikipedia to their distribution last christmas. It was reported. There was recently another meeting, where they mentionned they would prefer an individual release (rather than a common release with other software). I am not sure a deal will be possible though. Amongst problems raised is the one of responsability of the editors. > What are Wikipedia's plans to move toward 1.0 and issue a Disk, > Book, or Multi-volume set? > > How far has anyone looked into delivering copies of Wikipedia > (in any medium) to third-world schools, as in Africa or > Indonesia? (To show my level of ignorance: Are there even any > public libraries in Africa?) I started looking into it quite seriously early 2005, with contacts in several french speaking countries. Most contacts were related with young children schools and the equivalent of libraries. One with a university. Generally, there was interest (if not huge interest) but naturally, as expected, the issue raised was the one of computer and internet line. You'll tell me, why internet line if on a cd ? This is a big point : we have to admit that a big part of our content does not necessarily fit the needs of some of the target people in these countries. And what the associations I went in contact with insisted that they did not want to just be handled a cd from west to use. They wanted the resource provided to strongly participate to local development. In short, if wikipedia is made available, they want it for real, with net lines, and participate to the building of the resource themselves. With the needs, come the features. So, the justification of the install of computers and net lines in a village THROUGH wikipedia, allow the village to get access to outside world and join it. Not be nourrished by it. With the internet line, all the uses of the net come along and stimulate development. In short, a DVD, why not, but the desire was for the full product. Note that it was then mentionned a neat feature could be a system so that they could post articles through mail, or a system where they could work offline and have their content synchronised from time to time. I had to unfortunately put aside all this research (or nearly all of it) due to reallocating my priorities. Most of the associations we could work with are located either in Paris (where I do not have time to go), or in Africa (where I do not have either time or money to go). And I think at some point in the discussion, it is necessary to meet people. And I had to cut some big branches in my activity recently. However, I intend to proceed in that direction when I have more time again. Waerth and Danny were working on setting up an organisation in Thailand some time ago. I do not know what is the current state of this project. > If Wikipedia received a donation of $100,000 - specifically earmarked > for CD distribution to Africa, COULD it do anything? > > Uncle Ed I think there would be two big issues at hand. How to handle the responsability of the editor ? (who ?) Where would be the volunteers to help ? To which I will add It is easy to start an article, and just stop if we do not feel like it anymore. When getting involved in a probably long lasting and time consuming operation, such as finding a school interested in CD, finding old computers, setting up computers, shipping them, helping with install, checking its usefulness etc... is far less easy than just starting an article. What I mean is that to start such a thing, we need a real team of people to get involved, and we need this people to feel really committed to it. And I think this is the highest difficulty. From mattsen at arvig.net Thu Mar 24 06:20:17 2005 From: mattsen at arvig.net (Chuck MATTSEN) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 00:20:17 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050324002017.4ac8cd02@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:38:40 +0100 Anthere typed: > ...We are in relationship with a firm called MandrakeSoft to do such > a distribution. They distribute a version of Linux and wanted to add > Wikipedia to their distribution last christmas. It was reported. > There was recently another meeting, where they mentionned they would > prefer an individual release (rather than a common release with other > software). I am not sure a deal will be possible though. Mandrake's currently embarking on a new release schedule for their products, along with a new versioning scheme, to a degree in response to their recent acquisition of Connectiva Linux. That may be part of the reason for any perceived change of focus on their part; indeed, such decision making may still be in somewhat of a state of flux. See http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/pr?n=/pr/products/2546 -- Chuck MATTSEN / mattsen at arvig dot net / Mahnomen, MN, USA Mandrakelinux release 10.2 (Cooker) for i586 kernel 2.6.10-3.mm.5mdk RLU #346519 / MT Lookup: http://eot.com/~mattsen/mtsearch.htm Random Thought/Quote for this Message: "Liberty is the prevention of control by others." -Lord John Acton From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Mar 24 09:17:23 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:17:23 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424285A3.4020302@thingy.apana.org.au> Anthere wrote: > I am not sure a deal will be possible though. > Amongst problems raised is the one of responsability of the editors. How are the makers of the de: CD dealing with these issues? - d. From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Thu Mar 24 06:31:13 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoff Burling) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:31:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering In-Reply-To: <42405CEE.6040504@telus.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote: > For some the recognition and ownership of their efforts is important. > I've remarked how on some user pages there is a very long list of the > articles on which they have worked. They are often dilligent about > keeping it up to date. When they stop keeping it up the list it's a > good sign that they have begun learning to submerge their ego. > While I agree with you, Ray, that it's a function of ego, I think at least some editors keep a list of articles on their Talk page to prove that they are making credible contributions to Wikipedia. Not in the sense that Rick described in another post, but to seek validation for their efforts. Wikipedia can be a very intimidating place for bookish people -- ironically, the same types we are attracted here. > Most of us can't be bothered to go through somebody else's list unless > we are trying to track down POV warrioring. > I don't know. In the past when I've had the time, I would sometimes review the list of contributions of other editors whose work or erudition I admired. It was by far more interesting than sifting thru [[Recent changes]] or [[New articles]]. Geoff From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 24 09:37:06 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 09:37:06 -0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [Ticket#: 115103-FW] Just wondering References: Message-ID: <001401c53055$0ef99c00$9e7c0450@Galasien> Geoff Burling wrote > On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Ray Saintonge wrote: > >> For some the recognition and ownership of their efforts is important. >> I've remarked how on some user pages there is a very long list of the >> articles on which they have worked. They are often dilligent about >> keeping it up to date. When they stop keeping it up the list it's a >> good sign that they have begun learning to submerge their ego. > While I agree with you, Ray, that it's a function of ego, I think at least > some editors keep a list of articles on their Talk page to prove that > they are making credible contributions to Wikipedia. Ray's comments are pretty good nonsense. One can perfectly well 'submerge ego' - edit as an anon, for example - without thereby contributing much to the community. One can also have a personality, without making a cult of it, let's say. Mutual recognition mostly helps rather than hinders. > I don't know. In the past when I've had the time, I would sometimes review > the list of contributions of other editors whose work or erudition I > admired. Me too. There are editors whose brag-lists I check, to see what has been created in an area of interest. This is a perfectly valid reason for those lists being there. Charles From elian at djini.de Thu Mar 24 13:07:01 2005 From: elian at djini.de (Elisabeth Bauer) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 14:07:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <424285A3.4020302@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <424285A3.4020302@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4242BB75.20408@djini.de> Hiho, David Gerard wrote: > Anthere wrote: > >> I am not sure a deal will be possible though. >> Amongst problems raised is the one of responsability of the editors. > > How are the makers of the de: CD dealing with these issues? Directmedia, the publisher of the CD and now the DVD, took the legal responsability for the content of the CD. They produced a certain quantity (40000) they distributed themselves and then waited a bit if there would be any legal complaints before selling distribution rights to some magazines which distributed the CD in a higher number (I think about 500000). greetings, elian From suzynjoe at comcast.net Thu Mar 24 14:19:40 2005 From: suzynjoe at comcast.net (Szuy and Joe Scuderi) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:19:40 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <001901c5307c$84c7ed20$e53b1218@hsd1.wa.comcast.net> On the Terri Schiavo page Neutrality repeatedly deletes items that are cited without comment on the talk page. When I complained about this Neutrality blocked me for vandalism. This is out of hand. Powerline and Jim Geraghty have raised allegations about the Republican "talking points memorandum" about the poltical ramifications of the Schiavo case possibly being a fake. This is sourced and should not be deleted. This is why I have been accused of vandalism. Apparently Neutrality did not like what I wrote and blocked me. Here's the note I left on the talk page of "Politics and Pundits" in the Schiavo article and User: SanPaulo 1 comment in response: Powerline (blog), Jim Geraghty of National Review Online, and Michelle Malkin have raised allegations of the talking memo being a potential forgery. So has Mickey Kaus at Slate (Magazine). For some reason User:Neutrality keeps deleting it without comment. It may or may not be true, but the allegations have been made and are newsworthy. I've changed it back after the Powerline passage was deleted. I agree with the memo, BUT I want to be neutral. Saopaulo1 08:12, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC) From suzynjoe at comcast.net Thu Mar 24 14:36:21 2005 From: suzynjoe at comcast.net (Szuy and Joe Scuderi) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 06:36:21 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <001d01c5307e$da15c700$e53b1218@hsd1.wa.comcast.net> On the Terri Schiavo page Neutrality repeatedly deletes items that are cited without comment on the talk page. When I complained about this Neutrality blocked me for vandalism. This is out of hand. Powerline and Jim Geraghty have raised allegations about the Republican "talking points memorandum" about the poltical ramifications of the Schiavo case possibly being a fake. This is sourced and should not be deleted. This is why I have been accused of vandalism. Apparently Neutrality did not like what I wrote and blocked me. Here's the note I left on the talk page of "Politics and Pundits" in the Schiavo article and User: SanPaulo 1 comment in response: Powerline (blog), Jim Geraghty of National Review Online, and Michelle Malkin have raised allegations of the talking memo being a potential forgery. So has Mickey Kaus at Slate (Magazine). For some reason User:Neutrality keeps deleting it without comment. It may or may not be true, but the allegations have been made and are newsworthy. I've changed it back after the Powerline passage was deleted. I agree with the memo, BUT I want to be neutral. Saopaulo1 08:12, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC) This is what Neutrality did: User is blocked >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You have attempted to edit a page, either by clicking the "edit this page" tab or by following a red link. Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Neutrality. The reason given is this: Vandalism You can email Neutrality or one of the other administrators to discuss the block. If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l). Note that you may not use the "email this user" feature unless you have a Wikipedia account and a valid email address registered in your user preferences. Your IP address is 24.18.59.229. Please include this address in any queries you make. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 24 14:34:23 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 07:34:23 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> Anthere wrote: > we have to admit that a big part of our content does not necessarily > fit the needs of some of the target people in these countries. And > what the associations I went in contact with insisted that they did > not want to just be handled a cd from west to use. Excellent post, Anthere. And the above is right on. I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. I know this is a variation on an unpopular theme, but Mangus's Wikiratings need to come before a CD/DVD. Tom Haws From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 24 15:13:30 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 10:13:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD Message-ID: Magnus Manske schrieb: > I would like to remind everyone that the German Wikipedia has > just been published on a combined CD-DVD-set, at a price of > about 10 Euros. Where can I order a copy? I don't know German, but some of my colleagues probably do. And did you do the programming and configuration for that DVD? You are certainly keeping busy; how do you find the time? Gratefully, Ed Poor From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 24 15:53:45 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:53:45 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <001901c5307c$84c7ed20$e53b1218@hsd1.wa.comcast.net> References: <001901c5307c$84c7ed20$e53b1218@hsd1.wa.comcast.net> Message-ID: <4242E289.5060009@sprintmail.com> To the list, I will be assisting this person in private with his or her grievance. Tom Haws Szuy and Joe Scuderi wrote: >On the Terri Schiavo page Neutrality repeatedly deletes items that are cited >without comment on the talk page. When I complained about this Neutrality >blocked me for vandalism. This is out of hand. > >Powerline and Jim Geraghty have raised allegations about the Republican >"talking points memorandum" about the poltical ramifications of the Schiavo >case possibly being a fake. This is sourced and should not be deleted. > >This is why I have been accused of vandalism. Apparently Neutrality did not >like what I wrote and blocked me. Here's the note I left on the talk page >of "Politics and Pundits" in the Schiavo article and User: SanPaulo 1 >comment in response: > >Powerline (blog), Jim Geraghty of National Review Online, and Michelle >Malkin have raised allegations of the talking memo being a potential >forgery. So has Mickey Kaus at Slate (Magazine). For some reason >User:Neutrality keeps deleting it without comment. It may or may not be >true, but the allegations have been made and are newsworthy. > >I've changed it back after the Powerline passage was deleted. I agree with >the memo, BUT I want to be neutral. Saopaulo1 08:12, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC) > From estel at f2s.com Thu Mar 24 18:12:29 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:12:29 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> > I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of > distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. Many millions of school children can probably access all of Wikipedia's articles on pretty much anything online anyway, and some schools / colleges have a EB / Encarta subscription that would contain similar information. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 24 18:27:53 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:27:53 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> Message-ID: <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> Nathan Wong wrote: > >> I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of >> distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. > > > Many millions of school children can probably access all of > Wikipedia's articles on pretty much anything online anyway, and some > schools / colleges have a EB / Encarta subscription that would contain > similar information. They are going to get it anyway. They may as well get it from me? Is that the reasoning? Tom Haws From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 24 18:32:58 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:32:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050324183259.75531.qmail@web25002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Nathan Wong wrote: > > > we have to admit that a big part of our content does not necessarily > > > fit the needs of some of the target people in these countries. And > > > what the associations I went in contact with insisted that they did > > > not want to just be handled a cd from west to use. > > > > I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of > > distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. > > Many millions of school children can probably access all of Wikipedia's > articles on pretty much anything online anyway, and some schools / > colleges have a EB / Encarta subscription that would contain similar > information. Hang on...isn't this discussion in the context of shipping CDs out to parts of the world without easy Internet access? In which case, the aforementioned schoolchildren would not be able to access these things online. Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From estel at f2s.com Thu Mar 24 18:34:19 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:34:19 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> Tom Haws wrote: > They are going to get it anyway. They may as well get it from me? Is > that the reasoning? No, merely that you would no more be 'responsible' for a school age child accessing that information from a Wikipedia CD/DVD than you are for it being on Wikipedia atm, or a teacher/headmaster would be for providing access to it (there's no reason not to have a sign that says "Warning: this is an encyclopedia and there may be some articles that you find objectionable". On the other hand, if we were to initiate a review system there is no reason that it cannot have some form of content warning/aging anyway (though I think that just a "mature content notice" would be best). From this, you could produce two version of Wikipedia - one which is censored (if you see fit - though it could be argued that this is against the "wiki-way"). Estel From shebs at apple.com Thu Mar 24 18:51:31 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 10:51:31 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> Message-ID: <42430C33.8010408@apple.com> Nathan Wong wrote: > Tom Haws wrote: > >> They are going to get it anyway. They may as well get it from me? >> Is that the reasoning? > > > No, merely that you would no more be 'responsible' for a school age > child accessing that information from a Wikipedia CD/DVD than you are > for it being on Wikipedia atm, or a teacher/headmaster would be for > providing access to it (there's no reason not to have a sign that says > "Warning: this is an encyclopedia and there may be some articles that > you find objectionable". > On the other hand, if we were to initiate a review system there is no > reason that it cannot have some form of content warning/aging anyway > (though I think that just a "mature content notice" would be best). > From this, you could produce two version of Wikipedia - one which is > censored (if you see fit - though it could be argued that this is > against the "wiki-way"). Please please please let's not start this all over again. If you have a specific proposal, post it on meta, otherwise 1) yes, we know it's an issue for many people, 2) no, there is still no consensus as to what to do about it. Stan From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 24 18:57:44 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:57:44 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> Message-ID: <42430DA8.9000106@sprintmail.com> Matt R wrote: > Hang on...isn't this discussion in the context of shipping CDs out to parts of > the world without easy Internet access? In which case, the aforementioned > schoolchildren would not be able to access these things online. And I guess this points out that Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation and we editors) are not really responsible for granting anybody access to anything. What we are responsible for is making our data easy to use and palatable to the guardians of schoolchildren. Nathan Wong wrote: > Tom Haws wrote: > >> They are going to get it anyway. They may as well get it from me? >> Is that the reasoning? > > > No, merely that you would no more be 'responsible' for a school age > child accessing that information from a Wikipedia CD/DVD than you are > for it being on Wikipedia atm, or a teacher/headmaster would be for > providing access to it (there's no reason not to have a sign that says > "Warning: this is an encyclopedia and there may be some articles that > you find objectionable". > On the other hand, if we were to initiate a review system there is no > reason that it cannot have some form of content warning/aging anyway > (though I think that just a "mature content notice" would be best). > From this, you could produce two version of Wikipedia - one which is > censored (if you see fit - though it could be argued that this is > against the "wiki-way"). Right, Estel. It really is not our choice who reads our stuff. Other than our responsibility to be honest about the nethermost recesses of Wikipedia and what they may containt, it kind of boils down to a market decision regarding what we have to do or want to do to be relevant in the world. If we want headmasters to use us for their schools, we probably are going to have to give those headmasters the tools to select/filter our database (enter Mangus's Wikitag system again). From estel at f2s.com Thu Mar 24 18:59:08 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:59:08 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <42430C33.8010408@apple.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> <424306A9.6040709@sprintmail.com> <4243082B.1090405@f2s.com> <42430C33.8010408@apple.com> Message-ID: <42430DFC.6050506@f2s.com> Stan Shebs wrote: > Please please please let's not start this all over again. > > If you have a specific proposal, post it on meta, otherwise > 1) yes, we know it's an issue for many people, > 2) no, there is still no consensus as to what to do about it. Sorry - I didn't intend to make a specific proposal, or any proposal. And I wouldn't really dare do so - I was just trying to reply more fully to Tom; though I probably wrote more than I need. From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 24 20:19:12 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:19:12 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> <4243030D.8010104@f2s.com> Message-ID: <424320C0.4090001@telus.net> Nathan Wong wrote: >> I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of >> distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. > > Many millions of school children can probably access all of > Wikipedia's articles on pretty much anything online anyway, and some > schools / colleges have a EB / Encarta subscription that would contain > similar information. But only if you believe that: EB + Enc > WP :-) Ec From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 24 20:27:09 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 12:27:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <20050324183259.75531.qmail@web25002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050324183259.75531.qmail@web25002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4243229D.8000000@telus.net> Matt R wrote: >--- Nathan Wong wrote: > > >>>>we have to admit that a big part of our content does not necessarily >>>>fit the needs of some of the target people in these countries. And >>>>what the associations I went in contact with insisted that they did >>>>not want to just be handled a cd from west to use. >>>> >>>> >>>I for one am not prepared to account for the consequences of >>>distributing autofella..., etc. to school children. >>> >>> >>Many millions of school children can probably access all of Wikipedia's >>articles on pretty much anything online anyway, and some schools / >>colleges have a EB / Encarta subscription that would contain similar >>information. >> >> >Hang on...isn't this discussion in the context of shipping CDs out to parts of >the world without easy Internet access? In which case, the aforementioned >schoolchildren would not be able to access these things online. > Yep! It's hard for a person who has grown up in a fully wired society to imagine 3rd world conditions. In some places the best use for a CD is as a substitute for hard-to-get frisbees. Ec From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 24 21:00:29 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:00:29 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A friendly Wired Article Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: TL at pipeline.com [mailto:TL at pipeline.com] Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:22 PM To: Poor, Edmund W Subject: article of interest http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this article but me, by now. I feel like I just got a big pat on the back for my 3 1/2 years of work! This writer is very friendly and has captured the essence of Wikipedia much, MUCH better than anyone else heretofore. I just wish his article was GFDL'd so I could incorporate all his descriptions. Uncle Ed P.S. A non-Wikipedian sent me the URL From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Thu Mar 24 21:00:42 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:00:42 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 125 Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of > wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:59 PM > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 125 > > > Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to > wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more > specific than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..." > From jfader at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 00:46:37 2005 From: jfader at gmail.com (John Fader) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:46:37 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A friendly Wired Article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42eaa3d05032416462cc4acfa@mail.gmail.com> Wired liked Enron too (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.06/wired_index.html?pg=13). If you cannot afford an attorney, a really bad one will be provided for you. John Fader From actionforum at comcast.net Fri Mar 25 00:49:48 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:49:48 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <032520050049.610.4243602B000EF8450000026222070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > To the list, > > I will be assisting this person in private with his or her grievance. If you find during the course of this, that it was a personal abuse of administrator power, it should be brought back out in public, on the request for arbitration page. It should be easy to add the evidence to one of the on going cases neutrality is involved in. Neutrality was editing that same page, and should have called another admin to review the evidence, but he did not think he was personally involved in the particulars of what was going on, so did not think there was a conflict of interest. -- Silverback From abesokolov at hotmail.com Fri Mar 25 01:07:23 2005 From: abesokolov at hotmail.com (Abe Sokolov) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:07:23 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [172] George Kennan Message-ID: Wikipedia editors: I just posted a new article on the late George F. Kennan. Aside from this brief return earlier today, I still no longer intend to return to Wikipedia as an editor, so I have to announce here on the mailing list that I can be reached for questions/comments/feedback on this very important article (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_a_press_source_2005#March_21-31) via this email address. Also, thanks to everyone who posted those kind words of encouragement on my talk page after my depature. Thanks for the understanding, 172 _________________________________________________________________ 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 Fri Mar 25 01:09:14 2005 From: theresaknott at gmail.com (Theresa Knott) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:09:14 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <032520050049.610.4243602B000EF8450000026222070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032520050049.610.4243602B000EF8450000026222070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1bfe3eb05032417096683a4c1@mail.gmail.com> I've unblocked this user as it does look like a content dispute rather than vandalism. Theresa From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 25 03:05:33 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 20:05:33 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <1bfe3eb05032417096683a4c1@mail.gmail.com> References: <032520050049.610.4243602B000EF8450000026222070009539B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> <1bfe3eb05032417096683a4c1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42437FFD.2010109@sprintmail.com> Theresa Knott wrote: >I've unblocked this user as it does look like a content dispute rather >than vandalism. > I would like to hear from Neutrality on this. I left a note today, but have not heard back. Unless we hear some quick backpedalling, this kind of behavior should lead to indefinite suspension of sysop privileges. The last thing Wikipedia needs is this kind of face toward anons. Tom Haws From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 05:43:38 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 06:43:38 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: <42425260.4090903@yahoo.com> <4242CFEF.50105@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4243A50A.8010207@yahoo.com> Tom Haws a ?crit: > Anthere wrote: > >> we have to admit that a big part of our content does not necessarily >> fit the needs of some of the target people in these countries. And >> what the associations I went in contact with insisted that they did >> not want to just be handled a cd from west to use. > > > Excellent post, Anthere. And the above is right on. I for one am not > prepared to account for the consequences of distributing autofella..., > etc. to school children. I know this is a variation on an unpopular > theme, but Mangus's Wikiratings need to come before a CD/DVD. > > Tom Haws Hmmm, tough issue. Another point recently mentionned... is that some editors think it is not the role of the Foundation to distribute content and that we should let other organisations do it. This will also solve the issue of legal responsability. On the other hand, if other organisations are the legal editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content distributed ? Or should we get a benefit ? From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 09:22:52 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:22:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050325092253.24437.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tom Haws wrote: > Theresa Knott wrote: > > >I've unblocked this user as it does look like a > content dispute rather > >than vandalism. > > > I would like to hear from Neutrality on this. I > left a note today, but > have not heard back. Unless we hear some quick > backpedalling, this kind > of behavior should lead to indefinite suspension of > sysop privileges. > The last thing Wikipedia needs is this kind of face > toward anons. > > Tom Haws Oh, please. Why is it every time an admin does something that somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the hounds and the torches and go raging after them with the rest of the mob? RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From johnleemk at gawab.com Fri Mar 25 10:43:46 2005 From: johnleemk at gawab.com (John Lee) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:43:46 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <20050325092253.24437.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050325092253.24437.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4243EB62.7030908@gawab.com> Rick wrote: > > >Oh, please. > >Why is it every time an admin does something that >somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the >hounds and the torches and go raging after them with >the rest of the mob? > >RickK > > > Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. That said, I do feel it's kind of stupid every time people act as if the world will end whenever an admin does something wrong AND THE ADMIN SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. Admins are human too. John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]]) From cunctator at kband.com Fri Mar 25 14:11:44 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 09:11:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <4243EB62.7030908@gawab.com> Message-ID: On 3/25/05 5:43 AM, "John Lee" wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> >> >> Oh, please. >> >> Why is it every time an admin does something that >> somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the >> hounds and the torches and go raging after them with >> the rest of the mob? >> >> RickK >> >> >> > Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] > for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability > for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. > More fundamentally, it's because people are aware that in the long run, the real disasters and failures of society have come when the people in power fail to be kept in check. From sean at epoptic.org Fri Mar 25 14:31:53 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 06:31:53 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424420D9.2040300@epoptic.com> The Cunctator stated for the record: > On 3/25/05 5:43 AM, "John Lee" wrote: >>Rick wrote: >> >>>Oh, please. >>> >>>Why is it every time an admin does something that >>>somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the >>>hounds and the torches and go raging after them with >>>the rest of the mob? >>> >>>RickK >>> >> >>Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] >>for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability >>for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. >> > > More fundamentally, it's because people are aware that in the long run, the > real disasters and failures of society have come when the people in power > fail to be kept in check. And finally, when all the pretense is stripped away, it's because people are violent pack animals, poorly disguised in a skin of civilization. One scratch, and the murderous howling lynch mob springs out of hiding. -- Sean Barrett | Eight parts gasoline, one part sean at epoptic.com | laundry detergent powder. From sean at epoptic.org Fri Mar 25 14:32:51 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 06:32:51 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] [172] George Kennan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42442113.2040009@epoptic.com> Abe Sokolov stated for the record: > Thanks for the understanding, > > 172 Rest assured, we understand. -- Sean Barrett | bus error (passengers dumped) sean at epoptic.com | From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 25 14:36:01 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 07:36:01 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424421D1.1070302@sprintmail.com> The Cunctator wrote: >More fundamentally, it's because people are aware that in the long run, the >real disasters and failures of society have come when the people in power >fail to be kept in check. > And being de-sysop'd is not the "end of the world" unless we personally see our adminship as a status symbol. Really, what would be the practical implications of my losing my admin privileges? There are hundreds of other sysops. If granting adminship "shouldn't be a big deal", why is revoking it such a big deal? It is a mere slap on the wrist, nothing more. I can still edit, mediate, and serve on most any committee. Tom Haws From cunctator at kband.com Fri Mar 25 15:24:21 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 10:24:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <424420D9.2040300@epoptic.com> Message-ID: On 3/25/05 9:31 AM, "Sean Barrett" wrote: > The Cunctator stated for the record: >> On 3/25/05 5:43 AM, "John Lee" wrote: >>> Rick wrote: >>> >>>> Oh, please. >>>> >>>> Why is it every time an admin does something that >>>> somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the >>>> hounds and the torches and go raging after them with >>>> the rest of the mob? >>>> >>>> RickK >>>> >>> >>> Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] >>> for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability >>> for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. >>> >> >> More fundamentally, it's because people are aware that in the long run, the >> real disasters and failures of society have come when the people in power >> fail to be kept in check. > > And finally, when all the pretense is stripped away, it's because people > are violent pack animals, poorly disguised in a skin of civilization. > One scratch, and the murderous howling lynch mob springs out of hiding. I think there may be some pretense in the above as well. Another reason may simply be that the pool of administrators is too small with relation to the rest of the community for optimal societal function. From kkrueger at whoi.edu Fri Mar 25 16:36:33 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:36:33 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <20050325092253.24437.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050325092253.24437.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050325163633.GD30640@whoi.edu> On Fri, Mar 25, 2005 at 01:22:52AM -0800, Rick wrote: > Why is it every time an admin does something that somebody disagrees > with, it's time to get out the hounds and the torches and go raging > after them with the rest of the mob? I see no hounds, torches, or mob. I see a sincere attempt to require explanations and hold people accountable when there is reason to suspect that they have betrayed the trust placed in them due to a conflict of interest in violation of policy. (Note that I do not claim that the trust has been betrayed here. I _do_ hold that there has been presented here adequate _reason to suspect so_, and thus that there needs to be explanation and accountability.) Being expected to explain actions that appear to be in conflict of interest is _not_ persecution. It is "trust, but verify". The community does in fact place trust in the administrators (otherwise, they would not be the administrators). However, when an issue like this comes up, we need that trust to be verified. I would prefer to know for certain that nothing corrupt went on here. However, until there is a good and credible explanation offered, none of us can know that, and we are left with only ugly suspicions on one side and baseless feelings of persecution on the other. -- Karl A. Krueger From chris_mahan at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 16:36:19 2005 From: chris_mahan at yahoo.com (Christopher Mahan) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:36:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050325163619.83633.qmail@web14023.mail.yahoo.com> --- Anthere wrote: > On the other hand, if other organisations are the > legal > editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content > distributed ? > Or should we get a benefit ? Our benefit is that the information will be made available to people who do not have it today. That is a great benefit, and probably the most important reason for the Wikipedia's existence. Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan at yahoo.com chris.mahan at gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From christiaan at last-straw.net Fri Mar 25 17:16:26 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:16:26 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the link to the Commons page). At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the technical issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on an image in Wikipedia the description of the image should be on that page. A couple of ways of achieving this might be to link directly to the image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the text from Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there are probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine we'd be doing it already. Christiaan Anthere wrote: > I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where > is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. > > We should mention this to Jimbo > > Ant > > MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL >>> or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such >>> as >>> crediting authors: >>> >>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>> >>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>> >>> Christiaan >> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they >> following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? >> Mgm From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Fri Mar 25 17:22:04 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:22:04 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD Message-ID: Anthere a ?crit: > Another point recently mentionned... is that some editors think it is > not the role of the Foundation to distribute content and that > we should > let other organisations do it. This will also solve the issue > of legal > responsability. On the other hand, if other organisations are > the legal > editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content > distributed ? > Or should we get a benefit ? Glad you asked. Ten days ago I started working with a Unificationist, non-profit organization that is interested in incorporating much of Wikipedia's content into its own encyclopedia. (They are planning to commission an additional 5,000 or so articles, as well as donating thousands of World & I articles - all of this extra content will be GFDL!) I have been (tentatively) offered the role of IT Director for this project. Anyway, the IIFWP (or IRFWP) already has a legal department - and budget - big enough to handle the issue of legal responsibility - for their own selected subset of Wikipedia articles they will publish. Surely whatever they LEARN while doing this could be passed on to us. They are a very nice bunch of people to work with. Ed Poor, aka Oncle Edmond From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 17:57:41 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:57:41 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> Nod. This is probably the key of the problem. Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has already been raised many times unfortunately. It is certainly an issue to fix in the future. Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ? Ant Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: > I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you click > on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to Wikimedia > Commons the description (including who the author is) is not included on > the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its page on Wikimedia > Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is simply pulling down the > content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the link to the Commons page). > > At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the > corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the technical > issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on an image in > Wikipedia the description of the image should be on that page. A couple > of ways of achieving this might be to link directly to the image on > Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the text from Wikimedia Commons > onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there are probably problems associated > with these, otherwise I imagine we'd be doing it already. > > Christiaan > > Anthere wrote: > >> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where >> is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. >> >> We should mention this to Jimbo >> >> Ant >> >> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >> >>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL >>>> or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, such as >>>> crediting authors: >>>> >>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>>> >>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>>> >>>> Christiaan >>> >>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they >>> following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? >>> Mgm >> From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 18:00:53 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:00:53 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: <20050325163619.83633.qmail@web14023.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424451D5.6050609@yahoo.com> Christopher Mahan a ?crit: > --- Anthere wrote: > >>On the other hand, if other organisations are the >>legal >>editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content >>distributed ? >>Or should we get a benefit ? > > > Our benefit is that the information will be made available to people > who do not have it today. That is a great benefit, and probably the > most important reason for the Wikipedia's existence. > > > > Chris Mahan Nod. Now, right now, MOST of the propositions we hear about are from commercial organisations, who want to make *cash* on the CD rom. Right ? Nothing wrong with this... But that means readers must pay for the cd rom... Are those who need more information... those who can pay for the cd rom ? Or those who can not ? ant From christiaan at last-straw.net Fri Mar 25 18:13:57 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:13:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> Message-ID: That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they achieve that isn't it? Christiaan On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote: > Nod. > This is probably the key of the problem. > Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by > wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has already > been raised many times unfortunately. > > It is certainly an issue to fix in the future. > > Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ? > > Ant > > Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: >> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you >> click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to >> Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is >> not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its >> page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is >> simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the link >> to the Commons page). >> At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the >> corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the technical >> issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on an image in >> Wikipedia the description of the image should be on that page. A >> couple of ways of achieving this might be to link directly to the >> image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the text from >> Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there are >> probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine we'd be >> doing it already. >> Christiaan >> Anthere wrote: >>> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where >>> is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. >>> >>> We should mention this to Jimbo >>> >>> Ant >>> >>> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >>> >>>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow >>>>> GFDL >>>>> or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, >>>>> such as >>>>> crediting authors: >>>>> >>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>>>> >>>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>>>> >>>>> Christiaan >>>> >>>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't >>>> they >>>> following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? >>>> Mgm >>> > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From rubenste at ohiou.edu Fri Mar 25 18:58:20 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:58:20 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> >d. wrote: > > actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > > > > > What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? > > > > I'd say it's off topic for this list. > > >Well, I didn't self righteously bring it to the list as if someone I >disagreed with was obviously wrong. As long as we are agreed the issue >of which side was "correct" or acting in good faith is >NOT obvious. > -- Silverback Well, this perfectly illustrates why I believe the "Capitalism" case is a perfect test case -- in my opinion, even better than crank theories in physics which really are relatively easy to deal with. Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced material on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the first solution to any problem at Wikipedia. Let's say it is the second, third, thirtieth, or three-thousandth solution -- basically what Ray Saintonge wrote. The reason for any disciplinary action is 1) this process is not working -- after a month of deleting the same material, it becomes a battle of wills 2) to give serious and well-intentioned editors some support and relief. Both of these characterize the issue at "Capitalism." And Silverback's own e-mails to this list provide further evidence of the problem. He continues to insist that something like "private ownership of the means of production" is the "Marxist" definition of capitalism, and now insists that I provide my own "marxist" definition! This list serve is not the place for this discussion, which has already occurred on the Capitalism talk pages. Suffice to say, "private ownership of the means of production" is simply not, in no way, the marxist or "a" marxist definition of capitalism. And this is the whole point of the "cite sources" and "verifiabilty" policies that Silverback disparages. Of course it is possible that I am wrong about the Marxist definition -- but if I am wrong, then whomever is providing the "marxist" definition should be able to provide a source or citation. For Silverback to disparage these policies, and insinuate that it was self-righteous of me to bring this problem to the attention to the list, is too absurd. His behavior mimics that of RJII's, and is the kind of behavior that has no place here at Wikipedia. Our work must be verifiable. If someone asks for a source, provide it. Like RJII, Silverback not only scoffs at providing a source, he continues to insist that the definition is right, that it is I who has to provide the source, that I am self-righteous, that the policy is trivial ... At what point do we characterize this behavior as trollish? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From anthere9 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 19:22:33 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:22:33 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> Can you gently write them on the topic then ? Ant Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: > That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they achieve > that isn't it? > > Christiaan > > On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote: > >> Nod. >> This is probably the key of the problem. >> Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by >> wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has already >> been raised many times unfortunately. >> >> It is certainly an issue to fix in the future. >> >> Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ? >> >> Ant >> >> Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: >> >>> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you >>> click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to >>> Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is >>> not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its >>> page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is >>> simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the link >>> to the Commons page). >>> At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the >>> corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the technical >>> issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on an image in >>> Wikipedia the description of the image should be on that page. A >>> couple of ways of achieving this might be to link directly to the >>> image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the text from >>> Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there are >>> probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine we'd be >>> doing it already. >>> Christiaan >>> Anthere wrote: >>> >>>> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no where >>>> is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link available. >>>> >>>> We should mention this to Jimbo >>>> >>>> Ant >>>> >>>> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >>>> >>>>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow GFDL >>>>>> or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from Wikipedia, >>>>>> such as >>>>>> crediting authors: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>>>>> >>>>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>>>>> >>>>>> Christiaan >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't they >>>>> following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to start with? >>>>> Mgm >>>> >>>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> From chris_mahan at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 19:23:13 2005 From: chris_mahan at yahoo.com (Christopher Mahan) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:23:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050325192313.74794.qmail@web14025.mail.yahoo.com> --- Anthere wrote: > Now, right now, MOST of the propositions we hear about are from > commercial organisations, who want to make *cash* on the CD rom. > Right ? > > Nothing wrong with this... > > But that means readers must pay for the cd rom... > > Are those who need more information... those who can pay for the cd > rom ? > Or those who can not ? That's all fine. When people pay $10 for the 2005 English Wikipedia cd, they are going to make a few copies, and maybe send a copy to their friend in the third world country. It's like AOL CDs. There are everywhere. little value, true, but everywhere nevertheless. I say if a company wants to press 100 million CDs per year and sell them, many of these will end up in the hands of people who can't afford to buy them. Besides, they would make great presents. Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan at yahoo.com chris.mahan at gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Mar 25 19:37:27 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:37:27 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42446877.2080802@thingy.apana.org.au> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > And this is the whole point of the "cite sources" and "verifiabilty" > policies that Silverback disparages. Of course it is possible that I am > wrong about the Marxist definition -- but if I am wrong, then whomever > is providing the "marxist" definition should be able to provide a source > or citation. > For Silverback to disparage these policies, and insinuate that it was > self-righteous of me to bring this problem to the attention to the list, > is too absurd. His behavior mimics that of RJII's, and is the kind of > behavior that has no place here at Wikipedia. Our work must be > verifiable. If someone asks for a source, provide it. Like RJII, > Silverback not only scoffs at providing a source, he continues to insist > that the definition is right, that it is I who has to provide the > source, that I am self-righteous, that the policy is trivial ... The case of [[capitalism]] has reached the Arbitration Committee and been accepted. Evidence is being gathered now; people's opinions of community opinions would probably go on the evidence talk page or the acceptance talk page. > At what point do we characterize this behavior as trollish? Remember to Assume Good Faith! (The less charitable may note that "assume good faith" can be seen as a restatement of "don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity." I'm speaking in general here, not about any particular example.) - d. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Mar 25 19:38:53 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:38:53 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424468CD.6010101@thingy.apana.org.au> Anthere wrote: > Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: >> That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they >> achieve that isn't it? > Can you gently write them on the topic then ? Point out to them the problem with Commons images but not descriptions coming through, and that the en: image page will note when the image is from Commons, so they should be able to just tweak their dump parsing script. - d. From hawstom at sprintmail.com Fri Mar 25 20:07:24 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:07:24 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <42446F7C.2070000@sprintmail.com> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced > material on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the > first solution to any problem at Wikipedia. Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and their ilk. But it doesn't go over too well in polite society. Tom Haws From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Mar 25 20:15:43 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:15:43 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <42446F7C.2070000@sprintmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <42446F7C.2070000@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <4244716F.8000602@thingy.apana.org.au> Tom Haws wrote: > steven l. rubenstein wrote: >> Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced >> material on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the >> first solution to any problem at Wikipedia. > Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting > unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and > their ilk. But it doesn't go over too well in polite society. In some cases I put an HTML comment around the paragraph in question, with a note that it *really* needs a reference to go in - and often a note on the talk page to go with it. Commenting is less obnoxious than deletion. Note also that deleting it may be seen as not going over too well in polite society, as you say - but then, insisting that something completely unsourced go in and refusing to provide a source probably isn't in Miss Manners either. - d. From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 25 20:20:24 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:20:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050325202024.62056.qmail@web60607.mail.yahoo.com> --- The Cunctator wrote: > On 3/25/05 5:43 AM, "John Lee" > wrote: > > > Rick wrote: > > > >> > >> > >> Oh, please. > >> > >> Why is it every time an admin does something that > >> somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the > >> hounds and the torches and go raging after them > with > >> the rest of the mob? > >> > >> RickK > >> > >> > >> > > Because admins are expected to be above ordinary > users; see [[WP:RFA]] > > for yourself. People vote on others not only based > on their suitability > > for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, > active, etc. the users are. > > > More fundamentally, it's because people are aware > that in the long run, the > real disasters and failures of society have come > when the people in power > fail to be kept in check. Thanks for the best laugh I've had so far today. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From fredbaud at ctelco.net Fri Mar 25 20:33:36 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:33:36 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325132826.03058ad8@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Although your test case promises to be very difficult simply due to the great volume of edits, I am glad we have it and it has been accepted. I hope you will spare some time to present some evidence on the matter now that the Arbcom has accepted the case. Especially useful would be edits requesting a source for information or edits removing material that did have a good source. Fred > From: "steven l. rubenstein" > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:58:20 -0500 > To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > >> d. wrote: >>> actionforum at comcast.net wrote: >>> >>>> What would you say the marxist definition of capitalism is? >>> >>> I'd say it's off topic for this list. >> >> >> Well, I didn't self righteously bring it to the list as if someone I >> disagreed with was obviously wrong. As long as we are agreed the issue >> of which side was "correct" or acting in good faith is >> NOT obvious. >> -- Silverback > > Well, this perfectly illustrates why I believe the "Capitalism" case is a > perfect test case -- in my opinion, even better than crank theories in > physics which really are relatively easy to deal with. > > Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced material > on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the first > solution to any problem at Wikipedia. Let's say it is the second, third, > thirtieth, or three-thousandth solution -- basically what Ray Saintonge > wrote. The reason for any disciplinary action is > 1) this process is not working -- after a month of deleting the same > material, it becomes a battle of wills > 2) to give serious and well-intentioned editors some support and relief. > Both of these characterize the issue at "Capitalism." > > And Silverback's own e-mails to this list provide further evidence of the > problem. He continues to insist that something like "private ownership of > the means of production" is the "Marxist" definition of capitalism, and now > insists that I provide my own "marxist" definition! This list serve is not > the place for this discussion, which has already occurred on > the Capitalism talk pages. Suffice to say, "private ownership of the > means of production" is simply not, in no way, the marxist or "a" marxist > definition of capitalism. > > And this is the whole point of the "cite sources" and "verifiabilty" > policies that Silverback disparages. Of course it is possible that I am > wrong about the Marxist definition -- but if I am wrong, then whomever is > providing the "marxist" definition should be able to provide a source or > citation. > > For Silverback to disparage these policies, and insinuate that it was > self-righteous of me to bring this problem to the attention to the list, is > too absurd. His behavior mimics that of RJII's, and is the kind of > behavior that has no place here at Wikipedia. Our work must be > verifiable. If someone asks for a source, provide it. Like RJII, > Silverback not only scoffs at providing a source, he continues to insist > that the definition is right, that it is I who has to provide the source, > that I am self-righteous, that the policy is trivial ... > > At what point do we characterize this behavior as trollish? > > 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 jayjg at hotmail.com Fri Mar 25 20:36:05 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <20050325163633.GD30640@whoi.edu> Message-ID: >From: "Karl A. Krueger" >Being expected to explain actions that appear to be in conflict of >interest is _not_ persecution. It is "trust, but verify". The >community does in fact place trust in the administrators (otherwise, >they would not be the administrators). However, when an issue like this >comes up, we need that trust to be verified. > >I would prefer to know for certain that nothing corrupt went on here. >However, until there is a good and credible explanation offered, none of >us can know that, and we are left with only ugly suspicions on one side >and baseless feelings of persecution on the other. Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. Jay. From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Fri Mar 25 20:39:44 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 12:39:44 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: Prof. Rubenstein wrote two things which I'd like to comment on: > ... "private ownership of the means of production" is the > "Marxist" definition of capitalism, and now insists that > I provide my own "marxist" definition! This list serve > is not the place for this discussion, which has already > occurred on the Capitalism talk pages. Suffice to say, > "private ownership of the means of production" is simply > not, in no way, the marxist or "a" marxist definition of > capitalism. Googling the quoted definition easily shows that several sources regard "private ownership of the means of production" as an essential part of the "Marxist definition" of Capitalism. And this mailing list *is* the right place to bring something like this up. I, for one, would never have noticed this issue if it hadn't been brought up here. However, it's tricky, because the exact quoted phrase is not used by a Marxist writer, but by an American college professor PARAPHRASING the Marxists. The first reference below is some lecture notes for a college course. It interprets "individual ownership" as "private ownership of the means of production". So the source for this would go something like: * Professor Windbag of Westwind University at Turbyne, Indiana, interprets Marxist writings as assailing "private ownership of the means of production" as one of the chief evils of Capitalism. This provides the source: the ol' Windbag. This clarifies that it's HIS interpretation. http://faculty.washington.edu/wtalbott/phil332/trmarxII.htm Oh, and his name is WILLIAM J. TALBOTT Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Box 353350 University of Washington Ed Poor (That wasn't so hard, now, was it? ;-) From perrin at apotheon.com Fri Mar 25 20:46:30 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:46:30 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <42421283.1070209@shaw.ca> References: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> <42421283.1070209@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <424478A6.10803@apotheon.com> Bryan Derksen wrote: > English is 585MB, which should fit onto a CD with a little room > to spare. If one were frugal with the markup, I wonder if perhaps an > HTML version would fit. There'd be no images, though; you'd need to do a > DVD version (or multi-CD, maybe split up alphabetically like a > traditional encyclopedia :) for that. HTML-version, with images, split alphabetically, sounds like a really good way to handle that. It would be cross-platform compatible, widely hardware-friendly, attached to an interface with which computer users are familiar (the browser), and very easily translated into a print-format version. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From perrin at apotheon.com Fri Mar 25 20:59:28 2005 From: perrin at apotheon.com (Chad Perrin) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:59:28 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <424451D5.6050609@yahoo.com> References: <20050325163619.83633.qmail@web14023.mail.yahoo.com> <424451D5.6050609@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42447BB0.9000706@apotheon.com> Anthere wrote: > > > Christopher Mahan a ?crit: > >> --- Anthere wrote: >> >>> On the other hand, if other organisations are the >>> legal editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content >>> distributed ? Or should we get a benefit ? >> >> >> >> Our benefit is that the information will be made available to people >> who do not have it today. That is a great benefit, and probably the >> most important reason for the Wikipedia's existence. >> >> >> >> Chris Mahan > > > Nod. > > Now, right now, MOST of the propositions we hear about are from > commercial organisations, who want to make *cash* on the CD rom. Right ? > > Nothing wrong with this... > > But that means readers must pay for the cd rom... > > Are those who need more information... those who can pay for the cd rom ? > Or those who can not ? Here's an idea: Nonprofit organization, talks to a commercial organization, gets a massive discount (80-90% off, maybe) on those $10 CD-recorded encyclopediae. Uses donations to fund its efforts. Buys CD-media copies at the discounted rate. Avoids taxes due to nonprofit status. Distributes to those in need of the material without the ability to get it themselves. Voila: outside entit(y/ies) deal(s) with the issue. I'm not saying that's the only way to handle it, but it's "so crazy it just might work". While it seems odd to suggest buying back its own content, it's even possible that WMF might do the media-buying-and-distributing itself for third-world distribution. Then, of course, the major problem becomes how to get the same knowledge into the hands of those without eletricity. There's no reason I can see why for-profit packaging of Wikipedia can't be leveraged for non-profit distribution. The fact that someone is repackaging the collected knowledge for the purpose of making a buck doesn't necessitate all that work being lost to the nonprofit purposes of the original project. -- Chad [ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ] From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 21:08:01 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:08:01 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A friendly Wired Article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > To: Poor, Edmund W > Subject: article of interest > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html > > Uncle Ed > That's the most mentions of Wikipedians I ever saw in one article. :) Mgm From rubenste at ohiou.edu Fri Mar 25 21:02:07 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:02:07 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Tom Haws wrote, >steven l. rubenstein wrote: > > > > Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced > > material on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the > > first solution to any problem at Wikipedia. > > >Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting >unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and >their ilk. But it doesn't go over too well in polite society. > > >Tom Haws Are you being disingenuous, or have you just not been following this thread? I thought it was abundantly clear that the person in question had been asked for a source several times. The question is, what to do then? Ray Saintonge replied, delete. And that is where my e-mail picks up. To then suggest I am a POV cop in this matter is disingenuous and dangerous. What POV do you think I am pushing, Tom? It should be clear that this is NOT a matter of pushing a POV. I have no objection to including a marxist definition in the article. But it must be accurate. Otherwise, what kind of encyclopedia is this? Okay Tom, what do you think we should do, if someone refuses over the course of several weeks to provide a source for a claim that some editors say is inaccurate or simply false? I am getting tired of this discussion that seems to go nowhere, but I think it is important. If Tom Haws is going to label as a POV warrior anyone who insists that our policies, such as Verifiability and Cite sources, must be enforced, then how on earth are we going to write a good encyclopedia? Or do you have a different goal, Tom? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From aroberts at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 23:12:37 2005 From: aroberts at gmail.com (Andy Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:12:37 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: References: <20050325163633.GD30640@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <674c5a1050325151242c0a283@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. > In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any objection may be directed to this list? " If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list" Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not? -- aroberts From aroberts at gmail.com Fri Mar 25 23:32:21 2005 From: aroberts at gmail.com (Andy Roberts) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:32:21 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking poiicy violation by vamp willow Message-ID: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> I wish to complain about vamp willow violating blocking policy by blocking aroberts for 24 hours under the auspices of a 3RR violation when in fact no 3RR violation has ocurred. aroberts edited the England page today, and there followed a minor edit challenge during which aroberts reverted twice and REX reverted to the contrary three times. The 3RR rule states that NO MORE than 3 reverts should be made by one enity, and yet vamp willow has blocked aroberts who reverted only twice. Since when is 2 more than 3? Vamp Willow happens to agree with REX and disagrees with aroberts, so it looks as if she has acted partially in pursuit if her own POV and against blocking policy with a misguided interpretation of the three revert rule. Not only that , but also the England page has been protected with the suggestion that differences are resolved on the corresponding talk page. I have always been happy to discuss the matter on the talk page and have incorporated information arising from those discussions into my edits, in the spirit of compromise, but others have reverted against me with no such explanation. How can I follow the advice to sort things out on the talk page if I am blocked? Surely protecting a page and blocking someone from discussing it at the same time is excessive? That was an official complaint against vamp willow's incorrect blocking of aroberts, I hope this can be resolved ASAP, thanks -- Aroberts From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Fri Mar 25 23:45:41 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:45:41 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4244A2A5.1030303@thingy.apana.org.au> JAY JG wrote: > From: "Karl A. Krueger" >> I would prefer to know for certain that nothing corrupt went on here. >> However, until there is a good and credible explanation offered, none of >> us can know that, and we are left with only ugly suspicions on one side >> and baseless feelings of persecution on the other. > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one. - d. From rubenste at ohiou.edu Fri Mar 25 23:52:25 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:52:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325184505.03238af0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Ed Poor wrote, >Googling the quoted definition easily shows that several sources >regard "private ownership of the means of production" as an >essential part of the "Marxist definition" of Capitalism. Alas, sometimes the Web is not the best place to do research. I think if Wikipedia wants to establish itself as an outstanding on-line encyclopedia, its editors sometimes have to do some off-line research. In most of the cases Ed is referring to, people are taking sentences by Marx and Engels out of context. Abolishing the private ownership of capital is but one element of the communist program -- but that doesn't mean that they defined capitalism as ownership of the means of production. Another part of their program was free education for children -- certainly we don't think that the "Marxist" definition of capitalism is a system where children are uneducated! Moreover, in the Communist Manifesto they actually argue that capitalism is destroying private property! And in various other books by Marx, Marx and Engels, and their followers, they define capitalism quite differently. In any event, Ed at least provided an actual source. Now we can have hopefully fruitful discussion of the usefulness of this source, if there are better sources, etc. In short, what Ed wrote was verifiable. Several weeks ago Ultramarine and I asked RJII to provide his source. Now, wouldn't it have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he just provided it? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From blair at houghton.net Fri Mar 25 23:55:52 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:55:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <4244A2A5.1030303@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4244A2A5.1030303@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> David Gerard wrote: > JAY JG wrote: >> Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of >> alleged admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. > > HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one. Unreachable for anyone who's been blocked. Without WikiEN-l people could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins. --Blair From morven at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 00:21:44 2005 From: morven at gmail.com (Matt Brown) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:21:44 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking poiicy violation by vamp willow In-Reply-To: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> References: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <42f90dc005032516213a9e4ca1@mail.gmail.com> Not that this is the correct place to argue this, but you reverted back to your preferred version three times in 24 hours. The truth is a great place to start. It's also really freaking wierd to refer to yourself in the third person. -Matt From geniice at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 00:38:11 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:38:11 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking poiicy violation by vamp willow In-Reply-To: <42f90dc005032516213a9e4ca1@mail.gmail.com> References: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> <42f90dc005032516213a9e4ca1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:21:44 -0800, Matt Brown wrote: > Not that this is the correct place to argue this, but you reverted > back to your preferred version three times in 24 hours. The truth is > a great place to start. That is allowed under the 3RR. However Vamp Willow claims that the IP address is the same person. Since the only edits by an IP adress within 24 hours of those of Aroberts do not match the version prefered by Aroberts I'm pulling the block. This does not in any way condone Aroberts's actions From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Sat Mar 26 02:41:57 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 02:41:57 -0000 (GMT) Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> References: <4244A2A5.1030303@thingy.apana.org.au> <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> Message-ID: <1443.192.168.0.9.1111804917.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Blair P. Houghton said: > > Without WikiEN-l people could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins. No, that simply isn't possible. I'm directly contactable by email and I'm sure most sysops are. Jimmy Wales' email address is on his page; be sure to put Wikipedia in the subject of your email. Having said which I've already opined that it's long past time we had a janitors-l for people to complain about sysop behavior. From sean at epoptic.org Sat Mar 26 03:10:41 2005 From: sean at epoptic.org (Sean Barrett) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:10:41 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> References: <4244A2A5.1030303@thingy.apana.org.au> <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4244D2B1.7050801@epoptic.com> Blair P. Houghton stated for the record: > Without WikiEN-l people > could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins. > > --Blair And only God knows how many unfortunates have become ''desaparecidos'' since Wikipedia began. Uncountable numbers of their spouses and orphans roam the streets, wailing in inconsolable grief .... Y'know, Godwin's Law applies to comparing trivial matters to Argentina's left-wing terrorists just as much as it applies to comparing trivial matters to the Nazis. -- Sean Barrett | bus error (passengers dumped) sean at epoptic.com | From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 04:21:00 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 05:21:00 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: <20050325163619.83633.qmail@web14023.mail.yahoo.com> <424451D5.6050609@yahoo.com> <42447BB0.9000706@apotheon.com> Message-ID: <4244E32C.5030908@yahoo.com> Chad Perrin a ?crit: > Anthere wrote: > >> >> >> Christopher Mahan a ?crit: >> >>> --- Anthere wrote: >>> >>>> On the other hand, if other organisations are the >>>> legal editors, how can we somehow get a benefit over the content >>>> distributed ? Or should we get a benefit ? >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Our benefit is that the information will be made available to people >>> who do not have it today. That is a great benefit, and probably the >>> most important reason for the Wikipedia's existence. >>> >>> >>> >>> Chris Mahan >> >> >> >> Nod. >> >> Now, right now, MOST of the propositions we hear about are from >> commercial organisations, who want to make *cash* on the CD rom. Right ? >> >> Nothing wrong with this... >> >> But that means readers must pay for the cd rom... >> >> Are those who need more information... those who can pay for the cd rom ? >> Or those who can not ? > > > Here's an idea: > > Nonprofit organization, talks to a commercial organization, gets a > massive discount (80-90% off, maybe) on those $10 CD-recorded > encyclopediae. Uses donations to fund its efforts. Buys CD-media > copies at the discounted rate. Avoids taxes due to nonprofit status. > Distributes to those in need of the material without the ability to get > it themselves. > > Voila: outside entit(y/ies) deal(s) with the issue. I'm not saying > that's the only way to handle it, but it's "so crazy it just might > work". While it seems odd to suggest buying back its own content, it's > even possible that WMF might do the media-buying-and-distributing itself > for third-world distribution. > > Then, of course, the major problem becomes how to get the same knowledge > into the hands of those without eletricity. > > There's no reason I can see why for-profit packaging of Wikipedia can't > be leveraged for non-profit distribution. The fact that someone is > repackaging the collected knowledge for the purpose of making a buck > doesn't necessitate all that work being lost to the nonprofit purposes > of the original project. > > I agree with you. Ant From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 04:22:15 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 05:22:15 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A friendly Wired Article References: Message-ID: <4244E377.3060406@yahoo.com> Quite a good article But also exactly the article which makes the world believe this is an english project, run by english editors. Not exactly the kind of rumors all of us appreciate. Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: > -----Original Message----- > From: TL at pipeline.com [mailto:TL at pipeline.com] > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:22 PM > To: Poor, Edmund W > Subject: article of interest > > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html > > I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this article but me, by now. I feel like I > just got a big pat on the back for my 3 1/2 years of work! This writer > is very friendly and has captured the essence of Wikipedia much, MUCH > better than anyone else heretofore. I just wish his article was GFDL'd > so I could incorporate all his descriptions. > > Uncle Ed > > P.S. A non-Wikipedian sent me the URL From hawstom at sprintmail.com Sat Mar 26 04:35:23 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Thomas Haws) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:35:23 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <24376055.1111811723880.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Tom Haws wrote, >steven l. rubenstein wrote: > If Tom Haws is going to label as a POV warrior anyone who > insists that our policies, such as Verifiability and Cite sources, must be > enforced, then how on earth are we going to write a good encyclopedia? Or > do you have a different goal, Tom? I appreciate the response. I believe your frustration is honest, and I think (hope) we all share it. I think that the most sane approach is to realize that Wikipedia simply isn't set up at this time to accomplish the level of editorial control you contemplate. That doesn't mean it isn't an appropriate goal, just that we have to work pragmatically with the system we have at the moment. Yes, I personally would be even more patient. That may not be the "right" answer, but my attitude is maybe I can 1) learn something from that "original researcher" 2) help him feel good about contributing to Wikipedia, and 3) show him by example how Wikipedia works at its best and what NPOV means. As much as it hurts at times, I simply cannot afford to take excessive ownership in articles. And so I continue to believe that repeated deletions of the same thing (I personally wouldn't repeat myself over twice except on a talk page) are indeed the beginning of the problem. And I apologize for the flippant tone of my response. "If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got." "If at first you don't succeed, try a different approach." Tom Haws From hawstom at sprintmail.com Sat Mar 26 04:39:13 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Thomas Haws) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:39:13 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <23016239.1111811953728.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> David Gerard wrote: > Insisting that something completely > unsourced go in and refusing to provide a source probably isn't in Miss > Manners either. Hmm. Maybe not. :-D Tom Haws From aroberts at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 07:38:57 2005 From: aroberts at gmail.com (Andy Roberts) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:38:57 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking poiicy violation by vamp willow In-Reply-To: References: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> <42f90dc005032516213a9e4ca1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <674c5a10503252338727cadf3@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 00:38:11 +0000, geni wrote: > On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:21:44 -0800, Matt Brown wrote: > > Not that this is the correct place to argue this, but you reverted > > back to your preferred version three times in 24 hours. The truth is > > a great place to start. > > That is allowed under the 3RR. However Vamp Willow claims that the IP > address is the same person. Since the only edits by an IP adress > within 24 hours of those of Aroberts do not match the version prefered > by Aroberts I'm pulling the block. This does not in any way condone > Aroberts's actions Thankyou. I am concerened that a number of admins, and Vamp Willow in particular, don't seem to be able to understand the difference between the number THREE and the expression "MORE THAN three". I would have thought this kind of simple numeracy capability would be a prerequisite to anyone being considered for admin status. Or perhaps some kind of compulsory induction course could be laid on for them. -- Andy Roberts From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 26 08:04:30 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:04:30 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <032620050804.28664.4245178E000A0E1A00006FF822058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > And this is the whole point of the "cite sources" and "verifiabilty" > policies that Silverback disparages. Of course it is possible that I am > wrong about the Marxist definition -- but if I am wrong, then whomever is > providing the "marxist" definition should be able to provide a source or > citation. > > For Silverback to disparage these policies, and insinuate that it was > self-righteous of me to bring this problem to the attention to the list, is > too absurd. His behavior mimics that of RJII's, and is the kind of > behavior that has no place here at Wikipedia. Our work must be > verifiable. If someone asks for a source, provide it. Like RJII, > Silverback not only scoffs at providing a source, he continues to insist > that the definition is right, that it is I who has to provide the source, > that I am self-righteous, that the policy is trivial ... > > At what point do we characterize this behavior as trollish? > > Steve I think reasonable summaries are not violations of NOR, and insistance on cites for something obvious is a bit unfriendly. However, if it is any consolation, I now understand your frustration on that page, I think, we would have had a compromise a long time ago, if not for the unique character of RJII. He is a strangely intransigent moving target. I'd catagorize him as a POV warrior of the highest degree, except I usually reserve that for someone who has a recognizable POV. I assume we each think he's on the other one's side. I disagree that anything insightful content guidance can come out of the case. A scientific case would be more helpful, because there is a more generally accepted concept of the truth being searched for and what constitutes facts and the most authoritative evidence. Therefore there is the opportunity to elaborate NOR beyond the every word must have been used by someone else straightjacket. Pointing out omissions or flaws that any peer reviewer or scientific literate would acknowledge, should be allowed. For example, this new study demonstrates this new variable is important, therefor that older study which did not account for that variable (by inspection, because no one else has said it YET) is now called into question. NOR should not ban simple things like counting, summarizing, drawing conclusions from inspection of an article, application of simple equations or principles to facts, etc. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Sat Mar 26 08:52:20 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:52:20 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <032620050852.10172.424522C3000A7189000027BC22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Rick wrote: > >Oh, please. > > > >Why is it every time an admin does something that > >somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the > >hounds and the torches and go raging after them with > >the rest of the mob? > >RickK > > > Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] > for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability > for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. > > That said, I do feel it's kind of stupid every time people act as if the > world will end whenever an admin does something wrong AND THE ADMIN > SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. Admins are human too. And the world won't end if they are removed from the admin office. Those that are truly called to serve are not necessarily REDUCED to EDITING, there are plenty of opportunities to serve without admin privileges, and with less temptations to use their power personally or vindictively that they were apparently unable to resist. Of course there are temptations at the editing level too. Moves without discussing it on the talk page, violations of 3RR, etc. Adminship should be easier to get, perhaps allow it to anyone with a minimum edit experience, no 3RR or other violations for 3 months and a willingness to agree to the terms. There needs to be an easier way to take away admin status. Perhaps anytime time there are allegations of abuse as part of an arbcom case, there should be a separate vote to accept on the abuse charge, where if that charge is ACCEPTED, presumably after an initial look at the evidence, the admin privilege is suspended, until the case is formally decided. Of course, it is possible for the admin abuse charge to not be accepted while the more normal charges go forward. It should be clear that there is zero tolerance for the abuse of the admistrator privilege of serving, and that action will be quick, and fortunately mild, they must serve in some other capacity if they want to serve. -- Silverback From Philip.Newton at gmx.net Sat Mar 26 09:32:36 2005 From: Philip.Newton at gmx.net (Philip Newton) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:32:36 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD References: Message-ID: On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 10:13:30 -0500, "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > Magnus Manske schrieb: > > > I would like to remind everyone that the German Wikipedia has > > just been published on a combined CD-DVD-set, at a price of > > about 10 Euros. > > Where can I order a copy? I don't know German, but some of my colleagues > probably do. It appears that you cannot currently order a copy -- the Autumn 2004 CD edition ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD ) is sold out (though individual bookshops may still have copies, and you can [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download download] and ISO image and/or a DBZ file for the reader that was used), and the Spring 2005 DVD/CD edition ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-Distribution ) is scheduled for release on 31 March, in about a week's time. So you may want to wait until then. Cheers, Philip From viajero at quilombo.nl Sat Mar 26 11:01:02 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:01:02 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] blocking poiicy violation by vamp willow In-Reply-To: <674c5a10503252338727cadf3@mail.gmail.com> References: <674c5a10503251532dbb8a7a@mail.gmail.com> <42f90dc005032516213a9e4ca1@mail.gmail.com> <674c5a10503252338727cadf3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424540EE.1020902@quilombo.nl> Andy Roberts wrote: > I am concerened that a number of admins, and Vamp Willow in > particular, don't seem to be able to understand the difference between > the number THREE and the expression "MORE THAN three". I would have Three, four, whatever. If you find yourself in the situation where you need to revert someone else's edits this many times in a day, it means your powers of persuasion on the Talk page are less than optimal. If you find yourself dealing with an intransigent individual, then the best thing to do is to ask others to help out. V. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Mar 26 12:18:52 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 05:18:52 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <24376055.1111811723880.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I don't think the problem is well phrased as repeated deletions, although that can happen. The more frequent problem is repeated insertions of material which is poorly sourced, represents a minority position (acceptable but not to the point it dominates the article) or amounts to advocacy or propaganda for a point of view. While in certain areas editors can and do gang up, generally when most of the other editors are deleting something, citing Wikipedia policy, giving a variety of reasons why the material is unacceptable, that is a clue that maybe something is wrong. The notion of a clue is central. While it is frequent that Wikipedia editors who are up to something themselves give out a variety of spurious reasons as cover, it is important to consider the reasons people are giving for what they are doing. For example, I have a distinct proclivity to make stuff up as I go along, making an original definition for [[truth]] or [[reality]] etc. At some point I began taking "no original research" seriously. Not at first, but eventually I read the policy and took a good look at what I was doing. I still sin, but I could be said to "have a clue" at this point. There is a certain Tao involved here. If you are fighting hard, you are probably fighting for something not worth fighting for in a Wikipedia context, usually a point of view. Fred > From: Thomas Haws > Reply-To: Thomas Haws , English Wikipedia > > Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:35:23 -0700 (GMT-07:00) > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > my attitude is maybe I can 1) learn something from that "original researcher" > 2) help him feel good about contributing to Wikipedia, and 3) show him by > example how Wikipedia works at its best and what NPOV means. As much as it > hurts at times, I simply cannot afford to take excessive ownership in > articles. > > And so I continue to believe that repeated deletions of the same thing (I > personally wouldn't repeat myself over twice except on a talk page) are indeed > the beginning of the problem. From fredbaud at ctelco.net Sat Mar 26 12:33:35 2005 From: fredbaud at ctelco.net (Fred Bauder) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 05:33:35 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <032620050804.28664.4245178E000A0E1A00006FF822058891169B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From what I have seen so far that is the most likely outcome of this case, viewing RJII as a POV warrior, which does not address the nominal reason for the test case, refusal to cite sources. I'm afraid we know the source of his material - in the ideals of Objectivism which visions a pure and vital capitalism not to be found in the real world which on the other hand has capitalist economic systems which we need to describe in order to write the article [[capitalism]]. So the issue is not policing content, although there is the question of how to give a little space to a distinctly minority point of view without it dominating the article. As we consider a controversial matter such as capitalism there are those who support it in all its glory; revolutionary critics of it; and theoretical perspectives of various sorts. These perspectives certainly should have a place in the article but there remains the major work of describing the system itself and its workings - a task which needs to be done without constant consideration of perspectives, pro and con being added to every sentence. Fred > From: actionforum at comcast.net > Reply-To: English Wikipedia > Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:04:30 +0000 > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content > > I think, we would have had a compromise a long time ago, > if not for the unique character of RJII. He is a strangely intransigent > moving > target. I'd catagorize him as a POV warrior of the highest degree, From brian1954 at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 12:45:12 2005 From: brian1954 at gmail.com (Brian M) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:45:12 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <032620050852.10172.424522C3000A7189000027BC22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> References: <032620050852.10172.424522C3000A7189000027BC22007456729B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: <547b297e05032604453cd02a3@mail.gmail.com> What isn't easy about applying to the Arbitration Committee or Jimbo, which is the current procedure? On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:52:20 +0000, actionforum at comcast.net wrote: > -------------- Original message -------------- > > Rick wrote: > > > >Oh, please. > > > > > >Why is it every time an admin does something that > > >somebody disagrees with, it's time to get out the > > >hounds and the torches and go raging after them with > > >the rest of the mob? > > > >RickK > > > > > Because admins are expected to be above ordinary users; see [[WP:RFA]] > > for yourself. People vote on others not only based on their suitability > > for janitorial tasks but also on how polite, active, etc. the users are. > > > > That said, I do feel it's kind of stupid every time people act as if the > > world will end whenever an admin does something wrong AND THE ADMIN > > SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. Admins are human too. > > And the world won't end if they are removed from the admin office. Those > that are truly called to serve are not necessarily REDUCED to EDITING, > there are plenty of opportunities to serve without admin privileges, and with > less temptations to use their power personally or vindictively that they were > apparently unable to resist. Of course there are temptations at the editing > level too. Moves without discussing it on the talk page, violations of 3RR, > etc. Adminship should be easier to get, perhaps allow it to anyone with > a minimum edit experience, no 3RR or other violations for 3 months and > a willingness to agree to the terms. > > There needs to be an easier way to take away admin status. Perhaps anytime > time there are allegations of abuse as part of an arbcom case, there should > be a separate vote to accept on the abuse charge, where if that charge is > ACCEPTED, presumably after an initial look at the evidence, the admin privilege > is suspended, until the case is formally decided. Of course, it is possible for > the admin abuse charge to not be accepted while the more normal charges > go forward. It should be clear that there is zero tolerance for the abuse > of the admistrator privilege of serving, and that action will be quick, > and fortunately mild, they must serve in some other capacity if they > want to serve. > > -- Silverback > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From slimvirgin at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 16:47:30 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:47:30 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4cc603b0503260847368235ba@mail.gmail.com> > Tom Haws wrote, > > >Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting > >unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and > >their ilk. On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:02:07 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: If Tom Haws is going to label as a POV warrior anyone who > insists that our policies, such as Verifiability and Cite sources, must be > enforced, then how on earth are we going to write a good encyclopedia? Tom Haws takes the view that NPOV means articles must reflect popular opinion, not scholarly opinion. For several weeks, Tom has been arguing that the introduction of the article [[Human]] must reflect religious beliefs (that e.g. human beings have souls and were created in the image of God), and not simply biological and anthropological ones (that we are bipedal primates who engage in extensive tool use and live in complex societies). While no editor on that page disputes that religious views be discussed in the article, a number of us do argue that these views have no place in the introduction. Tom has been invited to submit references (e.g. work by theologians), but has declined to do so, arguing that his reference is to popular opinion. He was then invited by several editors, in the interests of consistency, to go and add some popular opinion to the introduction of other articles e.g. to [[Woman]], that women are seen by many people around the world as inferior and irrational; to [[Gay]], that gay sex is viewed by many as wicked; to [[Muslim]], that many see Muslims as a bunch of terrorists; to [[Jew]], that many see Jews as engaged in a plot to take over the world. Rather than accepting the inconsistency of his position, Tom has defended it by arguing, on [[Talk:Human]], that he simply doesn't have time to add popular opinion to all articles that need it, adding: " The only pertinent sifting question is, "Is it a significant point of view?" In other words, "does it make a difference in the world?" And for all the examples you cite, the answer is "Yes". Note here that we are talking specifically about the introductions of articles. I do not dispute that these views might be represented in an article somewhere. But Tom wants to see them prominently displayed. And this raises an interesting question about NPOV. When we say a majority view ought to be displayed as such, do we mean the majority scholarly view, or do we mean popular opinion (which in some cases might be factually incorrect or offensive)? According to NPOV, we would probably have to stick to popular opinion. The NPOV policy qualifies this by using the word "rational," but this is not defined, and there are many people regarded as rational within their own communities who believe, for example, that women need not be given equal rights because they are inferior beings. But if we read NPOV together with [[Wikipedia: No original research]], [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]], and [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]], it becomes clear that we mean "published, rational, majority opinion" and, furthermore, published in a credible or reputable publication. This will most often refer to the opinions of scholars, good journalists, and other credible authors, and this defines the range of majority opinion that must be given prominence. (Note: I am throughout this post discussing prominence, not inclusion per se). This is why I argue strongly that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines must be read and understood together, because when viewed jointly, they do form a coherent philosophy, and they provide a solid defense against the introductions-must-reflect-popular-opinion position that Tom seems to be promoting. (Though in fairness to Tom, I think he's simply being inconsistent: I don't believe that he really wants to go around adding popular opinion to introductions). Sarah From hawstom at sprintmail.com Sat Mar 26 18:13:42 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Thomas Haws) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:13:42 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content Message-ID: <29693447.1111860822672.JavaMail.root@bigbird.psp.pas.earthlink.net> I trust that Sarah is as sincere as I in exploring the meaning of these concepts and their implications for the quality and future of Wikipedia. And I appreciate her effort to elucidate. I take exception to her coining the phrase "popular opinion" and building her talk around it. I don't really want to be in the position of discussing the "validity" of "popular opinion". But the general thrust of her summary is probably at least approximately correct. Namely, that NPOV requires we represent all views fairly. And I suppose "popular opinion" is usually a significant view. The background from which I come is this: As a Wikipedia *reader*, I expect to find articles that give me a complete picture ("all sides") of a subject I seek to learn about. I have used Wikipedia to learn about Islam, Buddhism, and many other controversial subjects. In fact, the more controversial a subject is, the more I insist within that I must see what Wikipedia has to say. That is because I know that "given enough pens, all biases are level." I trust Wikipedia to feed me more "knowledge" free of spin than any other source. And I say that if we fail to be fair in presenting all human "knowledge", we fail to deliver to that trust. Tom Haws From hawstom at sprintmail.com Sat Mar 26 18:17:37 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Thomas Haws) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 11:17:37 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <28314158.1111861058100.JavaMail.root@bigbird.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Silverback, you couldn't have said it better about adminship. If we were more effective at removing admins we could be more generous about installing them. Tom From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 26 18:18:49 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:18:49 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4245A789.4030808@telus.net> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Tom Haws wrote, > >> steven l. rubenstein wrote: >> >> > Some people have suggested that if someone keeps putting unsourced >> > material on the page, the solution is to delete it. Well, this is the >> > first solution to any problem at Wikipedia. >> >> Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting >> unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and >> their ilk. But it doesn't go over too well in polite society. > > Are you being disingenuous, or have you just not been following this > thread? I thought it was abundantly clear that the person in question > had been asked for a source several times. The question is, what to > do then? Ray Saintonge replied, delete. And that is where my e-mail > picks up. To then suggest I am a POV cop in this matter is > disingenuous and dangerous. > > What POV do you think I am pushing, Tom? > > It should be clear that this is NOT a matter of pushing a POV. I have > no objection to including a marxist definition in the article. But it > must be accurate. Otherwise, what kind of encyclopedia is this? > > Okay Tom, what do you think we should do, if someone refuses over the > course of several weeks to provide a source for a claim that some > editors say is inaccurate or simply false? > > I am getting tired of this discussion that seems to go nowhere, but I > think it is important. If Tom Haws is going to label as a POV warrior > anyone who insists that our policies, such as Verifiability and Cite > sources, must be enforced, then how on earth are we going to write a > good encyclopedia? Or do you have a different goal, Tom? I don't expect Steven to take the flak for what I said. I'm glad to repeat that when a contributor refuses to give a reference for a statement it should be deleted. I'm not questioning that user's good faith, only his understanding of how research.is done. Tom's statement about POV police only proves that he hasn't got a clue about the difference between polite and impolite society. How polite is the society that reliesa on bullshit as a source for its intellectual capital. I nevertheless do make allowance for the possibility that he may have been using "polite" in an ironic sense. It's no secret that some people are absolutely schizophrenic when it comes to coping with academia. I am not without criticism about academia, but I will at least give them credit for what they do right. One of the most important things that they do right is demand sources. Failing to give sources is reason enough for failing a freshman term paper. If something is bounced because it lacks sources it may still be allowed back later ... when someone is willing to provide a source. When it comes to political terminology it is important to be clear about our terminology, especially when we are dealing with POV-charged terms like "capitalism". Ec From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 26 18:39:37 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:39:37 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325184505.03238af0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325184505.03238af0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4245AC69.2080101@telus.net> steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Ed Poor wrote, > >> Googling the quoted definition easily shows that several sources >> regard "private ownership of the means of production" as an >> essential part of the "Marxist definition" of Capitalism. > > Alas, sometimes the Web is not the best place to do research. I think > if Wikipedia wants to establish itself as an outstanding on-line > encyclopedia, its editors sometimes have to do some off-line research. Absolutely. Do we want quantity or quality? It's the difference between a rose and the pile of shit that it grows in ... and the rose still manages to have thorns. The Web is a good place to start research, but a terrible place to end it. If I encounter an idea on the Web I like to look for verification elsewhere. > In most of the cases Ed is referring to, people are taking sentences > by Marx and Engels out of context. Abolishing the private ownership > of capital is but one element of the communist program -- but that > doesn't mean that they defined capitalism as ownership of the means of > production. Another part of their program was free education for > children -- certainly we don't think that the "Marxist" definition of > capitalism is a system where children are uneducated! Moreover, in > the Communist Manifesto they actually argue that capitalism is > destroying private property! And in various other books by Marx, Marx > and Engels, and their followers, they define capitalism quite > differently. > > In any event, Ed at least provided an actual source. Now we can have > hopefully fruitful discussion of the usefulness of this source, if > there are better sources, etc. In short, what Ed wrote was verifiable. Ed is Ed. His ideas may be way off in left right field but there is a certain honesty about his expression that you would hope would be learned by others with similar ideas. Ec From skyring at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 18:52:19 2005 From: skyring at gmail.com (Skyring) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 06:52:19 +1200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <550ccb82050326105218830e0e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:02:07 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > Okay Tom, what do you think we should do, if someone refuses over the > course of several weeks to provide a source for a claim that some editors > say is inaccurate or simply false? No question about it. If after long dicussion no source is provided, it should be deleted. -- Peter in Christchurch From saintonge at telus.net Sat Mar 26 18:52:04 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 10:52:04 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <24376055.1111811723880.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <24376055.1111811723880.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4245AF54.2090109@telus.net> Thomas Haws wrote: >Yes, I personally would be even more patient. That may not be the "right" answer, but my attitude is maybe I can 1) learn something from that "original researcher" 2) help him feel good about contributing to Wikipedia, and 3) show him by example how Wikipedia works at its best and what NPOV means. As much as it hurts at times, I simply cannot afford to take excessive ownership in articles. > > Patience is commendable. But an effective POV warrior can depend on that in the hope that your patience will turn to abandonment, and his lack of sources will be forgotten. Put in educational terms what you seem to be saying is, "Don't insist that little Johnny learn anything because it might damage his self-esteem." Ec From slimvirgin at gmail.com Sat Mar 26 20:04:15 2005 From: slimvirgin at gmail.com (slimvirgin at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:04:15 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503260847368235ba@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4cc603b0503260847368235ba@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4cc603b05032612046881d975@mail.gmail.com> I want to clarify the e-mail I sent earlier regarding Tom Haws' views at [[Talk:Human]]. Upon re-reading it, I'm worried I gave the impression that Tom is being an edit warrior, and feel I should make clear that his views have been confined to the talk page of [[Human]]. He has not attempted to insert those views into the article itself; the talk-page discussion, which is robust but perfectly civil, is being held precisely to decide whether those views ought to be inserted. I don't agree with Tom, but I respect him as an editor, and he clearly has Wikipedia's best interests in mind. I hope that clarifies what I wrote earlier. Sarah On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 09:47:30 -0700, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: > > Tom Haws wrote, > > > >Heh-heh. It is easy to see how this problem got started. Deleting > > >unsourced material is an excellent excuse for POV police, warriors, and > > >their ilk. > > On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:02:07 -0500, steven l. rubenstein > wrote: > If Tom Haws is going to label as a POV warrior anyone who > > insists that our policies, such as Verifiability and Cite sources, must be > > enforced, then how on earth are we going to write a good encyclopedia? > > Tom Haws takes the view that NPOV means articles must reflect popular > opinion, not scholarly opinion. For several weeks, Tom has been > arguing that the introduction of the article [[Human]] must reflect > religious beliefs (that e.g. human beings have souls and were created > in the image of God), and not simply biological and anthropological > ones (that we are bipedal primates who engage in extensive tool use > and live in complex societies). While no editor on that page disputes > that religious views be discussed in the article, a number of us do > argue that these views have no place in the introduction. > > Tom has been invited to submit references (e.g. work by theologians), > but has declined to do so, arguing that his reference is to popular > opinion. He was then invited by several editors, in the interests of > consistency, to go and add some popular opinion to the introduction of > other articles e.g. to [[Woman]], that women are seen by many people > around the world as inferior and irrational; to [[Gay]], that gay sex > is viewed by many as wicked; to [[Muslim]], that many see Muslims as a > bunch of terrorists; to [[Jew]], that many see Jews as engaged in a > plot to take over the world. > > Rather than accepting the inconsistency of his position, Tom has > defended it by arguing, on [[Talk:Human]], that he simply doesn't have > time to add popular opinion to all articles that need it, adding: " > The only pertinent sifting question is, "Is it a significant point of > view?" In other words, "does it make a difference in the world?" And > for all the examples you cite, the answer is "Yes". > > Note here that we are talking specifically about the introductions of > articles. I do not dispute that these views might be represented in an > article somewhere. But Tom wants to see them prominently displayed. > And this raises an interesting question about NPOV. When we say a > majority view ought to be displayed as such, do we mean the majority > scholarly view, or do we mean popular opinion (which in some cases > might be factually incorrect or offensive)? > > According to NPOV, we would probably have to stick to popular opinion. > The NPOV policy qualifies this by using the word "rational," but this > is not defined, and there are many people regarded as rational within > their own communities who believe, for example, that women need not be > given equal rights because they are inferior beings. But if we read > NPOV together with [[Wikipedia: No original research]], > [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]], and [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]], it > becomes clear that we mean "published, rational, majority opinion" > and, furthermore, published in a credible or reputable publication. > This will most often refer to the opinions of scholars, good > journalists, and other credible authors, and this defines the range of > majority opinion that must be given prominence. (Note: I am throughout > this post discussing prominence, not inclusion per se). This is why I > argue strongly that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines must be read > and understood together, because when viewed jointly, they do form a > coherent philosophy, and they provide a solid defense against the > introductions-must-reflect-popular-opinion position that Tom seems to > be promoting. (Though in fairness to Tom, I think he's simply being > inconsistent: I don't believe that he really wants to go around adding > popular opinion to introductions). > > Sarah > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 26 20:49:54 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:49:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A friendly Wired Article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050326204954.40930.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Anthere wrote: > Quite a good article > > But also exactly the article which makes the world > believe this is an > english project, run by english editors. > > Not exactly the kind of rumors all of us appreciate. > > > Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: TL at pipeline.com [mailto:TL at pipeline.com] > > Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:22 PM > > To: Poor, Edmund W > > Subject: article of interest > > > > > > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html > > > > I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this article but me, by > now. I feel like I > > just got a big pat on the back for my 3 1/2 years > of work! This writer > > is very friendly and has captured the essence of > Wikipedia much, MUCH > > better than anyone else heretofore. I just wish > his article was GFDL'd > > so I could incorporate all his descriptions. > > > > Uncle Ed > > > > P.S. A non-Wikipedian sent me the URL You mean the parts that talk about the Wikipedias in 75 languages, and how the millionth article was in the Hebrew Wikipedia? RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From wikipedia at earthlink.net Sat Mar 26 21:27:48 2005 From: wikipedia at earthlink.net (Michael Snow) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 13:27:48 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <20050326200419.9397F1AC17AD@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050326200419.9397F1AC17AD@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <4245D3D4.9070907@earthlink.net> Thomas Haws wrote: >Silverback, you couldn't have said it better about adminship. If we were more effective at removing admins we could be more generous about installing them. > > I have heard this line of argument a few times now from people advocating some form of quick and easy de-adminship without resorting to arbitration. In general, I think we already readily give adminship to those who are nominated, and anyone who has a close call on their first try will normally pass overwhelmingly after waiting a month or two. I invite anyone who believes the argument above to point me to a case where having an easier de-adminship process would have made the difference in the success of an adminship nomination. We could be more generous in seeking out candidates and making nominations, of course, but that's a different matter. There are many good users out there who are just waiting for a nomination. --Michael Snow From delirium at hackish.org Sat Mar 26 23:42:09 2005 From: delirium at hackish.org (Delirium) Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 18:42:09 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Test case: policing content In-Reply-To: <4cc603b0503260847368235ba@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050325155326.03097698@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> <4cc603b0503260847368235ba@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4245F351.1040605@hackish.org> slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote: >Tom Haws takes the view that NPOV means articles must reflect popular >opinion, not scholarly opinion. For several weeks, Tom has been >arguing that the introduction of the article [[Human]] must reflect >religious beliefs (that e.g. human beings have souls and were created >in the image of God), and not simply biological and anthropological >ones (that we are bipedal primates who engage in extensive tool use >and live in complex societies). While no editor on that page disputes >that religious views be discussed in the article, a number of us do >argue that these views have no place in the introduction. > > I don't see why it wouldn't be appropriate to mention these in the introduction. To a vast majority of the world's population, including a number of its philosophers who have specifically considered the question, the main distinguishing feature of humans is not "bipedal primates who engage in extensive tool use and live in complex societies", any more than "have two ears" or "have fingernails" are their main distinguishing features. If we were discussing an article specifically on the biological species [[Homo sapiens]], I could see that viewpoint, but the article on [[human]] must encompass, both in the body and the introduction, much more than merely the biological definition of the species. -Mark From neubau at presroi.de Tue Mar 22 18:11:05 2005 From: neubau at presroi.de (Mathias Schindler) Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:11:05 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Half a million articles is rather big, eh? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <42405FB9.2040905@presroi.de> Poor, Edmund W wrote: > How many words are there in the English Wikipedia's article base? And > how many volumes (formatted like the Britannica or Americana) would it > take to publish them all? > > Ed Poor According to Erik Zachte's brilliant scripts, the en.Wikipedia had 166 Million Words on March 9. According to Wikipedia, the 32-volume EB has 44 million words. According to my calculator, that's 1.375 million words per volume. So, we are talking about 120 volumes of an imaginary printed Wikipedia March 05 edition. Plus minus 30, I might guess. Mathias From joseph.nyu at reagle.org Wed Mar 23 19:25:21 2005 From: joseph.nyu at reagle.org (Joseph Reagle) Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:25:21 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> References: <4241AD47.9060107@f2s.com> Message-ID: <200503231425.21356.joseph.nyu@reagle.org> On Wednesday 23 March 2005 12:54, Nathan Wong wrote: > It would fit on a DVD - well, the sQL database would anyway. What about using a compressed file system, like Linux Live CDs? From andrew.cranwell at student.adelaide.edu.au Thu Mar 24 06:53:17 2005 From: andrew.cranwell at student.adelaide.edu.au (Andrew Cranwell) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 17:23:17 +1030 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <4241F261.2040409@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <4241D7B6.3020601@web.de> <4241DB4F.8090701@f2s.com> <4241E3A8.6090306@thingy.apana.org.au> <4241EBD0.9080009@sprintmail.com> <4241F261.2040409@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <424263DD.8030301@student.adelaide.edu.au> David Gerard wrote: > I'd see what the reaction to de: is like. Possibly we should be > publicising > quite a bit that de: is now available and being sold. What about the inclusion in Mandrakelinux? Is that still going ahead? [[en:User:Alphax]] From neubau at presroi.de Fri Mar 25 07:45:55 2005 From: neubau at presroi.de (Mathias Schindler) Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:45:55 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology Message-ID: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts Coverage of People, Science & Changing World CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005. Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology and computer crime. There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet. Several notable people receive their own entries for the first time, including U.S. Senator John Kerry, novelist and Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and philosopher John Rawls. Socrates is the subject of a lengthy new treatment that reflects the latest scholarship on the Greek philosopher. There are fresh, new articles on German literature, the Vietnam War and democracy. The cultural impact of the Great Depression is presented in a new article by the noted historian Richard Pells. As they have in recent years, the editors have again revised entries related to the evolving post-9/11 world, the fight against terrorism and the Iraq war. Articles in other areas, such as eugenics, electronics, evolution, Catholicism and the entries on a number of countries have undergone substantial revision. According to editor Dale Hoiberg, the revisions are part of an effort to keep the Britannica on the cutting edge of knowledge and world developments at a time when the demand for reliable information is greater than ever. "The world is awash in misinformation," said Hoiberg. "We continue to revise and improve the encyclopedia because people need a place to go for the right answers." Schools, libraries and universities interested in the 2005 Britannica may call (800) 621-3900 or go to www.eb.com. Consumers may call (800) 323-1229 or go to www.britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. has been a leader in reference and education publishing since 1768. The company is known for the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 26-volume Compton's by Britannica and its pioneering work in electronic publishing. Its many digital products include Britannica Online School Edition. Recently published printed products include My First Britannica, Britannica Discovery Library and the Britannica World Atlas. Britannica makes its headquarters in Chicago. More information is at http://www.britannica.com. Contacts Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Tom Panelas, 312-347-7309 tpanelas at us.britannica.com From mindspillage at gmail.com Sun Mar 27 05:11:08 2005 From: mindspillage at gmail.com (Kat Walsh) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 00:11:08 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A minor bit of getting the word out (in which no one is blocked, nor accused of stirring trouble) Message-ID: <8e253f56050326211136016881@mail.gmail.com> I was interviewing for graduate assistantships this afternoon and in the course of discussion mentioned writing articles on Wikipedia (actually, a few to which I've been the near-sole contributor were in my portfolio, too). One of the committee seemed very enthusiastic about it; he asked me about a few topics, including the proposed plans for article validation, and recommended that the rest of the committee (five or six others) take a look at the project. (I wasn't quite bold enough to ask if he had a user account!) I was pleased (and not a little surprised!) at the generally positive reaction from the ones who weren't familiar with it. Points scored there for me and for Wikipedia, I think. -Kat [[User:Mindspillage]] -- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams From andrew.lih at gmail.com Sun Mar 27 05:27:32 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 13:27:32 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> References: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050326212775225b8@mail.gmail.com> Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica? One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50 albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004). Someone send them a copy of "the clutrain manifesto." -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:45:55 +0100, Mathias Schindler wrote: > March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone > > New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts > Coverage of People, Science & Changing World > > CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles > spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at > the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005. > > Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial > number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology > and computer crime. > > There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of > predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet. > > Several notable people receive their own entries for the first time, > including U.S. Senator John Kerry, novelist and Nobel laureate J.M. > Coetzee, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and philosopher John Rawls. Socrates is the > subject of a lengthy new treatment that reflects the latest scholarship > on the Greek philosopher. > > There are fresh, new articles on German literature, the Vietnam War and > democracy. The cultural impact of the Great Depression is presented in a > new article by the noted historian Richard Pells. > > As they have in recent years, the editors have again revised entries > related to the evolving post-9/11 world, the fight against terrorism and > the Iraq war. Articles in other areas, such as eugenics, electronics, > evolution, Catholicism and the entries on a number of countries have > undergone substantial revision. > > According to editor Dale Hoiberg, the revisions are part of an effort to > keep the Britannica on the cutting edge of knowledge and world > developments at a time when the demand for reliable information is > greater than ever. > > "The world is awash in misinformation," said Hoiberg. "We continue to > revise and improve the encyclopedia because people need a place to go > for the right answers." > > Schools, libraries and universities interested in the 2005 Britannica > may call (800) 621-3900 or go to www.eb.com. Consumers may call (800) > 323-1229 or go to www.britannica.com. > > Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. has been a leader in reference and > education publishing since 1768. The company is known for the 32-volume > Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 26-volume Compton's by Britannica and its > pioneering work in electronic publishing. Its many digital products > include Britannica Online School Edition. Recently published printed > products include My First Britannica, Britannica Discovery Library and > the Britannica World Atlas. Britannica makes its headquarters in > Chicago. More information is at http://www.britannica.com. > > Contacts > > Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. > Tom Panelas, 312-347-7309 > tpanelas at us.britannica.com > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 27 05:55:44 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 00:55:44 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <674c5a1050325151242c0a283@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: Andy Roberts >On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged > > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. > > >In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any >objection may be directed to this list? > >" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may >discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list" > > >Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not? As I understand it, that is to provide a means for block editors to get the attention of other adminstrators, since they are no longer able to post. Jay. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 27 07:18:56 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 08:18:56 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A friendly Wired Article References: <20050326204954.40930.qmail@web60602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <42465E60.6010905@yahoo.com> Rick a ?crit: > --- Anthere wrote: > >>Quite a good article >> >>But also exactly the article which makes the world >>believe this is an >>english project, run by english editors. >> >>Not exactly the kind of rumors all of us appreciate. >> >> >>Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: >> >>>-----Original Message----- >>>From: TL at pipeline.com [mailto:TL at pipeline.com] >>>Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 2:22 PM >>>To: Poor, Edmund W >>>Subject: article of interest >>> >>> >>> >> > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki_pr.html > >>>I'm sure EVERYONE has seen this article but me, by >> >>now. I feel like I >> >>>just got a big pat on the back for my 3 1/2 years >> >>of work! This writer >> >>>is very friendly and has captured the essence of >> >>Wikipedia much, MUCH >> >>>better than anyone else heretofore. I just wish >> >>his article was GFDL'd >> >>>so I could incorporate all his descriptions. >>> >>>Uncle Ed >>> >>>P.S. A non-Wikipedian sent me the URL >> > > You mean the parts that talk about the Wikipedias in > 75 languages, and how the millionth article was in the > Hebrew Wikipedia? > > RickK I mean... you know... a concept called NPOV, which tries to represent fairly the facts. In an encyclopedic article, that might have involved balancing the amount of text used to describe one part of the reality and the amount of text used to describe the other part of the reality. Such as talking only of the english encyclopedia, during all the article, while talking of the other languages in one line. I do not think it is balanced. And I do not think people reading this article will keep in mind this information. And when people asking us for presentation tell me "why on earth would a french person represent and make presentation of wikipedia ???", I know that such comments comes from articles such as danny's one, which propagate a selected truth. Articles such as danny one are good, but they have a serious pov stamp on them. So, all I can say is "long live wikipedia which is able to be fair and neutral". From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 27 06:23:34 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 01:23:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <4244A508.4080903@houghton.net> Message-ID: >From: "Blair P. Houghton" >David Gerard wrote: >>JAY JG wrote: >>>Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged >>>admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. >> >>HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one. > >Unreachable for anyone who's been blocked. Without WikiEN-l people >could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins. There's been no evidence of "disappearing" being carried out by "unscupulous admins", and in any event controversial blockings can be brought to the attention of WikiEN-l, but WikiEN-l is not an investigatory body. Jay. From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 27 09:28:45 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 09:28:45 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <032720050928.12941.42467CCD0001A4100000328D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > >From: Andy Roberts > >On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > > > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged > > > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. > > > > >In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any > >objection may be directed to this list? > > > >" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may > >discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list" > > > > > >Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not? > > As I understand it, that is to provide a means for block editors to get the > attention of other adminstrators, since they are no longer able to post. > > Jay. I was unaware of any listing of admins or their email addresses or who Jimbo was when I was blocked for the first and only time. I only knew that the block was incorrect, and the email address for this list was the easiest find, because it was referenced in the block process. There should be a general list like this that a user can be referred to, because like myself, his only experience at communicating with the wiki community may have been talk pages, so he may have felt disenfranchised by the block. Individual email addresses are not a good first line alternative because who knows how soon they will be checked. -- Silverback From actionforum at comcast.net Sun Mar 27 09:39:38 2005 From: actionforum at comcast.net (actionforum at comcast.net) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 09:39:38 +0000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power Message-ID: <032720050939.6070.42467F5A000AA013000017B622007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> -------------- Original message -------------- > Thomas Haws wrote: > > >Silverback, you couldn't have said it better about adminship. If we were more > effective at removing admins we could be more generous about installing them. > > > > > I have heard this line of argument a few times now from people > advocating some form of quick and easy de-adminship without resorting to > arbitration. In general, I think we already readily give adminship to > those who are nominated, and anyone who has a close call on their first > try will normally pass overwhelmingly after waiting a month or two. I > invite anyone who believes the argument above to point me to a case > where having an easier de-adminship process would have made the > difference in the success of an adminship nomination. > > We could be more generous in seeking out candidates and making > nominations, of course, but that's a different matter. There are many > good users out there who are just waiting for a nomination. > > --Michael Snow The process of getting an adminship is currently political, and religious, with confession of past offenses, absolution by votes, self promotion of past accomplishments and back slapping by cronies. It some ways it is a bit unseemly. It should be automatic and an opportunity to serve rather than for status. Many serve just as well or better within editing privileges, although many admins make invaluable contributions to the community and should feel a sense of accomplishment. -- Silverback From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 27 09:54:15 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 04:54:15 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <032720050928.12941.42467CCD0001A4100000328D22069984999B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: >From: actionforum at comcast.net > > >On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:36:05 -0500, JAY JG wrote: > > > > Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of >alleged > > > > admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. > > > > > > >In that case why does the automatic block message suggest that any > > >objection may be directed to this list? > > > > > >" If you believe that our blocking policy was violated, you may > > >discuss the block publicly on the WikiEN-L mailing list" > > > > > > > > >Violating blocking policy is an abuse of admin status is it not? > > > > As I understand it, that is to provide a means for blocked editors to >get the > > attention of other administrators, since they are no longer able to >post. > > > > Jay. > >I was unaware of any listing of admins or their email addresses or who >Jimbo was when I was blocked for the first and only time. I only knew that >the block was incorrect, and the email address for this list was the >easiest find, because it was referenced in the block process. There should >be a general list like this that a user can be referred to, because like >myself, his only experience at communicating with the wiki community may >have been talk pages, so he may have felt disenfranchised by the block. >Individual email addresses are not a good first line alternative because >who knows how soon they will be checked. > > -- Silverback Right. And that particular editor now had the attention of the list. It seemed other list members wanted the parties in question to now start presenting their evidence before the list, in preparation for who knows what. Jay. From jayjg at hotmail.com Sun Mar 27 10:13:06 2005 From: jayjg at hotmail.com (JAY JG) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 05:13:06 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: User:Neutrality NPOV/Abuse of Administrator Power In-Reply-To: <032720050939.6070.42467F5A000AA013000017B622007340769B9B07990A0403@comcast.net> Message-ID: > > I have heard this line of argument a few times now from people > > advocating some form of quick and easy de-adminship without resorting to > > arbitration. In general, I think we already readily give adminship to > > those who are nominated, and anyone who has a close call on their first > > try will normally pass overwhelmingly after waiting a month or two. I > > invite anyone who believes the argument above to point me to a case > > where having an easier de-adminship process would have made the > > difference in the success of an adminship nomination. > > > > We could be more generous in seeking out candidates and making > > nominations, of course, but that's a different matter. There are many > > good users out there who are just waiting for a nomination. > > > > --Michael Snow > >The process of getting an adminship is currently political, and religious, >with confession of past offenses, absolution by votes, self promotion of >past accomplishments and back slapping by cronies. It some ways it is a >bit unseemly. It should be automatic and an opportunity to serve rather >than for status. Many serve just as well or better within editing >privileges, although many admins make invaluable contributions to the >community and should feel a sense of accomplishment. > > -- Silverback Unsurprisingly, non-admins (particularly those who have had run-ins with admins) complain regularly that it is too hard to become an admin, that the de-adminning process is non-functional and instead needs to become almost automatic at the first hint of controversy, and that this has resulted in Wikipedia being inundated with rogue admins who spend most of their time oppressing and violating the rights of simple, hard-working Wikipedians. I suppose, to be fair, I must also note that it is generally the hundreds of admins who feel that these kinds of charges are gross exaggerations at best. Jay. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 27 15:11:40 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 07:11:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050327151140.82706.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mathias Schindler wrote: > March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone > > New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts > Coverage of People, Science & Changing World > > CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles > spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at > the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005. > > Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial > number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology > and computer crime. > > There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of > predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet. LOL - I wrote the first Wikipedia version more than two years ago. It is now a pretty darn good article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event > Several notable people receive their own entries for the first time, > including U.S. Senator John Kerry, novelist and Nobel laureate J.M. > Coetzee, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and philosopher John Rawls. Socrates is the > subject of a lengthy new treatment that reflects the latest scholarship > on the Greek philosopher. John Kerry! Wow - these people are really with it, aren't they. And Yo-Yo Ma has been a very important person much longer than before the last EB update. > According to editor Dale Hoiberg, the revisions are part of an effort to > keep the Britannica on the cutting edge of knowledge and world > developments at a time when the demand for reliable information is > greater than ever. And they will be up to date for how long? Two weeks, maybe. I did take pity on them by buying Britannica Concise for my Palm Pilot. They really meant it when they called it concise though - all entries are as large or smaller than our lead sections. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From daniwo59 at aol.com Sun Mar 27 15:25:46 2005 From: daniwo59 at aol.com (daniwo59 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 10:25:46 EST Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such ... Message-ID: <1a6.34a56b24.2f782a7a@aol.com> Yes, we are way ahead of Britannica in many areas, but, to be realistic, just as we have many excellent articles that they simply don't have, they also have many articles that we don't. Of course, we are in a better situation, because we can easily fill in the gaps. I therefore encourage people to take a look at [[Wikipedia:2004 Encyclopedia topics]]. Make redirects if we have the articles, and see what articles they have that you can fill in. Start with a sub, or even a substub. It is bound to grow. Let's make sure we have everything they have and more. Danny From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 27 15:43:49 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:43:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" Message-ID: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:220.233.86.223#We_now_have_to_block_Wikipedia Amusing, but I thought I'd let people know. An anon has claimed, "I am in charge of 25K plus internet users in Australia and have decided to block the Wikipedia site through our routers." His reasons include a legal need to protect his customers from the net (yes, folks, WP is that sinister...). (The background to this is that this user was blocked a couple of weeks back for posting a user's personal information and insinuating threats (legal and otherwise) in a dispute about the [[Potter's House Christian Fellowship]] article. Presumably sour grapes -- and bluff, in all likelihood.) Matt -- [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Sun Mar 27 19:57:33 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 21:57:33 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked... Mgm On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:43:49 +0100 (BST), Matt R wrote: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:220.233.86.223#We_now_have_to_block_Wikipedia > > Amusing, but I thought I'd let people know. An anon has claimed, "I am in > charge of 25K plus internet users in Australia and have decided to block the > Wikipedia site through our routers." His reasons include a legal need to > protect his customers from the net (yes, folks, WP is that sinister...). > > (The background to this is that this user was blocked a couple of weeks back > for posting a user's personal information and insinuating threats (legal and > otherwise) in a dispute about the [[Potter's House Christian Fellowship]] > article. Presumably sour grapes -- and bluff, in all likelihood.) > > Matt > -- [[User:Matt Crypto]] > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From blair at houghton.net Sun Mar 27 20:22:47 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 13:22:47 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 134 In-Reply-To: <20050327195746.C37BA1AC177C@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050327195746.C37BA1AC177C@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <42471617.2060207@houghton.net> JAY JG wrote: >>From: "Blair P. Houghton" >>David Gerard wrote: >>>>JAY JG wrote: >> >>>>>>Wikipedia has a number of mechanisms for investigating cases of alleged >>>>>>admin abuse; WikiEN-l is not one of them. >> >>>> >>>>HEAR HEAR. [[WP:AN/I]] is a good one. > >>Unreachable for anyone who's been blocked. Without WikiEN-l people >>could be "disappeared" by unscrupulous admins. > >There's been no evidence of "disappearing" being carried out by "unscupulous >admins", and in any event controversial blockings can be brought to the >attention of WikiEN-l, but WikiEN-l is not an investigatory body. 1. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (except in the case where the observer is omniscient over the system). 2. WikiEN-l is the starting point for an investigation, and a venue of recourse for discussing investigations gone wrong. It is, de facto, whatever it is at the time people write to it. 3. Unless a forum is created elsewhere and publicized, it's the only place blocked users can go, and they can only go there if they happen across the directions to it, and can manage to understand the subscription process (which ain't exactly a slam-dunk). --Blair From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Sun Mar 27 20:43:18 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 21:43:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked... > > Mgm Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites? From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 27 20:57:12 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 12:57:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> --- MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia > regulars being blocked... > > Mgm I hope if they are, that they raise a big stink. With newspapers involved. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Sun Mar 27 21:20:48 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:20:48 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] International Writing Contest Message-ID: <742dfd06050327132062155ce2@mail.gmail.com> There is an international writing contest going on on the German, Dutch, and Polish wikipedias. In the spirit of international harmony, I started a sister contest on En: as well. Please nominate articles and other content which was created or expanded this month, and which you think is particularly well-written: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_writing_contest Cheers, SJ From christiaan at last-straw.net Mon Mar 28 00:32:18 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:32:18 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> I sent them the following message via http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp To whom it concerns, I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as crediting authors): http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the Wikipedia page. So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added directly to its Wikipedia page): http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page): http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08-14.jpg The info of which you will find by following the link on the page above to: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08 -14.jpg This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons, we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in a technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions. I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this process but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this issue at their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue at their end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image info from Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second example above). I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me. Thanks for your time, Christiaan Briggs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan On 25 Mar 2005, at 7:22 pm, Anthere wrote: > Can you gently write them on the topic then ? > > Ant > > > Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: >> That they follow conditions of licence. It's up to them how they >> achieve that isn't it? >> Christiaan >> On 25 Mar 2005, at 5:57 pm, Anthere wrote: >>> Nod. >>> This is probably the key of the problem. >>> Well, the fact the description is missing from all pictures used by >>> wikicommons (we do not really respect our own licence...) has >>> already been raised many times unfortunately. >>> >>> It is certainly an issue to fix in the future. >>> >>> Meanwhile, what can we propose to Answers ? >>> >>> Ant >>> >>> Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: >>> >>>> I think I have an idea of where this problem stems from; when you >>>> click on an image in Wikipedia which was originally uploaded to >>>> Wikimedia Commons the description (including who the author is) is >>>> not included on the Wikipedia page for that image (only a link its >>>> page on Wikimedia Commons is included). I would say Answers.com is >>>> simply pulling down the content from Wikipedia (and ignoring the >>>> link to the Commons page). >>>> At the moment Wikipedia image pages only include a link to the >>>> corresponding Wikimedia Commons page. I'm not sure what the >>>> technical issues are here but it seems to me when a user clicks on >>>> an image in Wikipedia the description of the image should be on >>>> that page. A couple of ways of achieving this might be to link >>>> directly to the image on Wikimedia Commons or to somehow import the >>>> text from Wikimedia Commons onto the Wikipedia page. I'm sure there >>>> are probably problems associated with these, otherwise I imagine >>>> we'd be doing it already. >>>> Christiaan >>>> Anthere wrote: >>>> >>>>> I think you are correct that there is possibly a problem as no >>>>> where is the author of the picture mentionned, nor a link >>>>> available. >>>>> >>>>> We should mention this to Jimbo >>>>> >>>>> Ant >>>>> >>>>> MacGyverMagic/Mgm a ?crit: >>>>> >>>>>>> Is anyone else surprised that Answers.com doesn't seem to follow >>>>>>> GFDL or CCbySA conditions with regard to images used from >>>>>>> Wikipedia, such as crediting authors: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Or am I misunderstanding the process? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Christiaan >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Well, I could be misunderstanding the process myself, but aren't >>>>>> they following GFDL by telling us it's a Wikipedia article to >>>>>> start with? >>>>>> Mgm From jack-lutz at comcast.net Mon Mar 28 00:48:20 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (Jack Lutz) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:48:20 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com><424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia is not. They mirror Wikipedia content, and MediaWiki renders these Commons-based Wikipedia pages in a way that is not in compliance. Is this not hypocritical? If Wikimedia fixed its software, then Answers.com would be in compliance. From christiaan at last-straw.net Mon Mar 28 01:18:38 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:18:38 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com><424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> <002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> Message-ID: <470dc33239d813a6a5950c271a919d7d@last-straw.net> Jack Lutz wrote: > Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia > is not. They mirror Wikipedia content, and MediaWiki renders these > Commons-based Wikipedia pages in a way that is not in compliance. Is > this not hypocritical? If Wikimedia fixed its software, then > Answers.com would be in compliance. Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and Wikipedia at least includes a link. Christiaan From christiaan at last-straw.net Mon Mar 28 01:20:55 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:20:55 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <470dc33239d813a6a5950c271a919d7d@last-straw.net> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com><424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> <002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> <470dc33239d813a6a5950c271a919d7d@last-straw.net> Message-ID: Jack Lutz wrote: > Answers.com is not in compliance with licensing only because Wikipedia > is not. By the way this isn't strictly true. Replace "only" with "partly" and it would be more accurate. Christiaan From jack-lutz at comcast.net Mon Mar 28 01:31:40 2005 From: jack-lutz at comcast.net (Jack Lutz) Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 19:31:40 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com><424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com><03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net><002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> <470dc33239d813a6a5950c271a919d7d@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <000e01c53335$e5146710$6b01a8c0@one> > Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and > Wikipedia at least includes a link. > > Christiaan I just think you're trying to fix the wrong problem. We're saying "we made mistakes in the content we made available to you, but if you don't fix them we're going to slap you with a letter on copyright violation." From jason at mydomain.com.au Mon Mar 28 01:46:54 2005 From: jason at mydomain.com.au (Jason Trickey) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:46:54 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20050328114411.02267008@mail.mydomain.com.au> >MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > >>I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked... >>Mgm > >Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites? In Australia, it's both a yes and a no. See here, http://libertus.net/censor/netcensor.html He sounds like nothing more than a disgruntled user with an axe to grind. My access to Wikipedia is fine, and yes, I'd be making noise if it ever went away. Cheers, -j From keturner at livejournal.com Mon Mar 28 02:41:51 2005 From: keturner at livejournal.com (Kate Turner) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:41:51 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3487005.jnoe73tZ7B@rose.local> Pete/Pcb21 wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english: > Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites? http://news.com.com/Utah+governor+signs+Net-porn+bill/2100-1028_3-5629067.html?tag=nefd.top kate. From christiaan at last-straw.net Mon Mar 28 02:58:29 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:58:29 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <000e01c53335$e5146710$6b01a8c0@one> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com><424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com><03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net><002101c5332f$daa31ed0$6b01a8c0@one> <470dc33239d813a6a5950c271a919d7d@last-straw.net> <000e01c53335$e5146710$6b01a8c0@one> Message-ID: <70feddf16bef3cc406b99e320e8b9cbd@last-straw.net> Jack Lutz wrote: >> Possibly, but this doesn't make them any less responsible, and >> Wikipedia at least includes a link. >> >> Christiaan > > I just think you're trying to fix the wrong problem. We're saying "we > made mistakes in the content we made available to you, but if you > don't fix them we're going to slap you with a letter on copyright > violation." Um, no, that's not what I said to them at all. Christiaan From windrunner at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 12:28:46 2005 From: windrunner at gmail.com (Nathan Russell) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:28:46 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1e20f1290503280428101c2ccf@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 21:43:18 +0100, Pete/Pcb21 wrote: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > > > I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia regulars being blocked... > > > > Mgm > > Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites? Only the ones that want to get bad publicity and go out of business. If this anon is in a position to block a site as common as Wikipedia, he needs to think about whether he is more valuable to his employer than the customers are. Pak From windrunner at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 12:36:24 2005 From: windrunner at gmail.com (Nathan Russell) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 07:36:24 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: <3487005.jnoe73tZ7B@rose.local> References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <3487005.jnoe73tZ7B@rose.local> Message-ID: <1e20f129050328043657499414@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:41:51 +0100, Kate Turner wrote: > Pete/Pcb21 wrote in gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english: > > > Very unlikely to be true... do ISPs really block gambling, porn etc sites? > > http://news.com.com/Utah+governor+signs+Net-porn+bill/2100-1028_3-5629067.html?tag=nefd.top > > kate. I think the proper question is "do ISPs really block gampling, porn, etc sites because those sites annoyed an employee." This is not likely to become an issue for anyone, ever. The anon is bluffing. Did we worry for the community when Michael started talking about killing sysops, or when Khranus said he was going to put a lot of money into setting up a competing site? Pakaran From violetriga at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 18:00:37 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 19:00:37 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Ultra slow again - preventing deletion and moves Message-ID: Once again I can't do a thing. I've been trying to do some of the work at WP:RM for the last hour and am sick of seeing the "Sorry- we have a problem..." message - not been able to do a single one yet. It's not too slow looking at pages, even editing them isn't too bad, but trying to delete or move is simply impossible at the moment. So damn frustrating. ~~~~ Violet/Riga From shebs at apple.com Mon Mar 28 18:54:53 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 10:54:53 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050326212775225b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> <2ed171fb050326212775225b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424852FD.6040700@apple.com> Andrew Lih wrote: >Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica? > >One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50 >albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993, >1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004). > Well, I'm sure in 1987 they wrote a stub, but then it was posted on EB's equivalent of VfD as "not significant, only one Grammy". Next year it would have been "nobody really cares about the cello" and deleted again, then the third re-creation would have been speedy-deleted with "obvious nonsense, name was clearly made up by a troll". So you see, they're just being extra careful to make sure that someone is *truly* significant before including them. Alternate theory: one has to have a source, right? So they waited for the TV movie to come out, so they could use it as reference, instead of that unreliable WP. :-) Stan From dbenbenn at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 18:58:32 2005 From: dbenbenn at gmail.com (David Benbennick) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:58:32 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> Message-ID: It seems to me that answers.com doesn't even obey the license conditions for non-Commons images. For example, using [http://www.answers.com/topic/erf-png] requires attribution to [[:en:User:Cyp]], which is absent. (It would have sufficed to include the "File history" section from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Erf.png].) On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 01:32:18 +0100, Christiaan Briggs wrote: > From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are > uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather than > directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link to the > relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description on the > Wikipedia page. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Mon Mar 28 19:31:36 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 21:31:36 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Ultra slow again - preventing deletion and moves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > It's not too slow looking at pages, even editing them isn't too bad, > but trying to delete or move is simply impossible at the moment. So > damn frustrating. Frustrating indeed. Every single edit I've done so far has fetched me an error message. Some went through, but I also edits I had to repeat 3 times before anything happened. No doubt, some newbies are recreating some new pages too many times with server response times like this. *grumble* Mgm From saintonge at telus.net Mon Mar 28 19:56:09 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:56:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: <424852FD.6040700@apple.com> References: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> <2ed171fb050326212775225b8@mail.gmail.com> <424852FD.6040700@apple.com> Message-ID: <42486159.9080001@telus.net> Stan Shebs wrote: > Andrew Lih wrote: > >> Also, Yo-Yo Ma only *now* gets an article in Britannica? >> >> One of the most visible classical music performers in the world, 50 >> albums, 15 time Grammy Award winner (1986, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1993, >> 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004). > > Well, I'm sure in 1987 they wrote a stub, but then it was posted > on EB's equivalent of VfD as "not significant, only one Grammy". > Next year it would have been "nobody really cares about the cello" > and deleted again, then the third re-creation would have been > speedy-deleted with "obvious nonsense, name was clearly made up > by a troll". If in their youth they had understood the "Power of Yo" as described by the Smothers Brothers they would not have made this error. Ec From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Mon Mar 28 22:37:44 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 23:37:44 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ultra slow again - preventing deletion and moves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In addition my watchlist seems to perpetually consist of "Internal error" .... I assume I am not the only one. From violetriga at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 00:19:42 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 01:19:42 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ultra slow again - preventing deletion and moves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > In addition my watchlist seems to perpetually consist of "Internal > error" .... I assume I am not the only one. Nope, you're not! Well I say that but in the last half hour it seems to be working again - I'll leave the [[WP:RM]] stuff until tomorrow though. ~~~~ Violet/Riga From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 05:54:38 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:54:38 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Free Software Magazine and Wikipedia Message-ID: <6e74e0f6dd55abb9486737b8dce43cda@mobily.com> Hello, My name is Tony Mobily. I am the Editor In Chief of Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com). Our magazine has articles about free software and free culture in general. All our articles are released under a free license (Cretive Common, GFDL or Verbatim Only) 6 weeks after the magazine is out. I KNOW that a Verbatim Only license is hardly free, but it's our current option for "opinionated" articles about a specific subject. Some of my authors told me that some of the articles would be perfect as follow-up articles to wikipedia entries. The beauty of this is that the follow-up articles themselves would be editable, and would therefore stay "alive". For example he article "Format Wars" (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_01/ focus_format_history/) would fit very neatly in Wikipedia's "File_format" entry. The requirement of course would be that these article are released under the GFDL. That will depend on the authors, but I have talked to some of them already and they said that they would be happy with that. The problem is: do you have a spot in Wikipedia (or in "Wikimedia" in general) for general articles such as the ones we publish? If the answer is "no", would it be worthwhile creating such a spot? Thanks a lot, Merc. Tony Mobily Editor-In-Chief Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 08:45:29 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:45:29 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Free Software Magazine and Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb050328220131989807@mail.gmail.com> References: <6e74e0f6dd55abb9486737b8dce43cda@mobily.com> <2ed171fb050328220131989807@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <971a24a855b821d3e2359863033f1c08@mobily.com> Hi, From the Welcome page: Welcome to Wikisource. This site is a repository of source texts in any language which are either in the public domain, or are released under the GNU Free Documentation License. The site is part of the Wikimedia foundation and is a sister project of Wikipedia, which is a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate, free content encyclopedia. It only talks about GNU FDL, not Verbatim. Is the page not up-to-date? Merc. On 29/03/2005, at 2:01 PM, Andrew Lih wrote: > You might want to take a look at Wikisource, which is a repository for > verbatim content. > > -Andrew > > > > On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:54:38 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP > wrote: >> Hello, >> >> My name is Tony Mobily. I am the Editor In Chief of Free Software >> Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com). >> >> Our magazine has articles about free software and free culture in >> general. All our articles are released under a free license (Cretive >> Common, GFDL or Verbatim Only) 6 weeks after the magazine is out. >> I KNOW that a Verbatim Only license is hardly free, but it's our >> current option for "opinionated" articles about a specific subject. >> >> Some of my authors told me that some of the articles would be perfect >> as follow-up articles to wikipedia entries. The beauty of this is that >> the follow-up articles themselves would be editable, and would >> therefore stay "alive". >> >> For example he article "Format Wars" >> (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_01/ >> focus_format_history/) would fit very neatly in Wikipedia's >> "File_format" entry. >> >> The requirement of course would be that these article are released >> under the GFDL. That will depend on the authors, but I have talked to >> some of them already and they said that they would be happy with that. >> >> The problem is: do you have a spot in Wikipedia (or in "Wikimedia" in >> general) for general articles such as the ones we publish? If the >> answer is "no", would it be worthwhile creating such a spot? >> >> Thanks a lot, >> >> Merc. >> >> Tony Mobily >> Editor-In-Chief >> Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- Tony Mobily Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine 05/2004 From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 08:53:14 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 00:53:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] censorship and guidelines In-Reply-To: <20050329055637.34625.qmail@web41801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> Gregory Maxwell wrote: My concern was that you appear to be supporting the idea that due to differences in cultural norms it is acceptable to censor content on some wikipedias and not others. If I have misunderstood you I apologise. No, you are correct. I support differences in cultural norms to be acceptable to decide the content to be displayed on some wikipedias and not on others. And I support each community to decide which norms it should follow. Currently, you are suggesting that if the autofellatio image is kept by the english wikipedia, it should be accepted by all other projects Sorry, but I absolutely do not agree with this position. The english wikipedia has the entire responsability to decide whether to keep it or not to keep it, but its decision should only have a local impact. There is absolutely no argument to say that it should impact all other projects. The english wikipedia has no authority over the other projects. It has certainly experience to bring, it has plenty of good people to listen to, but it is not the boss of other projects. There is a strong reason for this. While we have a general agreement that our projects should avoid censorship, we would be fools to pretend a certain degree of censorship is not currently and naturally applied in all communitites. Let me cite a couple of examples, some possibly being in your local project, but some perhaps not. * picture of a man shitting on his girlfriend * picture of a man forcing a kid to eat shit under torture * venerial diseases and consequences on sexual organs * photo of a man and a woman making love * photo of a clitoris * goatse image * photo of a man raping a woman * photo of a man fucking with a sheep * movie of a group of 5 men raping a teenage boy (with the cries of the boy who is still conscious) * movie of a man raping a baby girl, with the blood resulting from an exploded vagina * photo of Nick severed head * photo of a girl cutting a man balls * movie of soldiers torturing another soldier by burning him with cigarette (with the screams, when internet is able to, let's not forget the smell of burnt skin) * photo of bodies cut into pieces by a madman * photos of a woman giving birth * Zoom photos of bloated bodies after a tsunami * photo of a man vomiting * movie of a little girl slowly drowning between logs after an earthquake, while journalists take pictures of her calling her mom I could go on and on forever. All this exist. Most is informative. Some is already in Wikipedia. Most is not. Is it censorship NOT to put these pictures in Wikipedia ? YES, IT IS CENSORSHIP. Should these absolutely be in wikipedia ? To my opinion, some should be, some should not, and others, I do not know. I am all ready to admit that I have a pov on those. Just as everyone else. But the point is, not only editors have each a pov, but whether we like it or not, different cultures have different povs directions. For example, being french, I am quite confortable saying that the americans generally have a much stronger taboo with regards to sex than we do, and that northern european have less taboo than french regarding to nudity. I also understood that japanese have some habits that I regard as very odd (such as collecting teenager girls pants) and practice bounding much more than my culture does. It would not be very strange that they have different povs than us on what is shocking or not shocking regarding sex fun. In some cultures, some of the things I listed might be more shocking than in other cultures. This means that we will have tendencies to censor different things, due to our taboos. It is just plain non acceptable that one of our cultures decide for the other cultures what is taboo and shocking from what is not. And the very fact the current english wikipedia does not have most of the item listed above SHOW THAT THERE IS CENSORSHIP. And maybe some of the things the english speaking people censor will not be censored on the other pedias. We consequently have three options. First solution : we decide for a totally censor-free content (and in this case, all the items listed above are to be included and displayed directly online on all projects). I am pretty confident we will rather admit that it would be best that we censor a little bit, even though our goal is not to censor... Second solution : we decide that we should collectively take decisions on what should be censored and what should not be (and in this case, I invite all editors on all projects to go vote on the autofellatio, clitoris and severed head matters). I do not support that solution, in great part for practical reasons Third solution : we all share a common goal of non censorship, but we admit we censor a little bit nevertheless and we admit that these decisions should be taken locally, by local communities. Needless to say, I am all for the third one. I think minorities opinions should always be considered, and the argument that the english wikipedia community is the bigger so should be the one to decide for other communities is not valid as far as I am concerned. We have common goals, we have common big rules, but we have essentially local applications of these rules. It is my strongly held position that if you wish to censor, then you are not in agreement with the ideals of the overall project and you would be better off with your own fork. Now, since you call for me to quit the community and to set up a fork where I could act as a censor, I would like to add this. I think my goal of letting each project independant on such decisions as much as possible is much more supported than your opinion that only one frame of mind in what should be censored or not censored should be. Here is what I did for all the past year. I think all participants are aware of our guidelines of non-censorship. Most reasonable participants will also realise that the strongest interest of that guideline is essentially to give something to cite to those keeping/protecting the project from pov pushers. I do not think it means "we should not censor anything", but rather "we should aim at not censoring ourselves due to our personal taboos". In short, the idea is not to totally prevent censorship, but to follow a general and collective goal to find a reasonable path. When an editor alone is deleting autofellatio image, this image can be reverted on the grounds that "we should not self-censor ourselves". But if the community decides the image should be deleted, then it should. If the community is able to decide an image is not informative enough in balance with the amount of shock it generates, then it should just not be there. Generally, all big wikipedias have a strong and diverse community, absolutely able to make that decision. And generally, I think Wikimedia Foundation should not get involved in such decisions, because the communities are strong enough to make the GOOD decision. I do not know if the english wikipedia will keep or not the autofellatio image and whatever the decision, I will not oppose it, because when say 100 people in a culture make that type of decision, then it is certainly a better decision than I could have taken myself. Same for all big wikipedias, such as the french or the dutch or the spanish ones (since they recently have troubles with the image concerned). Where I think the board is involved, it is only for trying to keep and promote the big picture, the guideline, and ONLY help those communities which are not able to take a decision by themselves, or too small to do so. Couple of examples in the past year * a very small wikipedia starting in an african language. Only one editor and he started adding advertisement for his organisation on the main page. There was no community, I got involved and stopped this. * the french wikinews : very very small community and one of the most involved does not believe NPOV, does not want to follow it, and consider neutrality is even illegal. I keep a careful eye on this, because it might be very detrimental to our project. If needed, I will either block the person, or even stop the project * The hebrew wikipedia seemed to delete all interwiki languages some time ago, but for the english ones. We considered this against our general principles and reacted. Very recently, an hebrew editor reported possible censorship, since I do not read hebrew, I suggested Danny (a very trusted person) to check what was going on. Whatever my own position on the autofellatio image, I will never interfere on big wikipedias in one way or another, because I think communities are more able to decide than I what is okay or not. However, if I felt there was a very strange misdirection, I would get involved. Yes, a strange direction could be to censor all articles about sex, or excluding all editors who have a communist pov, or similar things. I am confident this can not happen on any of the big wikipedias, where there is a strong base of very involved people. > Who is "you" ??? Whomever you speak for that has decided that whatever language you are editing needs a differing policy with respect to neutrality and censorship than the more heavily trafficed wikipedias. French, Spanish, Dutch wikipedias are amongst the most heavily trafficed wikipedias. French is number 4, Dutch is number 5. They are absolutely in their right to have differing policies than the bigger English wikipedia. If they decide to delete the autofellatio, while the english decide to keep it, it is their absolute right. And telling them to fork for thinking different from the English is frankly uncalled for. Neither the community deciding to keep it, nor the community deciding to delete would be wrong. They would both be right in their diversity. > May I suggest that the english wikipedia is NOT the > Foundation. And that if I recognise the rights of the > english wikipedia to decide itself what is good taste > from what is bad taste, I do not recognise its right > to decide alone what is censorship and what is not > censorship. And I do not recognise its right to decide > what should be on all the other projects from what > should be absolutely. Is there not a consensus that denying, by policy, the inclusion of useful, informative, and encyclopedic information is censorship? Maybe the arguments of the dozen of editors supporting the deletion of that image would be enough to answer your question. Of course everyone has a right to decide what you will add... but if you wish to procedurally remove informative contributions because of some non-neutral position, than you would be better off involved with another project that includes such a non-neutral slant as part of its charter. Procedurally ? Uh, I do not get what you mean here ? You mean by vote ? Do you think all editors supporting the deletion of that picture should fork ??? > And when editors are complaining of large vandalism > displaying porn pictures on their talk page, I think > it would be good manner to recognise there is a > problem and find a solution to it. Agreed. However, your proposals included censoring wikipedia. Not only would this not solve your problem (bad guy just uploads the image under a new name and you're even more shocked, because you cant just click the firefox adfilter plugin option to block it forever if they keep changing the name), but it is not an acceptable means for preventing vandalism because it compromises the core goals of the project. No, there were not my proposals. These were A list of proposals. One of these proposals is not a proposal; it is was is actually happening (ie, french editors voting for deletion on the english wikipedia). I do not say this is a good idea, and my call for help is precisely to avoid this to happen. > I admire your ability to discuss an issue. I report 3 > different wikipedias complaints about large scale > vandalisme, and your answer is "fork". I admire your ability to discuss an issue. Three different wikipedias have a problem with a class of vandalism which can be reduced by simple technical/procedural means (soft redirects + three mouse clicks), and your answer is to censor. When editors asked for the technical/procedural means to the technical team, their request was rejected. Hence my desire to talk about it openly... which is interpretated as censorship. Censorship INSIDE the project will exist the day when we are not able to talk about a topic without someone accusing you of censorship. > There is currently strong support for deleting this > image. Throughout history there has been strong support for a lot of things that we view in hindsight as very wrong. Neutrality is a core value of these projects. By supporting this venture you are attempting to impose your values on others, it's not neutral. If we abandon this goal in the favor of a few practical gains we abandon much of what makes the project special. Supporting which venture ? If I wanted to impose MY views on editors, I would have long time ago DELETED that image. I did not. I limited myself to just vote for its deletion with no comments whatsoever. As things are, I took great effort all along the past year, to avoid giving my opinion on many topics, to avoid to impose my views on others. However, when editors contact me to ask me to help them into a matter, I try to help them, and I do not appreciate at all this is viewed as trying to impose *my* views. > > Wiki vandalism is unfortunate, but it is not a > > sufficient cause to > > reduce the available knowledge and the free exchange > > of information to > > mankind. It is not an excuse for censorship. > > I do not think a talk page being replaced by > pornographic pictures will reduce world knowledge. And > I do not think a man sucking is cock being limited on > one article only rather than thousand of pages will be > a bad blow in free exchange of information. Why do you now limit your remedies to talk pages? In your initial message you proposed censoring the images available for use in all wikipedias to be the least common denominator. It would hurt knowledge, and it wouldn't help your goal. I'd attach a copy of the image to this email to demonstrate how censoring wikipedia doesn't protect you from unwanted content.... If you're that concerned, you can browse with images off. (or use the firefox adblock plugin to filter it with two mouse clicks). Then read again my initial message. I did not propose to censor the image; I indicated that unless a technical solution be found and implemented, the image will found itself naturally censored by all non english editors tired of seeing their main page or talk pages replaced by porn. By the way, I can not use Firefox on my old system 9. So, I have no filter. In all cases, you seem to be unable to understand that I currently talk in the name of many editors and not in my proper name. However, I think the Foundation hold a certain responsability on user talk page. If editors do not want their talk page to display porn images, it would be a good idea that we help this not to happen. I think that this is hurting our image. Incidently, I do think it would be a serious blow in our image that jimbo talk page be replaced by the picture of a man sucking his cock. It is hard to go negociate with outside people when so. > However, I do think that such reactions to other > people opinions is a bad blow in wikilove that we > should all try to respect. I respect peoples feelings, but feelings are more transitory than freedom and feelings are less universal than knowledge. If the project goals were amended to say that it is the primary objective to make people feel good, then I would not be making the same argument now. As I already said, you are entitled to your opinion. But an autofellatio image displayed in thousand of copies on editors talk page is NOT helping free knowledge. Sometimes, there is need to balance things. And consider the weight of a decision. It may help on one hand, and have detrimental impact on the other hand. Upsetting several wikipedias with many vandalised talk pages and telling them "guys, guys, please tolerate sex images on your talk pages for the sake of free knowledge. We decided for you this picture was okay on wikipedia" is not exactly the good move. Imho. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 08:59:34 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:59:34 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] censorship and guidelines In-Reply-To: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> Hi, > Let me cite a couple of examples, some possibly being in your local > project, but some perhaps not. > * picture of a man shitting on his girlfriend [...] > journalists take pictures of her calling her mom I understand you were making a point, and I also understand I am the new kid in the block. However, I would like to suggest that such a crude list could be avoided without weakening your point. If not, I don't think I will last very long in this mailing list. Sorry. Merc. Tony Mobily Editor-In-Chief Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 09:04:26 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:04:26 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Your assistance is requested Message-ID: Just a brief call for help on maintaining [[WP:Press]]. It's very easy. Here's the procedure: 1. Go to http://news.google.com 2. Search for Wikipedia 3. Setup an alert for new articles on Wikipedia via email 4. When an Google alerts you, put it onto the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source]] page (next year, can someone change the redirection to [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2006]]?) - please link to the article in question! If it is an article that references information in a Wikipedia article, or to [[Wikipedia:Press coverage]] if it is an article ABOUT Wikipedia. There are some other categories, but I'm sure everyone gets the jist. 5. If the article is due to us being a press source, go to the article talk page and: a. if an author is provided, use [[Template:authoronlinesource2005]]. An example is: {{{{authoronlinesource2005|section=March 21-31 | author=Dan Ackman | date=March 21, 2005 | title=John DeLorean, Car Man Of The Future | org=Forbes | url=http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/2005/03/21/cx_da_0321topnews.html}} (this is on [[John DeLorean]]). b. if no author is provided, use [[Template:onlinesource2005]]. An example is: {{onlinesource2005|section=February 1-10 |title=Veritas Lux Mea. |org=The Feature |date=February 9, 2005 |url=http://www.thefeature.com/user/fadereu/journalentry?id=1335&ref=-1}} (this is on [[Mass media]]). Simple! Oh, the reason I ask is 'cause I just noticed that noone has updated it for a while (the anon is me - I couldn't help myself), and I figured this would be as good a place as any to ask for someone to take this over from myself. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 09:08:56 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:08:56 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: <20050327151140.82706.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050327151140.82706.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >>There is even an article on earth-impact hazard, the science of >>predicting the probability of astronomical bodies hitting the planet. > > > LOL - I wrote the first Wikipedia version more than two years ago. It is now a > pretty darn good article. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event Out of interest, should that "further reading" be "references"? TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 09:18:02 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:18:02 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <20050327154349.49238.qmail@web25009.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Matt R wrote: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:220.233.86.223#We_now_have_to_block_Wikipedia > > Amusing, but I thought I'd let people know. An anon has claimed, "I am in > charge of 25K plus internet users in Australia and have decided to block the > Wikipedia site through our routers." His reasons include a legal need to > protect his customers from the net (yes, folks, WP is that sinister...). > > (The background to this is that this user was blocked a couple of weeks back > for posting a user's personal information and insinuating threats (legal and > otherwise) in a dispute about the [[Potter's House Christian Fellowship]] > article. Presumably sour grapes -- and bluff, in all likelihood.) > > Matt > -- [[User:Matt Crypto]] > > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com Really? If he's done this, then please advise me of the ISP and I will get in contact with them. If they are blocking at the router and killing off access to their Internet customers then I will get on the phone to their customer service division and talk to their management. Incidently, I think it was I who blocked this nitwit (before I asked to be desysoped). I actually told TimStarling what they had done and he edited the revision to remove One Salient Oversight's personal information. I don't think it's a bluff, for what it's worth. The user quite possibly might be working for an ISP. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 09:25:11 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:25:11 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: censorship and guidelines In-Reply-To: <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> References: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> Message-ID: Tony Mobily IMAP wrote: > Hi, > >> Let me cite a couple of examples, some possibly being in your local >> project, but some perhaps not. >> * picture of a man shitting on his girlfriend > > [...] > >> journalists take pictures of her calling her mom > > > I understand you were making a point, and I also understand I am the new > kid in the block. > However, I would like to suggest that such a crude list could be avoided > without weakening your point. > > If not, I don't think I will last very long in this mailing list. > Sorry. > > Merc. > > Tony Mobily > Editor-In-Chief > Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com Tony, You just managed to walk into a most devisive and controversial issue. This is about as rough as it gets on this mailing list - and the point is being rammed home by Anthere because we've actually had to delete images like these ones from articles about topics similar to these. The swear words are a little regrettable though. TBSDY From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 09:20:51 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:20:51 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Rick wrote: > --- MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > >>I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia >>regulars being blocked... >> >>Mgm > > > I hope if they are, that they raise a big stink. With > newspapers involved. > > RickK If I find out which ISP it is (if in fact they have done this) then I will most definitely make a big stink. I might get a few bloggers involved and alert the media. I need to know which ISP first, however. TBSDY From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 09:33:36 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:33:36 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: censorship and guidelines In-Reply-To: References: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> Message-ID: <8f1ef9ef75042863899bbd715d4e8f7b@mobily.com> Hi, I'll sit and watch quitely for a while, like I should have done in the first place - sorry! Thanks for letting me know... Merc. > You just managed to walk into a most devisive and controversial issue. > This is about as rough as it gets on this mailing list - and the point > is being rammed home by Anthere because we've actually had to delete > images like these ones from articles about topics similar to these. > > The swear words are a little regrettable though. > > TBSDY > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- Tony Mobily Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine 05/2004 From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 09:35:03 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:35:03 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi, >> I hope if they are, that they raise a big stink. With >> newspapers involved. >> RickK > > If I find out which ISP it is (if in fact they have done this) then I > will most definitely make a big stink. I might get a few bloggers > involved and alert the media. > > I need to know which ISP first, however. Well, I live in Australia and there aren't that many 25000+ ISPs over here. What was the IP address? Bye, Merc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- Tony Mobily Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine 05/2004 From merc at mobily.com Tue Mar 29 09:36:39 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily IMAP) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:36:39 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Free Software Magazine and Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb0503290127982d75b@mail.gmail.com> References: <6e74e0f6dd55abb9486737b8dce43cda@mobily.com> <2ed171fb050328220131989807@mail.gmail.com> <971a24a855b821d3e2359863033f1c08@mobily.com> <2ed171fb0503290127982d75b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <77ebe3b064ab639e4be126f78fda4280@mobily.com> Hi, OK. However, in the page I read: "The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository for free images, music, sound & video clips and, possibly, texts and spoken texts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project" It seems like a spot for Music and visual arts, more than computer articles... Please remember that we don't mind changing the license of the articles if we need to! Is Wikipedia Commons really the best spot for non-encyclopedia articles? Bye! Merc. On 29/03/2005, at 5:27 PM, Andrew Lih wrote: > Tony, you're right, it seems wikicommons is probably a better fit, > since it supports more than just GFDL, and has Creative Commons > licenses. > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page > > -Andrew > > > On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:45:29 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP > wrote: >> Hi, >> >> From the Welcome page: >> >> Welcome to Wikisource. This site is a repository of source texts in >> any >> language which are either in the public domain, or are released under >> the GNU Free Documentation License. The site is part of the Wikimedia >> foundation and is a sister project of Wikipedia, which is a >> multilingual project to create a complete and accurate, free content >> encyclopedia. >> >> It only talks about GNU FDL, not Verbatim. >> >> Is the page not up-to-date? >> >> Merc. >> >> >> On 29/03/2005, at 2:01 PM, Andrew Lih wrote: >> >>> You might want to take a look at Wikisource, which is a repository >>> for >>> verbatim content. >>> >>> -Andrew >>> >>> >>> >>> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:54:38 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP >>> >>> wrote: >>>> Hello, >>>> >>>> My name is Tony Mobily. I am the Editor In Chief of Free Software >>>> Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com). >>>> >>>> Our magazine has articles about free software and free culture in >>>> general. All our articles are released under a free license (Cretive >>>> Common, GFDL or Verbatim Only) 6 weeks after the magazine is out. >>>> I KNOW that a Verbatim Only license is hardly free, but it's our >>>> current option for "opinionated" articles about a specific subject. >>>> >>>> Some of my authors told me that some of the articles would be >>>> perfect >>>> as follow-up articles to wikipedia entries. The beauty of this is >>>> that >>>> the follow-up articles themselves would be editable, and would >>>> therefore stay "alive". >>>> >>>> For example he article "Format Wars" >>>> (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_01/ >>>> focus_format_history/) would fit very neatly in Wikipedia's >>>> "File_format" entry. >>>> >>>> The requirement of course would be that these article are released >>>> under the GFDL. That will depend on the authors, but I have talked >>>> to >>>> some of them already and they said that they would be happy with >>>> that. >>>> >>>> The problem is: do you have a spot in Wikipedia (or in "Wikimedia" >>>> in >>>> general) for general articles such as the ones we publish? If the >>>> answer is "no", would it be worthwhile creating such a spot? >>>> >>>> Thanks a lot, >>>> >>>> Merc. >>>> >>>> Tony Mobily >>>> Editor-In-Chief >>>> Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> WikiEN-l mailing list >>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >>>> >>>> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -- >> ---- >> Tony Mobily >> Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) >> "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine >> 05/2004 >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---- Tony Mobily Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine 05/2004 From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 11:24:19 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 03:24:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] apologies for Tony and anyone who might have felt offended Message-ID: <20050329112419.10847.qmail@web41827.mail.yahoo.com> My apologies for you Tony if you were hurt by some of the points I made. I may also not foresee the crudeness of certains words I see used everyday. But yes, I wanted like to make a point. I am ready to be called a censor if needed. However, I do not think we can pretend we are currently doing no censorship at all. I do not think it is correct to tell me to lead my own fork for my belief this image should be deleted. I do not think it is correct to say I am going against the goal of the Foundation for reporting that non english wikipedia are tired to see their user talk page "dirtied" by unwanted pictures. I do not think it is correct to say I am trying to impose my views on the project while I have been terribly careful for the full year not to impose any decision on image deletion. And I do not think it is correct to remind I am not a representative of editors when I am giving so much of my free time so that every editor's opinion be taken into consideration. When someone does not agree with another, trying to comment on what the other say is okay, trying to attack the person is not okay and to tell her she should fork, she is hurting the project and she is outstepping her role is not okay. It is not wikilove. And morally very wrong. Very wrong. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. From viajero at quilombo.nl Tue Mar 29 12:35:43 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:35:43 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article Message-ID: <42494B9F.2060209@quilombo.nl> Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder V. From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 29 12:48:52 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:48:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050329124853.89309.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Viajero wrote: > Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like > to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder * '''Support''' (but see also [[Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates]]). ~~~~ --Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 29 13:10:19 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:10:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <42494B9F.2060209@quilombo.nl> References: <42494B9F.2060209@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <25842.194.72.110.12.1112101819.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Viajero said: > Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like > to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder Superb, and couldn't come at a better time. I've been fascinated by the development of this much-neglected artifact ever since the excavations at Avebury Stone Circle turned up some fine neolithic examples. From richholton at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 14:54:30 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:54:30 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Britannica proud to lag years behind recent developments such as SARS and nanotechnology In-Reply-To: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> References: <4243C1B3.7080808@presroi.de> Message-ID: <4a37983b0503290654441380d2@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 08:45:55 +0100, Mathias Schindler wrote: > March 23, 2005 07:00 AM US Eastern Timezone > > New Britannica Keeps Pace with Change; Revised Encyclopedia Boosts > Coverage of People, Science & Changing World > > CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 23, 2005--New and revised articles > spanning science and technology, literature and the Middle East are at > the center of the just-published Encyclopaedia Britannica for 2005. > > Among the new articles included in the 32-volume work are a substantial > number in science and medicine, such as SARS, monkeypox, nanotechnology > and computer crime. > We should work hard to make featured articles out of [[SARS]], [[Monkeypox]], [[Nanotechnology]], and [[Computer crime]]. -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From rkscience100 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 15:42:32 2005 From: rkscience100 at yahoo.com (Robert) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:42:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship In-Reply-To: <20050329092623.C762D1190983@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> In a recent letter Anthere makes a number of good points; I agree with almost all of them. She offers a list of disturbing images is given, for good purpose: > I could go on and on forever. All this exist. > Most is informative. > Some is already in Wikipedia. Most is not. > Is it censorship NOT to put these pictures in > Wikipedia ? YES, IT IS CENSORSHIP. On this one point, I respectfully disagree. Censorship is an act which prevents the free discussion of ideas. The term is really only meaningful when it comes to repressing ideas due to a social, religious or political agenda. When a newspaper, encyclopedia or other source decides not to publish a photo because it does meet editorial standards, that is *not* censorship by any definition of the word. In this case we are merely excercising editorial policy. Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape or form censorship. Now, some religious or political zealots could attempt to delete articles on sex, fertilization and preganancy, believing that public discussion of such topics is immodest, or a violation of their religion or philosophy. *That* position would be censorship. In this case people are preventing us from accurately discussing a subject. It is the represssion of ideas for social, religious or political purposes. But having a group of editors, or the collective decision of a Wiki-community, decide on appropriate images to use has no relationship to censorship in any way. In fact, by definition, it is the job of encyclopedia and newspaper contributors and editors to decide which information to add, and which not to. Otherwise we end up not with an encyclopedia, but just a massive ugly image-dump and text-dump, of no encyclopedic value. If we start using the word "censorship" every time an image or text isn't used, then we destroy the meaning of the word. Let's use this term wisely. Anthere writes: > The english wikipedia has the entire responsability to decide whether > to keep it or not to keep it, but its decision should only have a > local impact. There is absolutely no argument to say that it > should impact all other projects. The english wikipedia has no > authority over the other projects. It has certainly experience > to bring, it has plenty of good people to listen to, but it is > not the boss of other projects. I agree. Decisions made by the communal consensus of a Wiki-community for one Wiki do not have to impact the decisions made on another wiki. In the end, let us remember that the entire point of our project is to create a reliable and respected encyclopedia that people actually USE. If we will it with images of explicit violence, sex, and filth, the vast majority of people in the world will simply not use or encyclopedia. Then what is the point of our prject? To make ourselves feel good? We're here to accomplish a goal for the greater good, and unless our project is read by many others, it can't do that. Sincerely, Robert (RK) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 29 15:45:02 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:45:02 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] censorship and guidelines In-Reply-To: <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> References: <20050329085314.40706.qmail@web41826.mail.yahoo.com> <30d76a6d95b6d3ca0306976493f12716@mobily.com> Message-ID: <424977FE.9040403@sprintmail.com> Tony Mobily IMAP wrote: > I understand you were making a point, and I also understand I am the > new kid in the block. > However, I would like to suggest that such a crude list could be > avoided without weakening your point. > > If not, I don't think I will last very long in this mailing list. Thank you for saying that, Tony. Tom Haws From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 29 15:48:51 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:48:51 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] apologies for Tony and anyone who might have felt offended In-Reply-To: <20050329112419.10847.qmail@web41827.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329112419.10847.qmail@web41827.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424978E3.4010702@sprintmail.com> Thank you. You are right about this. And I support you. I understand the difficulty of "feeling" the emotional impact of words in a non-native language. Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." Anthere wrote: >My apologies for you Tony if you were hurt by some of the points I made. I may also not foresee the crudeness of certains words I see used everyday. > >But yes, I wanted like to make a point. > >I am ready to be called a censor if needed. However, I do not think we can pretend we are currently doing no censorship at all. I do not think it is correct to tell me to lead my own fork for my belief this image should be deleted. I do not think it is correct to say I am going against the goal of the Foundation for reporting that non english wikipedia are tired to see their user talk page "dirtied" by unwanted pictures. I do not think it is correct to say I am trying to impose my views on the project while I have been terribly careful for the full year not to impose any decision on image deletion. And I do not think it is correct to remind I am not a representative of editors when I am giving so much of my free time so that every editor's opinion be taken into consideration. > >When someone does not agree with another, trying to comment on what the other say is okay, trying to attack the person is not okay and to tell her she should fork, she is hurting the project and she is outstepping her role is not okay. It is not wikilove. And morally very wrong. > >Very wrong. > > > > > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. >_______________________________________________ >WikiEN-l mailing list >WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 29 15:53:08 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:53:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] apologies for Tony and anyone who might have felt offended In-Reply-To: <424978E3.4010702@sprintmail.com> References: <20050329112419.10847.qmail@web41827.mail.yahoo.com> <424978E3.4010702@sprintmail.com> Message-ID: <1650.194.72.110.12.1112111588.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Tom Haws said: > Thank you. You are right about this. And I support you. I understand > the difficulty of "feeling" the emotional impact of words in a > non-native language. Or even in one's own. As a native English speaker I have to say I did not find Anthere's list unduly emotive. I appreciate the words may have upset others. From kkrueger at whoi.edu Tue Mar 29 16:59:50 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 11:59:50 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship In-Reply-To: <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329092623.C762D1190983@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050329165950.GA3422@whoi.edu> On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote: > Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on > fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* > have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! > That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The > decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape > or form censorship. I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description implies that we don't have such pictures at all. The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the same. So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy. -- Karl A. Krueger From maveric149 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 17:16:39 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 09:16:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> --- Viajero wrote: > Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like > to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder That is not a featured article. In fact it is not even an article - it is a hoax. It will be removed as would any other sneaky vandalism masquerading as valid content. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Tue Mar 29 17:19:40 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:19:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship In-Reply-To: <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329092623.C762D1190983@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <21328.194.72.110.12.1112116780.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Robert said: > Censorship is > an act which prevents the free discussion of ideas. The > term is really only meaningful when it comes to repressing > ideas due to a social, religious or political agenda. No, censorship just means removing something you don't want someone else to see. There's nothing wrong with it, in principle. We can and do censor Wikipedia--if we didn't it would be a real mess. But we should always discuss whether this or that kind of censorship is appropriate. From estel at f2s.com Tue Mar 29 17:48:03 2005 From: estel at f2s.com (Nathan Wong) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:48:03 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424994D3.5020706@f2s.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Viajero wrote: > > >>Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like >>to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder >> >> > >That is not a featured article. In fact it is not even an article - it is a >hoax. It will be removed as would any other sneaky vandalism masquerading as >valid content. > >-- mav > > A good, nice hoax however. It was notable enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia signpost here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-02-14/Article_hoax - though I still support it to appear as the Front Page featured article on April Fools ;-) From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Tue Mar 29 18:18:12 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:18:12 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: csherlock at ljh.com.au wrote: > Rick wrote: > >> --- MacGyverMagic/Mgm >> wrote: >> >>> I just hope this doesn't result in any Wikipedia >>> regulars being blocked... >>> >>> Mgm >> >> >> >> I hope if they are, that they raise a big stink. With >> newspapers involved. >> >> RickK > > > If I find out which ISP it is (if in fact they have done this) then I > will most definitely make a big stink. I might get a few bloggers > involved and alert the media. > > I need to know which ISP first, however. > > TBSDY 220.233.86.223 resolves to Exetel (http://www.exetel.com.au). Having said that I don't think we need even contact them, the whole ring just reeks of bulls**t. Pete From rubenste at ohiou.edu Tue Mar 29 18:24:47 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:24:47 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] technical problem Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050329131934.030b1550@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> For the past few days, whenever I hit "user contributions" I am taken to my user contribution page, BUT the most recent contribution listed is from 19:05, 27 Mar 2005 (I have made many edits since then). Also, it seems to have logged me out in the process, as "create an account/log in" appears in the upper right-hand corner of my screen (in place of the usual choices: Slrubenstein My talk Preferences My watchlist My contributions Log out). When I log back in, and try to go the "user contributions," the same thing happens. This does not happen why I go to my watchlist or other pages, only when I go to my user contribution page. Does anyone know what is going on, and what I can do? Thanks, Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com Tue Mar 29 18:35:30 2005 From: pete_pcb21_wpmail at pcbartlett.com (Pete/Pcb21) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:35:30 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Viajero wrote: > >>Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like >>to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder > > > That is not a featured article. In fact it is not even an article - it is a > hoax. It will be removed as would any other sneaky vandalism masquerading as > valid content. We have a plurality of interested parties (including many long-standing users who care deeply about the project) saying that that sort of hoax is appropriate for Friday, but Raul and Mav very belligrently (vis "veto" , "sneaky vandalism") opposing. At the moment it looks like Raul's and Mav's concerns have been addressed on the FAC talk page but they do not accept the response. We would do well to sort this out one way or the other before Friday... what if someone on the other side decides to get as threatening as mav and Raul and get into a revert war on the issue... now that ''would'' be lame. Pete From mapellegrini at comcast.net Tue Mar 29 18:32:27 2005 From: mapellegrini at comcast.net (Mark Pellegrini) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:32:27 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article Message-ID: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> I agree with Pete's point - I'd very much like to avoid the major fight which seems brewing over this (quite frankly, I regret ever taking this to a poll in the first place) After seeing what some people have said WRT other major media orgainzations doing April Fools hoaxes (the NYT and BBC) I've softened my position a bit. I'll go along with it if Mav does -- I'm still wary of putting a hoax article up, but as long as it is subtly marked as such, I'm OK with it (someone suggested putting it up as 'Today's featured [[nihilartikle]]") I'd also like to hear Jimbo weigh in on this. --Mark From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 18:38:46 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:38:46 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] technical problem In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050329131934.030b1550@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050329131934.030b1550@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Nope, things are working fine for me. Have you got a cookie installed that keeps you logged into Wikipedia? Mgm On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:24:47 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > For the past few days, whenever I hit "user contributions" I am taken to my > user contribution page, BUT the most recent contribution listed is from > 19:05, 27 Mar 2005 (I have made many edits since then). Also, it seems to > have logged me out in the process, as "create an account/log in" appears in > the upper right-hand corner of my screen (in place of the usual choices: > Slrubenstein My talk Preferences My watchlist My contributions Log > out). When I log back in, and try to go the "user contributions," the same > thing happens. > > This does not happen why I go to my watchlist or other pages, only when I > go to my user contribution page. > > Does anyone know what is going on, and what I can do? > > Thanks, > 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 macgyvermagic at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 18:40:04 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:40:04 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> Message-ID: Isn't there a non-hoax version in the main article space now following the hoax' discovery which resulted in the Signpost article? Mgm From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 18:51:38 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:38 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship References: <20050329092623.C762D1190983@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> <20050329165950.GA3422@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <4249A3BA.6070105@yahoo.com> Karl A. Krueger a ?crit: > On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote: > >>Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on >>fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* >>have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! >>That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The >>decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape >>or form censorship. > > > I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description > implies that we don't have such pictures at all. > > The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link > to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out > with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes > on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the > same. > > So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- > place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance > [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell > biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy. I agree with RK it is a matter of editorial decisions, in great part based on taste and consideration to the way our readers will appreciate the content proposed. Hmmmm... another side comment on the reproduction matter... as a pregnant woman trying to find information on all the different stages of developement, I find Wikipedia teribly lacking information. Ant From viajero at quilombo.nl Tue Mar 29 18:57:56 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:57:56 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4249A534.6020204@quilombo.nl> In response to a suggestion I made on [[Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates]], another user added a link to [[Nihilartikel]] at the bottom of the article, so there is at least one explict clue for the observant if otherwise na?ve reader. V. From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Tue Mar 29 18:57:17 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:57:17 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20050329185717.GD23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Mark Pellegrini (mapellegrini at comcast.net) [050330 04:33]: > After seeing what some people have said WRT other major media > orgainzations doing April Fools hoaxes (the NYT and BBC) I've softened > my position a bit. I'll go along with it if Mav does -- I'm still wary > of putting a hoax article up, but as long as it is > subtly marked as such, I'm OK with it (someone suggested putting it up > as 'Today's featured [[nihilartikle]]") That would be perfect! Don't forget to make the previous article links clear indicators: [[Spaghetti tree]] - [[Hitler Diaries]] - [[Fur-bearing trout]]. The archive link should go to BJAODN. - d. From anthere9 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 29 18:51:55 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Editorial decisions are not the same as censorship References: <20050329092623.C762D1190983@mail.wikimedia.org> <20050329154233.20097.qmail@web20326.mail.yahoo.com> <20050329165950.GA3422@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <4249A3CB.504@yahoo.com> Karl A. Krueger a ?crit: > On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 07:42:32AM -0800, Robert wrote: > >>Let me give an example: The English Wikipedia has an article on >>fertilization of an egg, pregnancy and giving birth. But we do *not* >>have photographs of men having sex with women, impregnating them! >>That is an editorial decision, made for very good reasons. The >>decision not to publish any given sex photograph is in no way, shape >>or form censorship. > > > I agree with you that this is not censorship. However, your description > implies that we don't have such pictures at all. > > The articles on [[fertilization]], [[pregnancy]], and so forth all link > to [[Sexual intercourse]]. That article, as it so happens, starts out > with a photograph of two lions engaging in sexual intercourse, and goes > on to include line-drawings (but not lion-drawings) of people doing the > same. > > So no, we do not editorially exclude images of sexual conduct. We -do- > place them on articles whose focus is sexual conduct, for instance > [[Sexual intercourse]], rather than on articles whose focus is the cell > biology of reproduction or the course of pregnancy. I agree with RK it is a matter of editorial decisions, in great part based on taste and consideration to the way our readers will appreciate the content proposed. Hmmmm... another side comment on the reproduction matter... as a pregnant woman trying to find information on all the different stages of developement, I find Wikipedia teribly lacking information. Ant From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Tue Mar 29 22:30:08 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:30:08 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? Message-ID: RK emerged from his lonely exile to comment that censorship is suppression of IDEAS. I submit that this is only one form of censorship. When it comes to ideas about politics or religion, the U.S. Constitution seems to oppose this form. "Freedom of press", according to my meager and scanty reading of the Federalist Papers and other documents of the Founding, guarantees all political ideas an airing. Whether any one wants to hear, of course, is up to them. (No question of religious ideas: we freaky faith-based folks are allowed to print, read and sell whatever screwy scriptures we can scrape up.) Let's not allow the general Wikipedian distaste for (or outrage at) censorship blind us to what is really is, or is not. When a junior high school library decides not to shelve Lady Chatterly's Lover (or The Story of O), that is most definitely censorship. Whether you think pubescent students should be "shielded" from sexual texts or not, the ACT of shielding them has a name, and it's called "censorship". Complying with local, regional or national laws which forbid certain expressions or depictions is also censorship. If we want to send a print edition to "strait-laced" countries, such as Communist China (or possibly even Uganda), we will have to respect their laws - or try smuggling in some CDs instead. I want no part of smuggling (the legal liability is too high). Masking censorship by calling it "editorial decisions" sounds timid at best. Why not call a spade a spade? Uncle Ed P.S. Attagirl, Anthere! > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Haws [mailto:hawstom at sprintmail.com] > Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 10:45 AM > To: English Wikipedia > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] censorship and guidelines > > > Tony Mobily IMAP wrote: > > > I understand you were making a point, and I also understand I am the > > new kid in the block. > > However, I would like to suggest that such a crude list could be > > avoided without weakening your point. > > > > If not, I don't think I will last very long in this mailing list. > > Thank you for saying that, Tony. > > Tom Haws > > > From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 29 22:48:37 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:48:37 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4249DB45.5090202@sprintmail.com> OK, Uncle Ed. I will try it. At Wikipedia we practice censorship!!!!!! We admit it! You know, that did kind of feel liberating. :-D Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." From shebs at apple.com Tue Mar 29 22:51:03 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:51:03 -0800 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4249DBD7.4080901@apple.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Viajero wrote: > >>Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like >>to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: >> >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder >> > >That is not a featured article. In fact it is not even an article - it is a >hoax. It will be removed as would any other sneaky vandalism masquerading as >valid content. > In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it, for instance the winner is the hoax that goes the longest without being detected. For instance: * New articles only, we continue to be humorless about edits to existing articles. * Article must be created on 1 April, between 00:00 and 23:59 UTC. * Detection is by the addition of a special template by an editor, who must also add on the talk page the evidence that the article is a hoax. * The winner is the one with the longest time between creation and detection. * Undetected hoaxes must be marked by their creator by the end of April 2; they are also counted as winners. * Winners get moved to WP: namespace, have " (April Fool 2005)" added to the title (in case of inadvertant links from elsewhere), all internal links removed, and are added to a list of winners linked to from BJAODN or some such. * Losers are deleted sometime on April 2. The rules page can be on meta somewhere, linked from a couple relevant places. It works to have it be advertised; more of a challenge to include references etc that can fool a thousand editors already on the outlook for fiction that day. Stan From csherlock at ljh.com.au Tue Mar 29 22:50:58 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:50:58 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> Message-ID: MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Isn't there a non-hoax version in the main article space now following > the hoax' discovery which resulted in the Signpost article? > > Mgm I don't believe so... if there is will someone speedy it? TBSDY From hawstom at sprintmail.com Tue Mar 29 23:03:02 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:03:02 -0700 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <4249DBD7.4080901@apple.com> References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> <4249DBD7.4080901@apple.com> Message-ID: <4249DEA6.1090204@sprintmail.com> Stan Shebs wrote: > In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have > some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it, Delightful! Let's start now. With your rules verbatim. :-D Tom From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Tue Mar 29 23:11:17 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:11:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050329231118.45080.qmail@web25010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Viajero wrote: > > Although I realize this isn't the proper channel for doing so, I'd like > > to nominate the following for Featured Article this coming Friday: > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bishonen/European_toilet_paper_holder > > That is not a featured article. In fact it is not even an article - it is a > hoax. It will be removed as would any other sneaky vandalism masquerading as > valid content. Equally, if there is a consensus that the hoax should go ahead, it will be restored. -- Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From geniice at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 23:16:22 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:16:22 +0100 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <4249DBD7.4080901@apple.com> References: <20050329171639.18690.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com> <4249DBD7.4080901@apple.com> Message-ID: > In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have > some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it, > for instance the winner is the hoax that goes the longest without > being detected. For instance: > > * New articles only, we continue to be humorless about edits to > existing articles. > * Article must be created on 1 April, between 00:00 and 23:59 UTC. > * Detection is by the addition of a special template by an editor, > who must also add on the talk page the evidence that the article > is a hoax. > * The winner is the one with the longest time between creation > and detection. > * Undetected hoaxes must be marked by their creator by the end of > April 2; they are also counted as winners. > * Winners get moved to WP: namespace, have " (April Fool 2005)" > added to the title (in case of inadvertant links from elsewhere), > all internal links removed, and are added to a list of winners > linked to from BJAODN or some such. > * Losers are deleted sometime on April 2. > > The rules page can be on meta somewhere, linked from a couple > relevant places. It works to have it be advertised; more of a > challenge to include references etc that can fool a thousand > editors already on the outlook for fiction that day. > > Stan All those takeing part will then be banned indefinetly under the dissruption rule (and for doing it on the worng day sometimes timezones have thier good points). -- geni From kkrueger at whoi.edu Wed Mar 30 01:51:02 2005 From: kkrueger at whoi.edu (Karl A. Krueger) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:02 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050330015102.GA21200@whoi.edu> On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 05:30:08PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > RK emerged from his lonely exile to comment that censorship is > suppression of IDEAS. [snip] > When a junior high school library decides not to shelve Lady Chatterly's > Lover (or The Story of O), that is most definitely censorship. Whether > you think pubescent students should be "shielded" from sexual texts or > not, the ACT of shielding them has a name, and it's called "censorship". While I can understand both definitions of the word "censorship", I think it is far more useful to draw the distinction around the type of behavior that seeks to suppress ideas or deny points of view a public hearing, as opposed to that which simply refuses to support particular points of view. For instance, it would be absurd (it seems to me) to state that when I choose to buy novels by Neal Stephenson and not to buy novels by Stephen King that I am "censoring" King by not supporting his work, granting it space on my bookshelf, or recommending it to my friends. To define "censorship" this broadly makes the term meaningless. Censorship, it seems to me, needs to be defined in terms of a space of discourse, and an act of intrusion upon it. There have to be speakers who want to speak, listeners who want to listen, and an act which stifles the speech for the purpose of keeping it from being heard by those who would choose to hear. (Government schools are such a bad example, and so frequently cited, precisely because they come already politicized. They are supported with taxpayer funds which people do not have the choice to withhold; everyone is compelled to underwrite whatever the schools teach. That is why people get so agitated when government schools teach things they disapprove of -- not just because *someone* is teaching sex or religion or whatever, but because it's being done with *our money* and, in a republic, with the presumption of the "consent of the governed". When than consent has *not* really been given, people get indignant at the presumption. Wikipedia has none of those problems.) > Complying with local, regional or national laws which forbid certain > expressions or depictions is also censorship. If we want to send a print > edition to "strait-laced" countries, such as Communist China (or > possibly even Uganda), we will have to respect their laws - or try > smuggling in some CDs instead. I want no part of smuggling (the legal > liability is too high). Wikipedia has a structural commitment to the idea that open public collaboration, with a focus on neutrality, can generate value and can approximate truth. Wherever this idea or its practice is forbidden, Wikipedia is by necessity subversive and illegal. There's no getting around that. If there is a regime under which NPOV is illegal because (let's say) all credit must be given to the Great Leader, then Wikipedia must either fail to propagate into that regime, or else defy the laws of that regime. It cannot propagate into that regime without either breaking the law or becoming anti-Wikipedia. Where the law says we must lie, we simply must not go unless we are willing to break the law. If we go there and follow the law by lying, then we have destroyed what we went there to build. > Masking censorship by calling it "editorial decisions" sounds timid at > best. Why not call a spade a spade? What we have -is- a spade. It makes no sense to call a perfectly innocent spade by the name of a sword that has brought untold death and mutilation to the world. -- Karl A. Krueger From anthere9 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 03:08:19 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:08:19 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What's wrong with censorship? References: Message-ID: <424A1823.5010008@yahoo.com> Poor, Edmund W a ?crit: > Uncle Ed > > P.S. Attagirl, Anthere! What does that mean tonton Ed ? Ant From anthere9 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 03:13:50 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:13:50 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: What's wrong with censorship? References: <20050330015102.GA21200@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <424A196E.6000806@yahoo.com> Karl A. Krueger a ?crit: > On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 05:30:08PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > >>RK emerged from his lonely exile to comment that censorship is >>suppression of IDEAS. > > [snip] > >>When a junior high school library decides not to shelve Lady Chatterly's >>Lover (or The Story of O), that is most definitely censorship. Whether >>you think pubescent students should be "shielded" from sexual texts or >>not, the ACT of shielding them has a name, and it's called "censorship". > > > While I can understand both definitions of the word "censorship", I > think it is far more useful to draw the distinction around the type of > behavior that seeks to suppress ideas or deny points of view a public > hearing, as opposed to that which simply refuses to support particular > points of view. > > For instance, it would be absurd (it seems to me) to state that when I > choose to buy novels by Neal Stephenson and not to buy novels by Stephen > King that I am "censoring" King by not supporting his work, granting it > space on my bookshelf, or recommending it to my friends. To define > "censorship" this broadly makes the term meaningless. > > Censorship, it seems to me, needs to be defined in terms of a space of > discourse, and an act of intrusion upon it. There have to be speakers > who want to speak, listeners who want to listen, and an act which > stifles the speech for the purpose of keeping it from being heard by > those who would choose to hear. > > > (Government schools are such a bad example, and so frequently cited, > precisely because they come already politicized. They are supported > with taxpayer funds which people do not have the choice to withhold; > everyone is compelled to underwrite whatever the schools teach. > > That is why people get so agitated when government schools teach things > they disapprove of -- not just because *someone* is teaching sex or > religion or whatever, but because it's being done with *our money* and, > in a republic, with the presumption of the "consent of the governed". > When than consent has *not* really been given, people get indignant at > the presumption. > > Wikipedia has none of those problems.) unless.... unless we start making deals with government (by accepting their offering of cash) or with educational system (by sharing grants to develop certain things to them). Then, if you add up the cases where people provide by direct individual donations (which makes them feel ownership in a certain sense) and the realisation the project is financed indirectly with their taxes... From richholton at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 03:58:18 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:58:18 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? In-Reply-To: <20050330015102.GA21200@whoi.edu> References: <20050330015102.GA21200@whoi.edu> Message-ID: <4a37983b05032919584a190c3c@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:02 -0500, Karl A. Krueger wrote: > [snip] > On Tue, Mar 29, 2005 at 05:30:08PM -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote: >> [snip] > > Complying with local, regional or national laws which forbid certain > > expressions or depictions is also censorship. If we want to send a print > > edition to "strait-laced" countries, such as Communist China (or > > possibly even Uganda), we will have to respect their laws - or try > > smuggling in some CDs instead. I want no part of smuggling (the legal > > liability is too high). > > Wikipedia has a structural commitment to the idea that open public > collaboration, with a focus on neutrality, can generate value and can > approximate truth. Wherever this idea or its practice is forbidden, > Wikipedia is by necessity subversive and illegal. > > There's no getting around that. If there is a regime under which NPOV > is illegal because (let's say) all credit must be given to the Great > Leader, then Wikipedia must either fail to propagate into that regime, > or else defy the laws of that regime. It cannot propagate into that > regime without either breaking the law or becoming anti-Wikipedia. > > Where the law says we must lie, we simply must not go unless we are > willing to break the law. If we go there and follow the law by lying, > then we have destroyed what we went there to build. > Is removing text or an image due to copyright violation "lying"? Some uses of copyright material violates the law in the US (and elsewhere). Removing such material could often be withholding information, especially in the case of images. Do we defy the US law? We may try to justify it under fair use; we may assume a generous interpretation of the law, but if Wikipedia's stance is to outright defy US copyright law, then there is a whole lot of people who will be surprised and dismayed. If there is a law in country xyz that says that photographs of child pornography are illegal, then will we include them anyway? Oh wait, isn't that true in some US states? Is it Wikipedia's stance to outright defy those laws? If not, why not? Isn't this *exactly* what you are saying we should do? -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From hawstom at sprintmail.com Wed Mar 30 04:06:28 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:06:28 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? In-Reply-To: <4a37983b05032919584a190c3c@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050330015102.GA21200@whoi.edu> <4a37983b05032919584a190c3c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424A25C4.7090801@sprintmail.com> Wikipedia is global and universal, and somebody will always be censored. That is simply the plain reality. There are potential authors, readers, and subjects that the consensus of the Wikipedia community simple does not allow to come together. This is, if you will, censorship. Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 04:45:17 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:45:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050329231118.45080.qmail@web25010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050330044517.34151.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Matt R wrote: > Equally, if there is a consensus that the hoax should go ahead, it will be > restored. I will not let any mob of people subvert our goal of creating an encyclopedia just because it it is popular in part of the community. The community exists to create the encyclopedia. When the community starts to pull pranks on our readers for nothing more than some type of thrill, then the community needs to be reminded of our goals. Now I may be wrong about the severity of this specific case but I am *not* at all wrong in the general. I defer this specific case to Jimbo. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 04:51:13 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Stan Shebs wrote: > In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have > some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it, > for instance the winner is the hoax that goes the longest without > being detected. For instance: This is the type of utter and complete nonsense that I'm talking about. How does this help us create the encyclopedia? How can you justify *encouraging* people to create bogus entries? Wikipedia is NOT A PLAYTHING! This project is not here for your enjoyment - we are here to create an encyclopedia. If you happen to have fun while helping us toward *that goal*, then great. If not, then let others work and be free of this type of distracting nonsense. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From merc at mobily.com Wed Mar 30 05:29:20 2005 From: merc at mobily.com (Tony Mobily) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:29:20 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia blocked alongside "gambling, porn and other potential hazardous sites" In-Reply-To: References: <20050327205712.1809.qmail@web60605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi, >> If I find out which ISP it is (if in fact they have done this) then I >> will most definitely make a big stink. I might get a few bloggers >> involved and alert the media. >> I need to know which ISP first, however. >> TBSDY > > 220.233.86.223 resolves to Exetel (http://www.exetel.com.au). > Having said that I don't think we need even contact them, the whole > ring just reeks of bulls**t. I don't mean to be a pain, Pete... however, I was hoping you had a time when the person did the post (in GMT), and... well, a link to the post itself (sorry, I joined the mailing list half way through the discussion, and...). I can very, very easily check if Exetel does block Wikipedia, AND if one of theirs employees wrote that post. I can just call up, speak to a manager and tell him/her something like "I am Tony Mobily from Free Software Magazine. I would like to write an article about censorship and I heard about their new policy of blocking Wikipedia". If it's not true, then he will simply confirm it and check the IP address which made the post. If it is true... I wouldn't want to be the employee who wrote the post - and I might as well write an article about censorship! Bye, Merc. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 07:32:49 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:32:49 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330044517.34151.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329231118.45080.qmail@web25010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <20050330044517.34151.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:45:17 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Matt R wrote: > > Equally, if there is a consensus that the hoax should go ahead, it will be > > restored. > > I will not let any mob of people subvert our goal of creating an encyclopedia > just because it it is popular in part of the community. > > The community exists to create the encyclopedia. When the community starts to > pull pranks on our readers for nothing more than some type of thrill, then the > community needs to be reminded of our goals. > > Now I may be wrong about the severity of this specific case but I am *not* at > all wrong in the general. > > I defer this specific case to Jimbo. > > -- mav A lot of established organizations create April Fool's jokes purely for enjoyment. National news agencies often do this, even though their goal is to provide people with accurate news stories. I don't see how one joke per year would detract from our goals. As long as there's obivous hints as to the nature of the article (like linking [[Nihilarticle]]) I don't see a big problem with it. -- MacGyverMagic From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 30 07:54:08 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:54:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330075408.26982.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Matt R wrote: > > Equally, if there is a consensus that the hoax should go ahead, it will be > > restored. > > I will not let any mob of people subvert our goal of creating an encyclopedia > just because it it is popular in part of the community. Grrr. Please stop declaring "how things will be" unilaterally, it's not very Wikipedia-like. (Jimbo is the only person for which that would be appropriate.) Imagine if I responded with "Well, I will not let one user impose his personal whims on the project" -- where would we be? Impasse. Moreover, I don't really think an April Fool's hoax on the main page is quite "subverting the goal of creating an encyclopedia". It's certainly tangential, but what harm are you seeing here? It's a minor diversion, not a major subversion. > The community exists to create the encyclopedia. When the community starts to > pull pranks on our readers for nothing more than some type of thrill, then > the community needs to be reminded of our goals. Don't be so patronising! I'm sure everyone is quite as aware of the goals of this project as you are. I just think it's quite unfortunate if Wikipedia takes itself so seriously that it fears to do what institutions like, say, the BBC are quite happy to do. Please excuse the ill-temperedness of this email, and I'd really rather not engage in acrimony. I'll try to just go and forget about it, but I find such humourlessness to be disproportionately frustrating for some reason. Is this the kind of community we want to be? (More "Grrs" etc), Regards, -- Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 08:38:06 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:38:06 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> Message-ID: <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:32:27 -0500, Mark Pellegrini wrote: > > After seeing what some people have said WRT other major media > orgainzations doing April Fools hoaxes (the NYT and BBC) I've softened > my position a bit. I'll go along with it if Mav does -- I'm still wary > of putting a hoax article up, but as long as it is > subtly marked as such, I'm OK with it (someone suggested putting it up > as 'Today's featured [[nihilartikle]]") Seems the consensus on Talk:FAC is to have the European Toilet Paper Holder be the April 1 article. Personally, the idea of planned disinformation in Wikipedia gives me the creeps (I'm with Mav and Raul), but if it's time limited, it could be tolerated. HOWEVER, I would beg folks not to make it "subtly marked" but rather *obviously marked* at the end. An April Fools joke is only fun when you can blame the reader for missing an obvious doozie that gives it away. Right now, it does not have such a kicker or punchline to let people in on the secret. If we do not, it would amount to devious and malicious intent, which would do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation. As an aside, the EPTH article takes way too long to get to the joke. {{spoiler}} Other media outlets do partake of this tradition. Scientific American did a piece this year for April 2005, and at the end they made it very clear at the end of the piece by saying they'll start something "April 1." If you want to see it: http://tinyurl.com/3kf3e. Otherwise, don't. -Andrew (User:Fuzheado) PS: /me goes to add the obligatory, "But of course, the Chinese invented it first" line to the EPTH article, regardless of whether I believe it being a FA > > I'd also like to hear Jimbo weigh in on this. > > --Mark > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 09:49:59 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:49:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] What's wrong with censorship? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46075.194.72.110.12.1112176199.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Poor, Edmund W said: > > When a junior high school library decides not to shelve Lady > Chatterly's Lover (or The Story of O), that is most definitely > censorship. ... > > Complying with local, regional or national laws which forbid certain > expressions or depictions is also censorship. ... > > Masking censorship by calling it "editorial decisions" sounds timid at > best. Why not call a spade a spade? > Absolutely. Why is this word so taboo? We all censor. From misfitgirl at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 09:57:22 2005 From: misfitgirl at gmail.com (Rebecca) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:57:22 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Free Software Magazine and Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <77ebe3b064ab639e4be126f78fda4280@mobily.com> References: <6e74e0f6dd55abb9486737b8dce43cda@mobily.com> <2ed171fb050328220131989807@mail.gmail.com> <971a24a855b821d3e2359863033f1c08@mobily.com> <2ed171fb0503290127982d75b@mail.gmail.com> <77ebe3b064ab639e4be126f78fda4280@mobily.com> Message-ID: <5309126705033001571c521d09@mail.gmail.com> Wikisource is the place you're looking for - it deals with documents, where Commons deals with other media. -- ambi On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:36:39 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP wrote: > Hi, > > OK. However, in the page I read: > > "The Wikimedia Commons is a project that provides a central repository > for free images, music, sound & video clips and, possibly, texts and > spoken texts, used in pages of any Wikimedia project" > > It seems like a spot for Music and visual arts, more than computer > articles... > Please remember that we don't mind changing the license of the articles > if we need to! > > Is Wikipedia Commons really the best spot for non-encyclopedia articles? > > Bye! > > Merc. > > On 29/03/2005, at 5:27 PM, Andrew Lih wrote: > > > Tony, you're right, it seems wikicommons is probably a better fit, > > since it supports more than just GFDL, and has Creative Commons > > licenses. > > > > http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page > > > > -Andrew > > > > > > On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:45:29 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP > > wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> From the Welcome page: > >> > >> Welcome to Wikisource. This site is a repository of source texts in > >> any > >> language which are either in the public domain, or are released under > >> the GNU Free Documentation License. The site is part of the Wikimedia > >> foundation and is a sister project of Wikipedia, which is a > >> multilingual project to create a complete and accurate, free content > >> encyclopedia. > >> > >> It only talks about GNU FDL, not Verbatim. > >> > >> Is the page not up-to-date? > >> > >> Merc. > >> > >> > >> On 29/03/2005, at 2:01 PM, Andrew Lih wrote: > >> > >>> You might want to take a look at Wikisource, which is a repository > >>> for > >>> verbatim content. > >>> > >>> -Andrew > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:54:38 +0800, Tony Mobily IMAP > >>> > >>> wrote: > >>>> Hello, > >>>> > >>>> My name is Tony Mobily. I am the Editor In Chief of Free Software > >>>> Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com). > >>>> > >>>> Our magazine has articles about free software and free culture in > >>>> general. All our articles are released under a free license (Cretive > >>>> Common, GFDL or Verbatim Only) 6 weeks after the magazine is out. > >>>> I KNOW that a Verbatim Only license is hardly free, but it's our > >>>> current option for "opinionated" articles about a specific subject. > >>>> > >>>> Some of my authors told me that some of the articles would be > >>>> perfect > >>>> as follow-up articles to wikipedia entries. The beauty of this is > >>>> that > >>>> the follow-up articles themselves would be editable, and would > >>>> therefore stay "alive". > >>>> > >>>> For example he article "Format Wars" > >>>> (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/issue_01/ > >>>> focus_format_history/) would fit very neatly in Wikipedia's > >>>> "File_format" entry. > >>>> > >>>> The requirement of course would be that these article are released > >>>> under the GFDL. That will depend on the authors, but I have talked > >>>> to > >>>> some of them already and they said that they would be happy with > >>>> that. > >>>> > >>>> The problem is: do you have a spot in Wikipedia (or in "Wikimedia" > >>>> in > >>>> general) for general articles such as the ones we publish? If the > >>>> answer is "no", would it be worthwhile creating such a spot? > >>>> > >>>> Thanks a lot, > >>>> > >>>> Merc. > >>>> > >>>> Tony Mobily > >>>> Editor-In-Chief > >>>> Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com > >>>> > >>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>> WikiEN-l mailing list > >>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > >>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > >>>> > >>>> > >> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> -- > >> ---- > >> Tony Mobily > >> Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) > >> "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine > >> 05/2004 > >> > >> > >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ---- > Tony Mobily > Author of "Hardening Apache" (Apress) > "...this book can save you..." -- Mitchell Pirtle, PHP Magazine 05/2004 > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From magnus.manske at web.de Wed Mar 30 10:45:41 2005 From: magnus.manske at web.de (Magnus Manske) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:45:41 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424A8355.2020504@web.de> German amazon link for pre-ordering: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3898530205/qid=1112179489/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/302-3260343-6700015 Poor, Edmund W schrieb: > Magnus Manske schrieb: > > >>I would like to remind everyone that the German Wikipedia has >>just been published on a combined CD-DVD-set, at a price of >>about 10 Euros. > > > Where can I order a copy? I don't know German, but some of my colleagues > probably do. > > And did you do the programming and configuration for that DVD? You are > certainly keeping busy; how do you find the time? > > Gratefully, > > Ed Poor > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From peter-g at moving-picture.co.uk Wed Mar 30 11:47:21 2005 From: peter-g at moving-picture.co.uk (Peter Grecian) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:47:21 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Putting Wikipedia on a CD or DVD In-Reply-To: <424A8355.2020504@web.de> References: <424A8355.2020504@web.de> Message-ID: <424A91C9.8040204@moving-picture.co.uk> A babelfish of the review says: */ Product description of the manufacturer/* *The free encyclopedia - expenditure spring 2005* The Wikipedia is a project in the InterNet for the production of an encyclopedia. Each InterNet user can cooperate to the Wikipedia, the project enjoys increasingly of larger popularity. Knowledge is spread in this way and divided with others. Since January 2001 first only on English, and meanwhile internationally also over millions articles in more than 50 languages available, there are since May 2001 a deutschprachige expenditure of the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia.Taeglich is added approximately 300 new German-language articles from all fields of activity. World-wide are already involved over 99.000 humans as authors of contributions or also as Korrektoren to the Wikipedia. Contrary to the classical encyclopedias the articles of the Wikipedia are extremely current, since usually already after few minutes relevant information of current events in the articles settles. The broad topic spectrum contains also numerous contributions over social edge topics. A substantial characteristic of the Wikipedia is it that the articles can be read but also changed not only by everyone. Contents are freely copyable and may be further spread owing to the GNU free Dokumentationslizenz. Extremely high openness, the topicality and transparency in the emergence of the on-line reference books contribute to the substantial success of the Wikipedia. The popular on-line encyclopedia was made accessible by 2004 CD-ROM of the digital library for the first time also off-line appeared in the autumn. The expenditure spring 2005 is the updated version with editorship conditions from 3 March 2005 and contains 200,000 references on a DVD (with pictures) as well as on a CD-ROM (without pictures). The expenditure is equipped with the software Digibib4 for Windows, Mac and Linux and is also executable for Palm OS, pocket PC as well as various mobile phones and Communicator. Further updated off-line versions will appear in each case in half-yearly rotation. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 13:02:33 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> --- Matt R wrote: > Grrr. Please stop declaring "how things will be" unilaterally, it's not very > Wikipedia-like. It would be very un-wikipedia-like to intentionally mislead readers given our goal of informing them. The fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is non-negotiable (although in truth we are redefining what an encyclopedia can be) no matter how popular notions to the contrary are. > Moreover, I don't really think an April Fool's hoax on the main page is quite > "subverting the goal of creating an encyclopedia". It's certainly tangential, > but what harm are you seeing here? It's a minor diversion, not a major > subversion. Given the traffic we get on the Main Page, this is anything but minor. It serves as a very bad example. The suggestion by Stan of creating hoax articles in a contest that people would need to spot on the new page list really went over the line. Many of these articles would not be cleaned up afterwards and would persist in the article namespace. > Don't be so patronising! I'm sure everyone is quite as aware of the goals of > this project as you are. Old hands yes, new hands have to be often reminded that we are first an encyclopedia project and the community aspect is aimed at supporting that. > I just think it's quite unfortunate if Wikipedia > takes itself so seriously that it fears to do what institutions like, say, the BBC > are quite happy to do. Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I?ll stop complaining. Wikipedia in particular needs to be sensitive to this type of thing due to our high profile and given the many misgivings about our reliability. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From seth.ilys at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 13:12:32 2005 From: seth.ilys at gmail.com (Seth Ilys) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:12:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. > Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. -- Seth Ilys email: seth.ilys at gmail.com AIM: JehanneDaix blog: http://somewhereindurham.blogspot.com/ From sandifer at sbcglobal.net Wed Mar 30 13:55:02 2005 From: sandifer at sbcglobal.net (Phil Sandifer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:55:02 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I have to say, I agree with Mav on this one. When the BBC posts fake news, it's funny. When Fox News does it, it's less funny. We want to be the BBC. A lot of people still see us as Fox News. We should therefore expect that posting actually fake articles on the main page would not be funny. If we wanted to put VfD on the main page, that would, to my mind, be fine and funny. If we wanted to do other hoaxes like last year's RFA for Jimbo, that would be fine and funny. But fake content is not the way to go with the public perception of the project being what it is, and I'll certainly be among the first to speedy any fake articles I see. At least, any that Mav hasn't gotten to first. -Snowspinner From james at jdforrester.org Wed Mar 30 14:06:25 2005 From: james at jdforrester.org (James D. Forrester) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:06:25 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050330140532.0F7EA1AC18C1@mail.wikimedia.org> I, too, agree with Mav. "April Fools" is not particularly funny anyway and is exactly the problem that we're trying to fight. 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 dbenbenn at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 14:16:44 2005 From: dbenbenn at gmail.com (David Benbennick) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:16:44 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] technical problem In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050329131934.030b1550@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050329131934.030b1550@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Have you tried clearing your cache? (Try Shift+Reload, or Ctrl+Reload.) How about loading [[Special:Contributions]] from a different browser or computer, that you don't normally use? On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 13:24:47 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > For the past few days, whenever I hit "user contributions" I am taken to my > user contribution page, BUT the most recent contribution listed is from > 19:05, 27 Mar 2005 (I have made many edits since then). From blair at houghton.net Wed Mar 30 14:20:20 2005 From: blair at houghton.net (Blair P. Houghton) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:20:20 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 142 In-Reply-To: <20050330114735.D0B701AC17D2@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050330114735.D0B701AC17D2@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <424AB5A4.3060700@houghton.net> Tony Sidaway said: >Absolutely. Why is this word so taboo? We all censor. We all attempt to make the facts reflect the what we think is the truth. Censorship isn't that. Censorship is attempting to make the body of facts reflect a POV we wish to present as the truth. Censorship is hiding the truth for other reasons. It's a dirty word because it's also political, and generally unconstitutional; the censorship is meant to promote a particularly religious view of a moral issue that should be innocuous in a free society. It's an attack on the freedom of the speaker by a body purporting a higher knowledge of morality. Not all of us censor. It should be a taboo. --Blair From dbenbenn at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 14:43:08 2005 From: dbenbenn at gmail.com (David Benbennick) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:43:08 -0700 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:13 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > How > does this help us create the encyclopedia? How can you justify *encouraging* > people to create bogus entries? To answer your rhetorical question: Sometimes allowing a small amount of playfulness can help motivate people to remain dedicated to the project. To put it another way, requiring 100% seriousness 100% of the time might push away editors and do more harm than good. From viajero at quilombo.nl Wed Mar 30 14:46:39 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:46:39 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> Andrew Lih wrote: > HOWEVER, I would beg folks not to make it "subtly marked" but rather > *obviously marked* at the end. > > An April Fools joke is only fun when you can blame the reader for > missing an obvious doozie that gives it away. Right now, it does not > have such a kicker or punchline to let people in on the secret. If we > do not, it would amount to devious and malicious intent, which would > do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation. Wow, this is an amazingly cautious attitude. You are saying we should take into account that on *April 1* some naive soul might read the text, miss all the inconguities and jokes, arrive at the bottom, not be explicitly told it is a joke, and blame Wikipedia for deceiving them? I'm ...ah... speechless. V. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 14:48:23 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:48:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Viajero said: > Andrew Lih wrote: > >> HOWEVER, I would beg folks not to make it "subtly marked" but rather >> *obviously marked* at the end. >> >> An April Fools joke is only fun when you can blame the reader for >> missing an obvious doozie that gives it away. Right now, it does not >> have such a kicker or punchline to let people in on the secret. If we >> do not, it would amount to devious and malicious intent, which would >> do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation. > > Wow, this is an amazingly cautious attitude. You are saying we should > take into account that on *April 1* some naive soul might read the > text, miss all the inconguities and jokes, arrive at the bottom, not > be explicitly told it is a joke, and blame Wikipedia for deceiving > them? > > I'm ...ah... speechless. I've been watching this conversation with mounting disbelief. Somebody please tell me that the seeming loss of sense of humor on the part of a number of Wikipedians is all part of a prolonged jape, to be brought to a hilarous conclusion this Friday. No? April fools jokes are traditional. People reading a joke article on April 1 will not feel unduly put out. Most of them. We can just laugh at those who are. That's the whole point of the exercise--to puncture pretensions, confound expectations and--dare I say it--have a laugh! From richholton at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 15:09:20 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:09:20 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 20, Issue 142 In-Reply-To: <424AB5A4.3060700@houghton.net> References: <20050330114735.D0B701AC17D2@mail.wikimedia.org> <424AB5A4.3060700@houghton.net> Message-ID: <4a37983b05033007092d0f68b6@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:20:20 -0700, Blair P. Houghton wrote: > Tony Sidaway said: > > >Absolutely. Why is this word so taboo? We all censor. > > We all attempt to make the facts reflect the what we think is the truth. > > Censorship isn't that. Censorship is attempting to make the body of > facts reflect a POV we wish to present as the truth. Censorship is > hiding the truth for other reasons. It's a dirty word because it's also > political, and generally unconstitutional; the censorship is meant to > promote a particularly religious view of a moral issue that should be > innocuous in a free society. It's an attack on the freedom of the > speaker by a body purporting a higher knowledge of morality. > > Not all of us censor. It should be a taboo. > --Not all censorship is religious or moral, as what you wrote above implies. --Governments may censor views that oppose that of the government. --A particular news outlet may censor stories or information that is contrary to its political alignment. --Governments may censor information about troop movements, military technology, etc. --In the US, government documents are often censored in the name of national security. Certainly the identities of "intelligence operatives" are often censored. --The name of a minor involved in a crime is often censored, as is the name of the victim in certain crimes. Or is your particular definition of censorship actually limited to just those cases of information suppression that are motivated by "a higher knowledge of morality"? --Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From rubenste at ohiou.edu Wed Mar 30 15:01:58 2005 From: rubenste at ohiou.edu (steven l. rubenstein) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:01:58 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] technical problem Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050330095556.032e04b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> mgm wrote >Nope, things are working fine for me. Have you got a cookie installed >that keeps you logged into Wikipedia? As I said, the problem is not logging in -- I am logged in automatically, and when I use other links (e.g. to my watchlist or to an article) I have no problems. It is only when I try to access my "user contributions" that I am logged out, and the user contributions is missing all of my contributions starting 3/27. If I am at my "user contribution" page and re-log in, I get a message that the login was successful. When I try to return to "special:contributions," however, I get the message "No Target: You have not specified a target page or user to perform this function on." The problem involves my user contribution page only, and it has been almost four days. I do not have any other problems. Also, I figured that no one else is having this problem since no one else has posted. But that doesn't change the fact that I am having this problem. Can anyone help me? Steve Steven L. Rubenstein Associate Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology Bentley Annex Ohio University Athens, Ohio 45701 From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 15:12:32 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:12:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > April fools jokes are traditional. And what evidence do you have that respected encyclopedias have done this? I see no tradition there but please prove me wrong. Given the controversial nature of our reliability, this stunt will likely harm us more than it is worth. Again I defer to Jimbo. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 15:18:28 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:18:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330151828.2972.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> --- Seth Ilys wrote: > There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. I didn?t see any examples of respected encyclopedias doing this. I did notice this: ?It is not always simple to recognize a Nihilartikel. It is especially difficult when the same fictitious entry is reprinted and adapted by multiple reference works. In such cases, the multiple sources serve to bolster the entry's authenticity, so that many come to believe that they are reading a factual article.? This is certainly not something we should be encouraging. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 30 15:19:37 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:19:37 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article References: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000901c5353b$e41e9800$9e7c0450@Galasien> Daniel Mayer wrote > Given the controversial > nature of our reliability, this stunt will likely harm us more than it is > worth. Or make the point that our articles, by their openly-editable nature, have always to be read critically rather than passively. Well, I don't feel strongly that an April Fool _should_ be tried; but I think it would speak to WP's self-confidence, rather than anything else. Charles From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 15:21:32 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:21:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5422.194.72.110.12.1112196092.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Daniel Mayer said: > --- Tony Sidaway wrote: >> April fools jokes are traditional. > > And what evidence do you have that respected encyclopedias have done > this? I see no tradition there but please prove me wrong. You're being unreasonable by demanding that a tradition cannot apply to Wikipedia unless it also applies to "respected encyclopedias." There are no encyclopedias like Wikipedia. Britannica and Encarta don't change from one day to the next. > Given the > controversial nature of our reliability, this stunt will likely harm us > more than it is worth. Nonsense. The European toilet paper holder article proposed is a transparent hoax and quite harmless. That Wikipedia cannot ever be more reliable than its latest edit is intuitively understood by all readers, so let's not foster the false impression that the situation is otherwise. From arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 30 15:10:59 2005 From: arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk (Arwel Parry) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:10:59 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Tony Sidaway wrote: > Viajero said: > >>Andrew Lih wrote: >> >> >>>HOWEVER, I would beg folks not to make it "subtly marked" but rather >>>*obviously marked* at the end. >>> >>>An April Fools joke is only fun when you can blame the reader for >>>missing an obvious doozie that gives it away. Right now, it does not >>>have such a kicker or punchline to let people in on the secret. If we >>>do not, it would amount to devious and malicious intent, which would >>>do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation. >> >>Wow, this is an amazingly cautious attitude. You are saying we should >>take into account that on *April 1* some naive soul might read the >>text, miss all the inconguities and jokes, arrive at the bottom, not >>be explicitly told it is a joke, and blame Wikipedia for deceiving >>them? >> >>I'm ...ah... speechless. > > > I've been watching this conversation with mounting disbelief. Somebody > please tell me that the seeming loss of sense of humor on the part of a > number of Wikipedians is all part of a prolonged jape, to be brought to a > hilarous conclusion this Friday. No? > April fools jokes are traditional. People reading a joke article on April > 1 will not feel unduly put out. Most of them. We can just laugh at those > who are. That's the whole point of the exercise--to puncture pretensions, > confound expectations and--dare I say it--have a laugh! Indeed, there seems to be a po-faced faction who delight in removing any vestige of humour from Wikipedia, even though it is appropriate in many places, [[Official Monster Raving Looney Party]] for example. Does anyone remember the argument about the minor joke in a picture caption in [[London Congestion Charge]] a year or two ago? -- Arwel Parry http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/ From richholton at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 15:37:38 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:37:38 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:48:23 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote: > > I've been watching this conversation with mounting disbelief. Somebody > please tell me that the seeming loss of sense of humor on the part of a > number of Wikipedians is all part of a prolonged jape, to be brought to a > hilarous conclusion this Friday. No? > April fools jokes are traditional. People reading a joke article on April > 1 will not feel unduly put out. Most of them. We can just laugh at those > who are. That's the whole point of the exercise--to puncture pretensions, > confound expectations and--dare I say it--have a laugh! > Like many, I would not object to having an April fool's article on the main page this Friday. I am against the idea of a contest that involves inserting fake articles into the main article space. Even with all good intentions, the potential for mistakes is just too great. However, I would also suggest some very obvious indicator of some sort, such as a banner at the top of the article reading: "This is Wikipedia's Featured Article for April 1, 2005" -- something that inherently identifies the article as special for April Fool's day. Remember that this may find its way into mirrors or onto printed page. When I first saw the article, as a result of Viajero's original post, I was not thinking about April Fool's. I *glanced* at the article, and saw what appeared to be a very detailed, well-documented article about a very obscure subject -- just the sort of thing we want Wikipedia to have. Had I known someone with an interest in this arcane topic, I might have pointed them to the page, or printed a copy and handed it to them. Would they have immediately known this to be an April Fool's joke? On reading it, they would conclude that it was not a serious article, but would they know it was intentionally included in Wikipedia as a joke for all to see? Or would they assume that some knucklehead had added the article and no one had yet discovered it to remove it? Let's have some fun -- it helps to keep people motivated -- but let's do it wisely. -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 15:38:12 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:38:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330153812.68814.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > You're being unreasonable by demanding that a tradition cannot apply to > Wikipedia unless it also applies to "respected encyclopedias." > There are no encyclopedias like Wikipedia. Britannica and Encarta don't > change from one day to the next. You are the one that said this was a tradition. I called you on that. > Nonsense. The European toilet paper holder article proposed is a > transparent hoax and quite harmless. That Wikipedia cannot ever be more > reliable than its latest edit is intuitively understood by all readers, so > let's not foster the false impression that the situation is otherwise. That is not an article. If I find it or any other hoax in the article namespace, then I'll delete it on sight (might move it to BJAODN). -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From richholton at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 15:44:18 2005 From: richholton at gmail.com (Richard Holton) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:44:18 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] technical problem In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050330095556.032e04b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050330095556.032e04b0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: <4a37983b050330074479f3ab93@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:01:58 -0500, steven l. rubenstein wrote: > mgm wrote > > >Nope, things are working fine for me. Have you got a cookie installed > >that keeps you logged into Wikipedia? > > As I said, the problem is not logging in -- I am logged in automatically, > and when I use other links (e.g. to my watchlist or to an article) I have > no problems. It is only when I try to access my "user contributions" that > I am logged out, and the user contributions is missing all of my > contributions starting 3/27. If I am at my "user contribution" page and > re-log in, I get a message that the login was successful. When I try to > return to "special:contributions," however, I get the message "No Target: > You have not specified a target page or user to perform this function on." > > The problem involves my user contribution page only, and it has been almost > four days. > > I do not have any other problems. > > Also, I figured that no one else is having this problem since no one else > has posted. But that doesn't change the fact that I am having this > problem. Can anyone help me? > > Steve > I've just forwarded your original post to the Wikitech-l mailing list. -- Rich Holton en.wikipedia:User:Rholton From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 15:48:50 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:48:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330153812.68814.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050330153812.68814.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47333.194.72.110.12.1112197730.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Daniel Mayer said: > --- Tony Sidaway wrote: >> You're being unreasonable by demanding that a tradition cannot apply >> to Wikipedia unless it also applies to "respected encyclopedias." >> There are no encyclopedias like Wikipedia. Britannica and Encarta >> don't change from one day to the next. > > You are the one that said this was a tradition. I called you on that. Clearly you misunderstood me. April Fools is a longstanding tradition. The fact that "respected encyclopedias" do not have the opportunity to indulge in it is neither here nor there. [...] > > That is not an article. If I find it or any other hoax in the article > namespace, then I'll delete it on sight (might move it to BJAODN). > Then the joke is on you. Lighten up. From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 15:51:39 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:51:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <52189.194.72.110.12.1112197899.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Richard Holton said: > > When I first saw the article, as a result of Viajero's original post, I > was not thinking about April Fool's. I *glanced* at the article, and > saw what appeared to be a very detailed, well-documented article about > a very obscure subject -- just the sort of thing we want Wikipedia to > have. Had I known someone with an interest in this arcane topic, I > might have pointed them to the page, or printed a copy and handed it to > them. Would they have immediately known this to be an April Fool's > joke? On reading it, they would conclude that it was not a serious > article, but would they know it was intentionally included in > Wikipedia as a joke for all to see? Or would they assume that some > knucklehead had added the article and no one had yet discovered it to > remove it? If you care to read the article in question you'll see that it's a pretty blatant joke article. It wouldn't be a joke if it wasn't superficially serious with absolutely ludicrous innards. From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 15:54:47 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:24:47 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424ACBC7.3050607@gmail.com> Richard Holton wrote: >Like many, I would not object to having an April fool's article on the >main page this Friday. I am against the idea of a contest that >involves inserting fake articles into the main article space. Even >with all good intentions, the potential for mistakes is just too >great. > >However, I would also suggest some very obvious indicator of some >sort, such as a banner at the top of the article reading: "This is >Wikipedia's Featured Article for April 1, 2005" -- something that >inherently identifies the article as special for April Fool's day. >Remember that this may find its way into mirrors or onto printed page. > Agree with above. I think having a *very* obvious link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer (with a section "Anything you see on April 1st could be a joke", or similar") would be a good idea. -- Alphax 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 From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 16:00:03 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:00:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424ACBC7.3050607@gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> <424ACBC7.3050607@gmail.com> Message-ID: <64348.194.72.110.12.1112198403.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Alphax said: >> > Agree with above. I think having a *very* obvious link to > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer (with a > section "Anything you see on April 1st could be a joke", or similar") > would be a good idea. Too broad. Just pop a datestamp at the top of the article and protect it from editing. The nonstandard appearance may also help to distinguish it from real articles. From alphasigmax at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 16:21:46 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:51:46 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <64348.194.72.110.12.1112198403.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> <424ACBC7.3050607@gmail.com> <64348.194.72.110.12.1112198403.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <424AD21A.7010203@gmail.com> Tony Sidaway wrote: >Alphax said: > > >>Agree with above. I think having a *very* obvious link to >>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer (with a >>section "Anything you see on April 1st could be a joke", or similar") >>would be a good idea. >> >> > >Too broad. Just pop a datestamp at the top of the article and protect it >from editing. The nonstandard appearance may also help to distinguish it >from real articles. > > Good point. I'm late and it's tired. -- Alphax 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 From viajero at quilombo.nl Wed Mar 30 16:33:55 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:33:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <424AD4F3.1030708@quilombo.nl> Richard Holton wrote: > When I first saw the article, as a result of Viajero's original post, > I was not thinking about April Fool's. I *glanced* at the article, and > saw what appeared to be a very detailed, well-documented article about > a very obscure subject -- just the sort of thing we want Wikipedia to > have. I purposely didn't mention that this coming Friday was April 1, for this very reason. ;) V. From andrew.lih at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 16:57:19 2005 From: andrew.lih at gmail.com (Andrew Lih) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:57:19 +0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <2ed171fb050330085713a4970e@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:48:23 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote: > > I've been watching this conversation with mounting disbelief. Somebody > please tell me that the seeming loss of sense of humor on the part of a > number of Wikipedians is all part of a prolonged jape, to be brought to a > hilarous conclusion this Friday. No? > April fools jokes are traditional. People reading a joke article on April > 1 will not feel unduly put out. Most of them. We can just laugh at those > who are. That's the whole point of the exercise--to puncture pretensions, > confound expectations and--dare I say it--have a laugh! Mine was also a nice way of saying that the article is just not that funny and not even close to being hilarious. -Andrew From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 17:01:40 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:01:40 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > > I just think it's quite unfortunate if Wikipedia > > takes itself so seriously that it fears to do what institutions like, say, > the BBC > > are quite happy to do. > > Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. > Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. Wikipedia in particular needs to > be sensitive to this type of thing due to our high profile and given the many > misgivings about our reliability. > > -- mav Britannica is proud of its new articles but these are long overdue. The whole point of Wikipedia is listing stuff as it changes. Real life "book-encyclopedias" can't do April Fool's jokes because they don't update daily. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Wed Mar 30 18:22:23 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:22:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424AEE5F.7060503@shaw.ca> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Tony Sidaway wrote: > > >>April fools jokes are traditional. >> >> > >And what evidence do you have that respected encyclopedias have done this? > How many "respected encyclopedias" are updated on a day-by-day basis like Wikipedia is, with a front page that shows current events within minutes of their happening and then the next day replaces them with something else newer? It's not like the Wikipedia 1.0 snapshot is going to be frozen and rushed to the printers that day, with this article forever fixed in stone on its pages - it's not even in the main article namespace. On April 2 the link will be gone and the article will once again retire to BJAODN, probably never to be used again in this manner (repeating a joke is rarely funny). From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 17:31:04 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:31:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330173105.17374.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Derksen wrote: > How many "respected encyclopedias" are updated on a day-by-day basis > like Wikipedia is, with a front page that shows current events within > minutes of their happening and then the next day replaces them with > something else newer? The process by which we create the encyclopedia this encyclopedia is irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is an encyclopedia (the mass majority of our users never edit). I'll only 'lighten up' if and when Jimbo says this is OK. -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 30 17:34:26 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:34:26 -0800 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: References: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424AE322.1090306@telus.net> David Benbennick wrote: >On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:51:13 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer > wrote: > > >>How >>does this help us create the encyclopedia? How can you justify *encouraging* >>people to create bogus entries? >> >> >To answer your rhetorical question: Sometimes allowing a small amount >of playfulness can help motivate people to remain dedicated to the >project. To put it another way, requiring 100% seriousness 100% of >the time might push away editors and do more harm than good. > A sense of humour is always helps to take the air out of pomped-up balloons. April Fool pranks have their place as long as they do no harm, and the subject of the joke is such that believing it will not affect people's lives or cause panic. (News of impending Martian invasions need to be kept secret even if they are true for this reason.) Articles that have been used for this should perhaps retain, at the top of the article, a notice like, "This article was the featured article for April 1, 2005," withe "April 1" highlighted. Such articles remind people of the need to be critical. Ec From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 17:45:46 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:45:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330173105.17374.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: 6667 <20050330173105.17374.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <12849.194.72.110.12.1112204746.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Daniel Mayer said: > The process by which we create the encyclopedia this encyclopedia is > irrelevant. Obviously not. This is the only encyclopedia in which it's possible for a random editor to create an article with the name "Daniel Mayer needs to remember that this is a Wiki". I don't know how long you expect to get away with this odd pretense that Wikipedia is like other encyclopedias. From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 30 17:46:12 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:46:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330174612.46318.qmail@web25003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Bryan Derksen wrote: > > How many "respected encyclopedias" are updated on a day-by-day basis > > like Wikipedia is, with a front page that shows current events within > > minutes of their happening and then the next day replaces them with > > something else newer? > > The process by which we create the encyclopedia this encyclopedia is > irrelevant. What is relevant is that it is an encyclopedia (the mass majority > of our users never edit). The process is entirely relevant. Wikipedia would be a very poor encylopedia indeed without its Wiki-based community -- Nupedia? Your argument here makes little sense -- you might equally say that we should remove the "Edit this page" link because "no other reputable encyclopedia has it". Fun brings the community together, and the community builds the encyclopedia. If the joke is harmless and transient, I don't see how we lose here. -- Matt Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From viajero at quilombo.nl Wed Mar 30 17:51:23 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:51:23 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) Message-ID: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> Phil Sandifer a.k.a. Snowspinner wrote: > A lot of people still see us as Fox News. Does anyone else find this a deeply disturbing suggestion? I for one would disassociate myself from this undertaking sooner rather than later if I thought this assertion was true. Can Mr Sandifer cite any evidence to support this exceedingly provocative statement? V. From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 30 17:45:20 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:45:20 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <424AE5B0.1080402@telus.net> Viajero wrote: > Andrew Lih wrote: > >> HOWEVER, I would beg folks not to make it "subtly marked" but rather >> *obviously marked* at the end. >> >> An April Fools joke is only fun when you can blame the reader for >> missing an obvious doozie that gives it away. Right now, it does not >> have such a kicker or punchline to let people in on the secret. If we >> do not, it would amount to devious and malicious intent, which would >> do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation. > > Wow, this is an amazingly cautious attitude. You are saying we should > take into account that on *April 1* some naive soul might read the > text, miss all the inconguities and jokes, arrive at the bottom, not > be explicitly told it is a joke, and blame Wikipedia for deceiving them? > > I'm ...ah... speechless. Computer experts are very serious people. They often can't tell the difference between a picture of a hat and of an elephant hidden under a blanket. If you deviate from the literal Word of God to make a joke or to add a little irony you need to forewarn them so that they will know when it is appropriate to laugh. :-) Ec From shebs at apple.com Wed Mar 30 17:59:46 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:59:46 -0800 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424AE912.8070709@apple.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Stan Shebs wrote: > >>In the interests of adding to instruction creep :-), we ought to have >>some ground rules for April Fool's, maybe make a contest out of it, >>for instance the winner is the hoax that goes the longest without >>being detected. For instance: >> > >This is the type of utter and complete nonsense that I'm talking about. How >does this help us create the encyclopedia? How can you justify *encouraging* >people to create bogus entries? > We're not a bunch of text-creating machines. It's "community second", not "no community at all". > >Wikipedia is NOT A PLAYTHING! This project is not here for your enjoyment - we >are here to create an encyclopedia. If you happen to have fun while helping us >toward *that goal*, then great. If not, then let others work and be free of >this type of distracting nonsense. > Actually, I am here for my enjoyment - it just so happens that I enjoy making little-known information more visible by adding it to WP. If only unenjoyable stuff was left to do, or interactions with other editors made the daily experience unpleasant, I'd be gone in a second; I have plenty of other hobbies. Now to be serious about April Fools. While it can't possibly be a tradition for print encyclopedias, it is a natural for news organizations and for companies, and is practised even when it "hurts productivity". For example, a big-company CEO's time is worth thousands of dollars per hour, so when the CEO's office is filled to the top with styrofoam peanuts, you can bet that's costing the company real money. However, the morale boost is worth far more than the loss of the CEO's time; employees get to talk about something fun instead of how their current tasks suck, etc. Silicon Valley companies do this the most of anybody, and I hear their success is the envy of the rest of the world. WP desperately needs to be more of a fun place. We already know a lot of longtime contributors have been worn down to the point where a single run-in with a troll causes them to explode and quit; very much like what happens with longtime company employees when their jobs are no longer enjoyable. If WP were a company, HR would be all over Jimbo to do something about morale. On April 1, there are going to be lots of articles fiddled with, whether we like it or not; I certainly wasn't looking forward to that aspect of the day (although since my watchlist hasn't worked all week, it looks it will be other people's problem this year). So I suggested the contest as a way to make the day something for editors to anticipate rather than dread, and to channel some of the urge in a way that will be more fun for more of the community. I don't think it can possibly harm WP's reputation; people who have a low opinion won't change their minds because of what we or don't do on April 1, and people who have a high opinion will like that we're recognizing the potential problem and coming up with alternate ways to channel it. Stan From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 30 18:07:23 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:07:23 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330151828.2972.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330151828.2972.qmail@web51603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424AEADB.5070809@telus.net> Daniel Mayer wrote: >--- Seth Ilys wrote: > > >>There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. >> >> > >I didn?t see any examples of respected encyclopedias doing this. > If EB were to publish 1990's April Fool joke in 2005 it could be a little out of date. >I did notice >this: > >?It is not always simple to recognize a Nihilartikel. It is especially >difficult when the same fictitious entry is reprinted and adapted by multiple >reference works. In such cases, the multiple sources serve to bolster the >entry's authenticity, so that many come to believe that they are reading a >factual article.? > Just imagine, all these reputable publications failing to exercise due dilligence. After April 1 the clues will certainly be there for all to see. I wonder: Maybe the failure of these authoritative publications to include the clues could be seen as some kind of violation of GFDL. :-) >This is certainly not something we should be encouraging. > > Fair enough, but we do want to encourage critical thinking. Ec From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 30 18:19:35 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:19:35 +0100 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featuredarticle) References: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> <424AE912.8070709@apple.com> Message-ID: <004801c53555$07f9f080$9e7c0450@Galasien> Stan Shebs wrote > Now to be serious about April Fools. To do that, I suggest a [[Saturnalia]]. Just for a day we give admin powers to 400 anons. Real sysops can't use them. Inclusionists will be forced to vote to delete important pieces of fancruft. We all treat Jimbo like a newbie, the rest of us are God-Kings and God-Queens for a day. No one is allowed to edit their own User page. The Village Pump will flow with wine. All pages based on Larry's Text will be reverted to the originals ... Need I go on? The AF suggestions so far have been quite modest. Charles From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 30 18:27:01 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:27:01 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <424AEF75.6090906@telus.net> Viajero wrote: > Phil Sandifer a.k.a. Snowspinner wrote: > > > A lot of people still see us as Fox News. > > Does anyone else find this a deeply disturbing suggestion? I for one > would disassociate myself from this undertaking sooner rather than > later if I thought this assertion was true. Can Mr Sandifer cite any > evidence to support this exceedingly provocative statement? Did Wikinews plan to run a story about such a merger for April 1? :-) Ec From shebs at apple.com Wed Mar 30 18:58:25 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:58:25 -0800 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featuredarticle) In-Reply-To: <004801c53555$07f9f080$9e7c0450@Galasien> References: <20050330045113.32963.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> <424AE912.8070709@apple.com> <004801c53555$07f9f080$9e7c0450@Galasien> Message-ID: <424AF6D1.2080008@apple.com> Charles Matthews wrote: > Stan Shebs wrote > >> Now to be serious about April Fools. > > > To do that, I suggest a [[Saturnalia]]. Just for a day we give admin > powers to 400 anons. Real sysops can't use them. Inclusionists will > be forced to vote to delete important pieces of fancruft. We all > treat Jimbo like a newbie, the rest of us are God-Kings and God-Queens > for a day. No one is allowed to edit their own User page. The > Village Pump will flow with wine. All pages based on Larry's Text will > be reverted to the originals ... > > Need I go on? The AF suggestions so far have been quite modest. Sounds a little like Boxing Day! But stay on your toes anyway, I wouldn't put it past our developers to quietly create an alternate-reality fork of the database. Stan From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 18:59:42 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:59:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330185943.61602.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > Viajero wrote: > > > Phil Sandifer a.k.a. Snowspinner wrote: > > > > > A lot of people still see us as Fox News. > > > > Does anyone else find this a deeply disturbing suggestion? I for one > > would disassociate myself from this undertaking sooner rather than > > later if I thought this assertion was true. Can Mr Sandifer cite any > > evidence to support this exceedingly provocative statement? > > Did Wikinews plan to run a story about such a merger for April 1? :-) Now that would be funny. :) -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 19:09:31 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:09:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330190931.61381.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > Obviously not. This is the only encyclopedia in which it's possible for a > random editor to create an article with the name "Daniel Mayer needs to > remember that this is a Wiki". I don't know how long you expect to get > away with this odd pretense that Wikipedia is like other encyclopedias. It is more up to date and has a great deal more content. It also has a much better hypertext format (lot's of links esp) and IMO, its articles simply looks a lot nicer and are easier to use. Other than that, to the reader, it is pretty much like any other encyclopedia - a place to get quick facts on topics. However, it's reliability has also been questioned due to the way it is created. Making it fun to purposely deceive readers does not help either that perception or the kernel of truth behind it. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Wed Mar 30 19:48:54 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:48:54 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: I meant the suggestion in terms of reputability. I don't think we're seen as having a neo-conservative agenda. But I think we're about as trusted by a lot of people. In fact, I know we are. Five minutes ago, sitting in my office, I heard another TA tell a student not to use Wikipedia as a source because "anyone can edit it" so it must not be reliable. She looked to me for affirmation, and I said that, actually, it's very reliable and that false information gets removed quickly. She wasn't convinced, and told the student not to use it anyway. We can't afford to knowingly post false information. Too many people think we do it already. -Snowspinner On Mar 30, 2005, at 11:51 AM, Viajero wrote: > Phil Sandifer a.k.a. Snowspinner wrote: > > > A lot of people still see us as Fox News. > > Does anyone else find this a deeply disturbing suggestion? I for one > would disassociate myself from this undertaking sooner rather than > later if I thought this assertion was true. Can Mr Sandifer cite any > evidence to support this exceedingly provocative statement? > > > V. > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From cunctator at kband.com Wed Mar 30 19:52:09 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 14:52:09 -0500 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featuredarticle) In-Reply-To: <424AF6D1.2080008@apple.com> Message-ID: I think it would be fun to redirect people to the wrong languages. it would be both maddening and it would also promote Wikipedia's cross-language reach. From jwales at wikia.com Wed Mar 30 19:53:00 2005 From: jwales at wikia.com (Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:53:00 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Message-ID: <20050330195259.GJ20303@wikia.com> A few people have hoped that I would weigh in with an opinion. I'm torn. I think it's really fun, but we're also a very serious project. So I gave it some thought and I have this idea... Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see our April Fool's Page." And on that page, we have fun with ourselves... nothing mean spirited against each other, but gently having some fun with our quirks. So yes, the feature article can be the european toilet paper page. But we also could have an article about Gdansk ^h^h^h^hDanzig ^h^h^h^hGdansk! Danzig, dammit! In this way, we get to have a little fun with the holiday, but we also don't abandon our seriousness for the day. And at the end of the day, everything can be locked and archived and deleted, and we can do it once a year. Maybe if a developer can be persuaded, we could set the whole thing up at AprilFools.wikipedia.org or something like that. --Jimbo -- "Pianosa is een Italie" - first words of 50,000th article on nl.wikipedia.org From christiaan at last-straw.net Wed Mar 30 20:14:40 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:14:40 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <9fff166dd9a4c846bf6acbe360a8795b@last-straw.net> Participating in April fools and the phenomena you describe below really couldn't be more divorced in my opinion. Christiaan On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:48 pm, Snowspinner wrote: > I meant the suggestion in terms of reputability. I don't think we're > seen as having a neo-conservative agenda. But I think we're about as > trusted by a lot of people. In fact, I know we are. Five minutes ago, > sitting in my office, I heard another TA tell a student not to use > Wikipedia as a source because "anyone can edit it" so it must not be > reliable. She looked to me for affirmation, and I said that, actually, > it's very reliable and that false information gets removed quickly. > She wasn't convinced, and told the student not to use it anyway. > > We can't afford to knowingly post false information. Too many people > think we do it already. > > -Snowspinner From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Wed Mar 30 20:32:37 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 14:32:37 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <9fff166dd9a4c846bf6acbe360a8795b@last-straw.net> References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> <9fff166dd9a4c846bf6acbe360a8795b@last-straw.net> Message-ID: OK. Here's the thing I think you may be missing. People are not smart. My students would not catch a link to Nihilartikle, or whatever the name is. They would not think that it's April 1st. They would not figure out the clues that you are suggesting we leave. They would miss it. They would fall for the joke. The problem is that they'd fall for misinformation in an article too. They're not critical enough. They're not sharp enough to question everything. And this isn't because they're stupid. It's because, well, most people aren't smart enough to have well tuned bullshit detectors. People think our articles have problems. People think Wikipedia is full of misinformation, hoaxes, and lunacy. Even if April Fool's articles weren't malicious vandalism, quite frankly, it's not funny. It's too close to the perceived reality, and it doesn't make any strides towards parody. of the perceived reality. -Snowspinner On Mar 30, 2005, at 2:14 PM, Christiaan Briggs wrote: > Participating in April fools and the phenomena you describe below > really couldn't be more divorced in my opinion. > > Christiaan > > On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:48 pm, Snowspinner wrote: > >> I meant the suggestion in terms of reputability. I don't think we're >> seen as having a neo-conservative agenda. But I think we're about as >> trusted by a lot of people. In fact, I know we are. Five minutes ago, >> sitting in my office, I heard another TA tell a student not to use >> Wikipedia as a source because "anyone can edit it" so it must not be >> reliable. She looked to me for affirmation, and I said that, >> actually, it's very reliable and that false information gets removed >> quickly. She wasn't convinced, and told the student not to use it >> anyway. >> >> We can't afford to knowingly post false information. Too many people >> think we do it already. >> >> -Snowspinner > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From giantsrick13 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 20:42:06 2005 From: giantsrick13 at yahoo.com (Rick) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:42:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Sidaway wrote: > Daniel Mayer said: > > --- Tony Sidaway > wrote: > >> You're being unreasonable by demanding that a > tradition cannot apply > >> to Wikipedia unless it also applies to "respected > encyclopedias." > >> There are no encyclopedias like Wikipedia. > Britannica and Encarta > >> don't change from one day to the next. > > > > You are the one that said this was a tradition. I > called you on that. > > Clearly you misunderstood me. April Fools is a > longstanding tradition. > The fact that "respected encyclopedias" do not have > the opportunity to > indulge in it is neither here nor there. > [...] Britannica is online. Does their online version indulge in foolishness? > > That is not an article. If I find it or any other > hoax in the article > > namespace, then I'll delete it on sight (might > move it to BJAODN). > > > > Then the joke is on you. Lighten up. Fooling our readers is not "lightening up", it's perpetrating a hoax on them. RickK __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 30 20:51:22 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:51:22 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Towards consensus on April Fools Message-ID: Lots of us want let loose one day a year and figure a few jokes will boost morale enough to pay for the clean-up time. A few of us think April Fools should be more subtle: you score points by how broad a hint you can give right at the start, while STILL hooking the unwary. No one wants a long-term hit on our credibility. Some feel it's inevitable and just wonder how best to deal with it. A few think, what's the big deal? Uncle Ed <-- slightly miffed that his well-laid plans are now moot From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 30 20:55:19 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:55:19 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl><9fff166dd9a4c846bf6acbe360a8795b@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <000501c5356a$c9730110$9e7c0450@Galasien> Snowspinner" wrote >They would miss > it. They would fall for the joke. Yeah, yeah. Also, some people get through life without any apparent sense of humour. There wouldn't be any point in the suggestion if there was no 'sense of danger' attached. Charles From Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com Wed Mar 30 21:02:47 2005 From: Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com (Poor, Edmund W) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:02:47 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo Wales de-sysopped Message-ID: For immediate release: Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, was de-sysopped today by a coalition of rogue admins (the Troll League) and his account blocked indefinitely. The new GodKing, Rickk, immediately reinstated RK weds Helga! The long-awaited wedding will feature mav147 wearing the traditional Muslim headscraf (click here for picture). Kim Jong-Il brings peace to Palestine. The leader of the world's remaining Hermit Kingdom outlawed both Judaism and Islam throughout the Middle East, replacing all forms of religious worship with the playing of old Beatles records. (I was saving these, but ... ) Uncle Ed From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 30 21:08:00 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 07:08:00 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <16126.194.72.110.12.1112194103.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> <4a37983b0503300737329f4de2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050330210800.GI23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Richard Holton (richholton at gmail.com) [050331 01:37]: > When I first saw the article, as a result of Viajero's original post, > I was not thinking about April Fool's. I *glanced* at the article, and > saw what appeared to be a very detailed, well-documented article about > a very obscure subject -- just the sort of thing we want Wikipedia to > have. Had I known someone with an interest in this arcane topic, I > might have pointed them to the page, or printed a copy and handed it > to them. Would they have immediately known this to be an April Fool's > joke? On reading it, they would conclude that it was not a serious > article, but would they know it was intentionally included in > Wikipedia as a joke for all to see? Or would they assume that some > knucklehead had added the article and no one had yet discovered it to > remove it? Some say we have this problem with some of our [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles]] already. When [[Xenu]] was featured (Feb 19th), there were quite a few people who thought it was a particularly creative piece of vandalism, rather than the painstakingly referenced and fact-checked article on an ... unusual ... subject that it is. (For Xenuphiles: http://static.rocknerd.org/david/xenu-2pp.pdf - how's that for reuse of Wikipedia content. We handed out 500 of those in front of the Church of Scientology, Tottenham Court Road, London on Saturday, just before the London meetup. The police found it quite acceptable. After all it's a proper objective neutral encyclopedia article, with references!) - d. From llywrch at agora.rdrop.com Wed Mar 30 21:10:12 2005 From: llywrch at agora.rdrop.com (Geoffrey Burling) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:10:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote: > On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer > wrote: >> Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. >> Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. > > There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. > Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC? Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists? Geoff From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Wed Mar 30 21:18:35 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 07:18:35 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <424AEF75.6090906@telus.net> References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> <424AEF75.6090906@telus.net> Message-ID: <20050330211835.GL23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Ray Saintonge (saintonge at telus.net) [050331 04:37]: > Did Wikinews plan to run a story about such a merger for April 1? :-) Presumably also merging with the Guardian for appropriate transatlantic and political balance. And fairness! - d. From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 21:21:42 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:21:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > our April Fool's Page." I think that is a great idea. :) -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From maveric149 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 30 21:23:14 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:23:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo Wales de-sysopped In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330212315.17904.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> I love it! --- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > For immediate release: > > Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, was de-sysopped today by a coalition > of rogue admins (the Troll League) and his account blocked indefinitely. > The new GodKing, Rickk, immediately reinstated > > RK weds Helga! The long-awaited wedding will feature mav147 wearing the > traditional Muslim headscraf (click here for picture). > > Kim Jong-Il brings peace to Palestine. The leader of the world's > remaining Hermit Kingdom outlawed both Judaism and Islam throughout the > Middle East, replacing all forms of religious worship with the playing > of old Beatles records. > > (I was saving these, but ... ) > > Uncle Ed > _______________________________________________ > 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 macgyvermagic at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 21:44:35 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:44:35 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:21:42 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > > our April Fool's Page." > > I think that is a great idea. :) > > -- mav If this helps convince the critics, I'm all for it. :) From cunctator at kband.com Wed Mar 30 22:09:34 2005 From: cunctator at kband.com (The Cunctator) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:09:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/30/05 4:21 PM, "Daniel Mayer" wrote: > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: >> Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an >> alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see >> our April Fool's Page." > > I think that is a great idea. :) > I think it's profoundly lame. An April Fool's joke that can't fool anybody is not an April Fool's joke. Thus the word "fool". From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Wed Mar 30 22:12:45 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:12:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424AE5B0.1080402@telus.net> References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> <2ed171fb05033000381a000b29@mail.gmail.com> <424ABBCF.1060702@quilombo.nl> <424AE5B0.1080402@telus.net> Message-ID: <1817.192.168.0.9.1112220765.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Ray Saintonge said: > Viajero wrote: >> >> I'm ...ah... speechless. > > Computer experts are very serious people. Error. Parse failure. Braindump follows. From bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com Wed Mar 30 22:40:46 2005 From: bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:40:46 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0FdWyA402EBDFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Daniel Mayer wrote on 2005/03/30 23:21: > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > > our April Fool's Page." > > I think that is a great idea. :) > > -- mav I think it's a really lame idea. :-( I just joined the mailing list, I hope I'm doing this right. May I ask a question? Do I get any say in whether or not [[User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder]] is moved out of my userspace into the article namespace for April 1? Bishonen From shebs at apple.com Wed Mar 30 22:52:20 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 14:52:20 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424B2DA4.8080908@apple.com> Rick wrote: > >Fooling our readers is not "lightening up", it's >perpetrating a hoax on them. > That's kind of the point of April Fool's, eh? I think I have a few "strange but true" topics that I can post on that day, see if any of the humorless have the temerity to challenge them, sort of a reverse April Fool. Ideally something with a chapter in a scholarly book but with no Google hits, heh-heh. Too bad cookiecutter and megamouth sharks are already done! Stan From aroberts at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 23:25:30 2005 From: aroberts at gmail.com (Andy Roberts) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:25:30 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <0FdWyA402EBDFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> <0FdWyA402EBDFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Message-ID: <674c5a105033015253d522067@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:40:46 +0200, Bishonen wrote: > Daniel Mayer wrote on 2005/03/30 23:21: > > > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > > > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > > > our April Fool's Page." > > > > I think that is a great idea. :) > > > > -- mav > > I think it's a really lame idea. :-( I just joined the mailing list, I hope > I'm doing this right. May I ask a question? Do I get any say in whether or > not [[User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder]] is moved out of my > userspace into the article namespace for April 1? Reading this thread reminds me of the fact that the american dictionary doesn't have an entry for the word irony. Very sad. -- Andy Roberts From saintonge at telus.net Wed Mar 30 23:31:58 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:31:58 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424B36EE.5050903@telus.net> Rick wrote: > Britannica is online. Does their online version > >indulge in foolishness? > Yes, they try to compete against us. :-) Ec From matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 30 23:42:51 2005 From: matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk (Matt R) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:42:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050330234251.19633.qmail@web25006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > A few people have hoped that I would weigh in with an opinion. > > I'm torn. I think it's really fun, but we're also a very serious > project. So I gave it some thought and I have this idea... > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > our April Fool's Page." I appreciate the spirit of compromise, but it's unfortunate, because the sine qua non of April Fool's Day is hoax, not just spoof. This would be like explicitly inviting someone to their own surprise birthday party -- it's just missing the point. I'd heartily support a hoax, but I would find a watered-down "happy fun page" to be just embarrassing. Anyway, one thing I've become convinced of: it's certainly not worth all this debate! -- Matt [[User:Matt Crypto]] Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com From violetriga at gmail.com Wed Mar 30 23:59:09 2005 From: violetriga at gmail.com (Violet/Riga) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:59:09 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424B36EE.5050903@telus.net> References: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> <424B36EE.5050903@telus.net> Message-ID: May I remind people that the hoax must be done before midday otherwise "you become the fool". That might lessen the impact of the hoax. One thing people seem to be missing is that there is some element of truth behind the article (otherwise it would be too unbelievable). Why don't we write a truthful entry on the main page but exagerate their importance a little. Link "Today's" to [[April fool's day]] and "featured article" to [[Nihilartikel]] and have a banner warning at the top of the main article noting that it's a hoax. Surely all that should sate those wishing to stop this bit of fun. ~~~~ Violet/Riga From shebs at apple.com Thu Mar 31 00:02:25 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:02:25 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <20050330195259.GJ20303@wikia.com> References: <20050330195259.GJ20303@wikia.com> Message-ID: <424B3E11.3080303@apple.com> Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote: >A few people have hoped that I would weigh in with an opinion. > >I'm torn. I think it's really fun, but we're also a very serious >project. So I gave it some thought and I have this idea... > >Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an >alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see >our April Fool's Page." > >And on that page, we have fun with ourselves... nothing mean spirited >against each other, but gently having some fun with our quirks. So >yes, the feature article can be the european toilet paper page. But >we also could have an article about Gdansk >^h^h^h^hDanzig >^h^h^h^hGdansk! >Danzig, dammit! > > A little timid, but not bad. It would require some policing so that the disgruntled didn't use it to air grievances ("Gdank vs Danzig? - that's not funny"). There could be a section "Articles We'd Like to See" - I was thinking of a Tree of Life type article on the [[god-king]], complete with taxobox showing dual nature, automotive habits ("known to drive Hyundais"), comparing with the closely related god-emperor, and of course illustrated with a picture of you-know-who. Not the true April 1 hoax, but it's well-known that even Swiftian wit on the net still needs the appended emoticon. Stan From minorityreport at bluebottle.com Thu Mar 31 00:10:53 2005 From: minorityreport at bluebottle.com (Tony Sidaway) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:10:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> The Cunctator said: > On 3/30/05 4:21 PM, "Daniel Mayer" wrote: > >> --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: >>> Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an >>> alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see >>> our April Fool's Page." >> >> I think that is a great idea. :) >> > I think it's profoundly lame. > > An April Fool's joke that can't fool anybody is not an April Fool's > joke. > > Thus the word "fool". > I think there is a definite failure to engage with the subject matter here. Whatever happened to the sweet old idea of just, for one day in the whole year, doing something unexpected, out of character and insincere? Not in a mean, vituperative way, but simply to spread the joy of life. Can't we just put that lovely toilet roll holder on the front page. *once*? Has Wikipedia become so anal?> > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l From bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com Thu Mar 31 00:13:27 2005 From: bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 02:13:27 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <674c5a105033015253d522067@mail.gmail.com> References: <674c5a105033015253d522067@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0FdWyC13893CFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Andy Roberts wrote on 2005/03/31 01:25: > On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:40:46 +0200, Bishonen > wrote: > > Daniel Mayer wrote on 2005/03/30 23:21: > > > > > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > > > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > > > > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to > see > > > > our April Fool's Page." > > > > > > I think that is a great idea. :) > > > > > > -- mav > > > > I think it's a really lame idea. :-( I just joined the mailing list, I > hope > > I'm doing this right. May I ask a question? Do I get any say in whether > or > > not [[User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder]] is moved out of my > > userspace into the article namespace for April 1? > > Reading this thread reminds me of the fact that the american > dictionary doesn't have an entry for the word irony. Very sad. > > -- > Andy Roberts Not getting it, sorry. I know my question came late in the game, but that's because Jimbo's suggestion also came late. I was all for having "European toilet paper holder" featured directly on the Main page on April 1, but I'm all against the page being used in such a poor jape as "Click here to see our April Fool's Page." Please note that this is not a protest against that use, though. It's a *question*, as to whether anybody will care if I do protest. I will only actually do it if the other contributors want me to. (Sorry if this arrives twice, I'm still getting the hang of posting to the list.) Bishonen From shebs at apple.com Thu Mar 31 00:14:22 2005 From: shebs at apple.com (Stan Shebs) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:14:22 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> <424B36EE.5050903@telus.net> Message-ID: <424B40DE.9000708@apple.com> Violet/Riga wrote: >May I remind people that the hoax must be done before midday otherwise >"you become the fool". That might lessen the impact of the hoax. > > On the net, April Fools effectively lasts about 48 hours, since companies and other organization often time their joke press releases to be sent out at specific local times. The net-savvy stay on their toes for an additional couple days too, because of propagation delays in some channels (such as mail digests). Stan (who remembers being suspicious that a national figure like Chernenko had even heard of Usenet, let alone sent it a note...) From jfader at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 00:48:15 2005 From: jfader at gmail.com (John Fader) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:48:15 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use "unusual articles" for April Fools day - the fool is they're all (allegedly) true Message-ID: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> Web April Fools are very rarely funny, and now everyone does them. With all respect to those who worked on ours, I'm not sure it is either (it seems more like an "in joke" for us). If we post a fake story, we'll be just the same as Slashdot and the rest. But we can do better. We have a limitless supply of *real crap* to draw upon. We can be lighthearted and play with the reader's credulity just as well by using stuff from [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles]]. I think all the featured articles in there have all been on the main page fairly recently, so instead I propose a special variant of Did You Know to take the place of the featured article on the main page. For example: ==Things you'll wish you never knew== ''From wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles|stupidest articles]]:'' * A 1919 '''[[Boston molasses disaster|molasses explosion]]''' killed 21 people. * [[Afrikaans language|Afrikaans]] pigs say '''''[[Oink|snork]]''''' and [[Korean language|Korean]] pigs say '''''[[Oink|kkool]]'''''. And we can prove it. * [[John F. Kennedy]] was almost certainly not a '''[[Ich bin ein Berliner|a jelly donut]]'''. * '''[[Belly button fluff]]''' is usually blue. Check yours. * '''[[History of perpetual motion machines|Perpetual motion]]''' is impossible. Probably. * [[El Salvador]] and [[Honduras]] fought a '''[[Football War|war]]''' over the result of a [[Football (soccer)|Football]] match. Don't ask who won the war. * The happy [[Ewok]]s won't be happy '''[[Endorian Holocaust|for long]]'''. Serves 'em right. * '''[[Le P?tomane|French culture]]''' blows the competition away. And use [[Image:Shark big.jpg]] as the image. -- John Fader From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Thu Mar 31 02:24:46 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:24:46 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: <20050330211835.GL23009@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> <424AEF75.6090906@telus.net> <20050330211835.GL23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <424B5F6E.6030202@shaw.ca> David Gerard wrote: >Ray Saintonge (saintonge at telus.net) [050331 04:37]: > > > >>Did Wikinews plan to run a story about such a merger for April 1? :-) >> >> > >Presumably also merging with the Guardian for appropriate transatlantic and >political balance. And fairness! > > > No, just Fox. Why would Wikinews want to merge with some foreign-language European thing anyway? All the articles would need to be translated into English, such a waste of effort. From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Thu Mar 31 02:40:05 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:40:05 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <0FdWyC13893CFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> References: <674c5a105033015253d522067@mail.gmail.com> <0FdWyC13893CFFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Message-ID: <424B6305.6000409@shaw.ca> Bishonen wrote: >Andy Roberts wrote on 2005/03/31 01:25: > > >>Reading this thread reminds me of the fact that the american >>dictionary doesn't have an entry for the word irony. Very sad. >> >>-- >>Andy Roberts >> >> > >Not getting it, sorry. > The joke, if I may spoil it by explaining (now that everyone's probably read it by the time they reach this email in their inboxes) is that American dictionaries _do_ have an entry for the word "irony". Andy just made a silly statement in a totally deadpan manner, and the point of the humor is to have the reader pause for a moment going "wait... is that right? That can't be right. Nah, of course not, that's silly." I think the point is that this is the sort of joke that is considered "proper" for April Fool's Day, and if that's the point then I quite agree. A link that explicitly says "click here for wacky zany silliness that we made up for April Fool's Day!" spoils the joke before it's even made, IMO, and while I wouldn't object to something like that I'd also be uninterested in contributing to it. An April Fool's article doesn't have to be subtle, take a look at some of the classics like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree for example, but it should at least be played straight. From originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 01:59:05 2005 From: originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com (Deathphoenix) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:59:05 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> Message-ID: <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> Geoffrey Burling wrote: > On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote: > >> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer >> wrote: >> >>> Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia >>> doing this. >>> Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. >> >> >> There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. >> > Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], > how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, > Oregon]] for Friday's FAC? > > Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists? Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not. Cheers, DPh From bryan.derksen at shaw.ca Thu Mar 31 03:23:09 2005 From: bryan.derksen at shaw.ca (Bryan Derksen) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:23:09 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> Message-ID: <424B6D1D.3050700@shaw.ca> Deathphoenix wrote: > Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could > use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, > we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a > fake, when in fact, it's not. Yeah, the "did you know" section taken entirely from [[Wikipedia:Unusual_articles]] is a good idea along these lines (exploding whale was already a featured article in November 7, 2004 so we'd want to pick a new one anyway). People believing they're fake could almost be a sort of meta-hoax, even. Wonder if we could add a poll for new readers at the end of each - "do you believe this article?" - to gage our street cred. :) From originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 02:38:32 2005 From: originaldeathphoenix at gmail.com (Deathphoenix) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:38:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424B6D1D.3050700@shaw.ca> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> <424B6D1D.3050700@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <424B62A8.8080005@gmail.com> Bryan Derksen wrote: > Deathphoenix wrote: > >> Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could >> use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April >> Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article >> is a fake, when in fact, it's not. > > > Yeah, the "did you know" section taken entirely from > [[Wikipedia:Unusual_articles]] is a good idea along these lines > (exploding whale was already a featured article in November 7, 2004 so > we'd want to pick a new one anyway). People believing they're fake > could almost be a sort of meta-hoax, even. Wonder if we could add a > poll for new readers at the end of each - "do you believe this > article?" - to gage our street cred. :) That's an excellent point! Wikipedia could play an April Fool's joke on the reader by presenting a particularly fine article from [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles]], in the fashion of [[exploding whale]], and having them believe the article is a joke. That should also satisfy other people who believe that Wikipedia should not post hoaxes on the main article space. Cheers, DPh From csherlock at ljh.com.au Thu Mar 31 03:48:53 2005 From: csherlock at ljh.com.au (csherlock at ljh.com.au) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:48:53 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: Tony Sidaway wrote: > I think there is a definite failure to engage with the subject matter > here. Whatever happened to the sweet old idea of just, for one day in the > whole year, doing something unexpected, out of character and insincere? > Not in a mean, vituperative way, but simply to spread the joy of life. > Can't we just put that lovely toilet roll holder on the front page. > *once*? Has Wikipedia become so anal?> Wikipedia has always been anal. That's why it works. TBSDY From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 04:14:14 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:14:14 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330140532.0F7EA1AC18C1@mail.wikimedia.org> References: <20050330140532.0F7EA1AC18C1@mail.wikimedia.org> Message-ID: <742dfd06050330201425b831c6@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:06:25 +0100, James D. Forrester wrote: > I, too, agree with Mav. "April Fools" is not particularly funny anyway and > is exactly the problem that we're trying to fight. This seems precisely at issue... in a community discussion touching on levity and humor, when some of the conversants don't appreciate or get the humor in question, how should we reach consensus? A number of people in this conversation seem to imply that anyone without a sense of humor has a moral upper hand over others, because anything which is not completely expected by some readers (which encompasses a great deal of humor) is a Bad Thing. Should people who find April Fools in general a terrible tradition, be able to naysay anything that happens to commemorate that day? I feel pretty certain that a supermajority of our audience enjoys April Fools and appreciates a good joke. SJ From simon at darkmere.gen.nz Tue Mar 29 20:28:28 2005 From: simon at darkmere.gen.nz (Simon Lyall) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:28:28 +1200 (NZST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] http://nupedia.8media.org/ Message-ID: I'm not sure what this site is about but I had a link on the old nupedia page on one of my sites and they emailed me asking e to update it. I suspect they might be some sort of spammers trying to attract traffic? -- Simon J. Lyall | Very Busy | Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/ "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT. From 0paddu at gmail.com Tue Mar 29 20:39:45 2005 From: 0paddu at gmail.com (Padmanabhan V. Karthic) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 02:09:45 +0530 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Deletion of images under dubious criteria -- policy must be made clearer Message-ID: <22b0ff2505032912397f44c4c6@mail.gmail.com> Hi all, All along I had thought images are deleted because they are copyvio (using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_problems), redundant or low quality (using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion) or images that are obviously non-free, e.g. photos of celebrities, single frames of videos, etc. in cases where fair use cannot be claimed (using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images). Note that those in the third category as mentioned here can usually be restored if fair use is later verified to be OK (since these would be from easily available photos/videos, etc.) I have myself listed many images in these pages and all those got deleted. Fine. But recently I happened to stumble upon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Untagged_images#Request_for_comments where Quadell asked for comments regarding unverified orphans. The discussion Quadell & I (& unfortunately nobody else) had has been moved to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Images_and_media_for_deletion/Unverified_orphans#So_what_do_we_do_about_those_UOs.3F_Request_for_comments. The talk in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Images_and_media_for_deletion/Unverified_orphans seem to imply that many unverified orphans (UOs) have been deleted. I would assume that most uploaders until mid-2004 (Someone relaxes this upto November 2004 in the talk page) didn't get a Special:Upload page that told them that their images would be deleted unless tagged. Even images uploaded by Anthere, one of the members of the board who has been a very respected contributor to Wikipedia got deleted due to such misunderstanding. Now when I look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images I understand it includes not only material that is uspected to be available only under a non-free license but also those that are untagged, which means a lot of images uploaded before 2004 were on the verge of deletion or were already deleted. Based on Anthere's images, I would presume that many other UOs were uploaded in good faith and left untagged as tags didn't exist in those days and GFDL was the default. I would like Wikipedia not to lose these images (which could be moved to commons if it is definite that they won't be re-included in any articles). Since image deletion is an irreversible process (as I understood very recently when I found Anthere's images deleted & was alarmed by her reaction as I had thought it would be easy to undelete them) I would like a discussion on the issue of deletion of unverified images that aren't proved to be copyright violations. Quadell tried to get a consensus at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Images_and_media_for_deletion/Unverified_orphans but failed. I tried to bring this to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy) but got only the reply of Xiong (and hence against not enough people discussed so there is no question of a consensus). After seeing that Sj had similarly expressed anguish over the deletion of beautiful images in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Images_and_media_for_deletion/Unverified_orphans I asked him how I could get the community to discuss the issue and he advised me to write to WikiEn-l. I don't want to force my ideas of whether untagged images uploaded in 2002-2004 should be deleted or not. I want a discussion to take place with enough participants to make the policy of image deletion clearer. Any pointers on how this could be achieved (on a wiki page, not mailing list/IRC so the process looks transparent to everyone) would be nice. Note that I haven't explained my ideas much in this post. I just want a way by which a broad-based discussion on the policy could take place. My personal views on untagged images can be found by going through the talk pages mentioned in this mail. Thanks, Paddu From wegge at wegge.dk Tue Mar 29 23:08:49 2005 From: wegge at wegge.dk (Anders Wegge Jakobsen) Date: 30 Mar 2005 01:08:49 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article References: <42499F3B.1070504@comcast.net> Message-ID: "csherlock-4JpCh0KsSjUQrrorzV6ljw at public" == csherlock at ljh.com.au writes: > MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >> Isn't there a non-hoax version in the main article space now following >> the hoax' discovery which resulted in the Signpost article? >> Mgm > I don't believe so... if there is will someone speedy it? Why should that be deleted? -- /Wegge Min holdning til Usenet - Min weblog - From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 05:03:34 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:03:34 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050330044517.34151.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050329231118.45080.qmail@web25010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <20050330044517.34151.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050330210368bdee5e@mail.gmail.com> I regret not getting to this thread earlier. This is not just about one poll, or one joke. It is important for us all *as editors* to maintain a sense of humor and perspective when making editorial decisions for the encyclopedia. Both larger decisions like this one, and the smaller choices we make every day. Those of you who have not delved into the Britannica may not know this (check out our Category of 1911 Britannica content for examples), but it is peppered with subtle wit. An April Fools' hoax is by its nature something different -- a hoax! an attempt to pull a fast one on the very people we set out to inform! -- and this too has a long and noble tradition within the academic and scientific community. The BBC (both radio and TV), Nature, Discover, and Scientific American have all run regular April Fool's hoaxes (with, I might add, a straight face -- never acknowledging it was a hoax until the following day/issue). And it is a tradition beyond just the English-speaking world. When the Soviet daily /Izvestia/, for the first time ever, ran an April Fools' column in 1988 about Maradona being offered $6M to join Spartak Moscow, do you think it was "for nothing more than some type of thrill" ? Do you think they were relying on their long tradition of reliability and accuracy to tide them through the resulting "misgivings about their reliability"? Certainly not. If anything, they were suggesting to the rest of the world that they had a newfound sense of perspective and balance, and could be expected to exercise common sense and not blindly adhere to their earlier biases. We could do worse than suggest the same. A good joke makes readers smile, gives them reason to browse around, hints that the rest of this fantastic work we are building contains other gems worth searching out and savoring. In this sense, it also fulfills the role of a good FA. The ability to fool around says something subtle but important about the editors and their other work. I don't *want* to read articles edited by humorless geniuses, no matter how factually complete they are. The above are general comments on taking ourselves too seriously. As to the subject line: I voted for putting the disputed article up. I think the joke would be very well received. The academic tradition of April Fool's hoaxes is *not* to give them away by anything other than the outlandishness of their content; but a nice "Featured Article for April 1, 2005" banner at the top and bottom might be in order. On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:45:17 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > > I will not let any mob of people subvert our goal of creating an encyclopedia > just because it it is popular in part of the community. Luckily, that isn't at stake here. Our community exists because it wants to create the world's *greatest* encyclopedia, not just another Britannica. Every single person who voted to put this article on the Main Page wants that. They also recognize that this wouldn't detract from that goal. Not taking ourselves too seriously actually improves the quality of the encyclopedia. Taking oneself too seriously leads to the Britannicas of the world, which are excellent... but limited. -- +sj+ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 05:15:32 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:15:32 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <5422.194.72.110.12.1112196092.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050330151233.33267.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> <5422.194.72.110.12.1112196092.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <742dfd0605033021157dd6bae0@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 16:21:32 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote: > Daniel Mayer said: > > Given the controversial nature of our reliability, this stunt will likely harm us > > more than it is worth. > > Nonsense. The European toilet paper holder article proposed is a > transparent hoax and quite harmless. That Wikipedia cannot ever be more > reliable than its latest edit is intuitively understood by all readers, so > let's not foster the false impression that the situation is otherwise. Aside from the fact that our most strenuous critics will be among those getting a good laugh out of this -- John Dvorak famously inked an April Fool's column of his own ten years ago about Congress banning drinking while 'driving' on the information superhighway -- what Tony is saying is also right. While Wikipedia *can* and will someday become more reliable than that, it is vanity to imagine that any negative results of such a harmless hoax would be even a drop in the present bucket of inserted profanity, POV rants, and image vandalism that plague WP. SJ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 05:26:45 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:26:45 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <20050330204206.17404.qmail@web60601.mail.yahoo.com> <424B36EE.5050903@telus.net> Message-ID: <742dfd060503302126129f1999@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 00:59:09 +0100, Violet/Riga wrote: > May I remind people that the hoax must be done before midday otherwise > "you become the fool". That might lessen the impact of the hoax. Good point :-) And I like the idea of linking "Today's" and "featured article". -- +sj+ , hoping the very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots finish early this year From saintonge at telus.net Thu Mar 31 05:37:49 2005 From: saintonge at telus.net (Ray Saintonge) Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:37:49 -0800 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> Message-ID: <424B8CAD.8090708@telus.net> Deathphoenix wrote: > Geoffrey Burling wrote: > >> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote: >> >>> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia >>>> doing this. >>>> Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. >>> >>> There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. >> >> Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet >> paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like >> [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC? >> >> Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists? > > Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could > use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, > we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a > fake, when in fact, it's not. Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea. Ec From geniice at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 06:23:32 2005 From: geniice at gmail.com (geni) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 07:23:32 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day In-Reply-To: <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:10:53 +0100 (BST), Tony Sidaway wrote: > The Cunctator said: > > On 3/30/05 4:21 PM, "Daniel Mayer" wrote: > > > >> --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > >>> Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > >>> alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > >>> our April Fool's Page." > >> > >> I think that is a great idea. :) > >> > > I think it's profoundly lame. > > > > An April Fool's joke that can't fool anybody is not an April Fool's > > joke. > > > > Thus the word "fool". > > > > I think there is a definite failure to engage with the subject matter > here. Whatever happened to the sweet old idea of just, for one day in the > whole year, doing something unexpected, out of character and insincere? you mean like bucking a trend on the net? Everyone will be doing April Fool's for various values of april the first. It is so last century. -- geni From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 08:51:10 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:21:10 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo Wales de-sysopped In-Reply-To: <20050330212315.17904.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330212315.17904.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <424BB9FE.6050109@gmail.com> Daniel Mayer wrote: >I love it! > >--- "Poor, Edmund W" wrote: > > >>For immediate release: >> >>Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, was de-sysopped today by a coalition >>of rogue admins (the Troll League) and his account blocked indefinitely. >>The new GodKing, Rickk, immediately reinstated >> >>RK weds Helga! The long-awaited wedding will feature mav147 wearing the >>traditional Muslim headscraf (click here for picture). >> >>Kim Jong-Il brings peace to Palestine. The leader of the world's >>remaining Hermit Kingdom outlawed both Judaism and Islam throughout the >>Middle East, replacing all forms of religious worship with the playing >>of old Beatles records. >> >>(I was saving these, but ... ) >> >>Uncle Ed >> >> Haha. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Millionth_topic_pool#Self-referential]. -- Alphax 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 From bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com Thu Mar 31 09:00:13 2005 From: bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:00:13 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0FdWyL00F2E20000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> I sent the message below to the list yesterday, trying to learn if I have any jurisdiction (morally, and by courtesy--I know I haven't legally) over a page in my userspace, namely the ETPH article that has been discussed such a lot on this this list. After all, it's name isn't "European toilet paper holder", it's "User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder". I'm disappointed that none of the experienced wikipedians reading this list has addressed my question, but I suppose it was a difficult one. Anybody? See, if the community goes with Jimbo's 1 April Lame-O-Rama" suggestion, I really would like to be able to stop ETPH from being used for it. Input so far on "User talk:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder" shows that other contributors feel the same way. So, again: anybody? Can/will my userpage be from my userspace untimely ripp'd and used in a way I protest against? Or not? What do you think? Should I hurry up and try to get it speedied? Bishonen Daniel Mayer wrote on 2005/03/30 23:21: > --- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" wrote: > > Just for fun, why don't we have a game on Friday to create an > > alternative main page, linked from the main page? "Click here to see > > our April Fool's Page." > > I think that is a great idea. :) > > -- mav > I think it's a really lame idea. :-( I just joined the mailing list, I hope I'm doing this right. May I ask a question? > Do I get any say in whether or not [[User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder]] is moved out of my > userspace into the article namespace for April 1? >Bishonen From fun at thingy.apana.org.au Thu Mar 31 09:31:34 2005 From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:31:34 +1000 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use "unusual articles" for April Fools day - the fool is they're all (allegedly) true In-Reply-To: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20050331093133.GO23009@thingy.apana.org.au> John Fader (jfader at gmail.com) [050331 10:48]: > ==Things you'll wish you never knew== > ''From wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles|stupidest articles]]:'' "All true and verified." Perfect :-) - d. From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:31:46 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:31:46 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use "unusual articles" for April Fools day - the fool is they're all (allegedly) true In-Reply-To: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> References: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I don't agree with all the suggestions mentioned, but I'd be happy to feature unusual and extremely odd facts from unusual articles for one day under the heading "Things you wish you never knew". (And yes, I know I'm not in charge of DYK) -- GyverMagic On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:48:15 +0100, John Fader wrote: > Web April Fools are very rarely funny, and now everyone does them. > With all respect to those who worked on ours, I'm not sure it is > either (it seems more like an "in joke" for us). > > If we post a fake story, we'll be just the same as Slashdot and the > rest. But we can do better. We have a limitless supply of *real > crap* to draw upon. We can be lighthearted and play with the reader's > credulity just as well by using stuff from [[Wikipedia:Unusual > articles]]. I think all the featured articles in there have all been > on the main page fairly recently, so instead I propose a special > variant of Did You Know to take the place of the featured article on > the main page. For example: > > ==Things you'll wish you never knew== > ''From wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles|stupidest articles]]:'' > > * A 1919 '''[[Boston molasses disaster|molasses explosion]]''' killed 21 people. > * [[Afrikaans language|Afrikaans]] pigs say '''''[[Oink|snork]]''''' > and [[Korean language|Korean]] pigs say '''''[[Oink|kkool]]'''''. And > we can prove it. > * [[John F. Kennedy]] was almost certainly not a '''[[Ich bin ein > Berliner|a jelly donut]]'''. > * '''[[Belly button fluff]]''' is usually blue. Check yours. > * '''[[History of perpetual motion machines|Perpetual motion]]''' is > impossible. Probably. > * [[El Salvador]] and [[Honduras]] fought a '''[[Football War|war]]''' > over the result of a [[Football (soccer)|Football]] match. Don't ask > who won the war. > * The happy [[Ewok]]s won't be happy '''[[Endorian Holocaust|for > long]]'''. Serves 'em right. > * '''[[Le P?tomane|French culture]]''' blows the competition away. > > And use [[Image:Shark big.jpg]] as the image. > > -- > John Fader > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:35:42 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:35:42 +0200 Subject: April Fool contest idea (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featuredarticle) In-Reply-To: References: <424AF6D1.2080008@apple.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 14:52:09 -0500, The Cunctator wrote: > I think it would be fun to redirect people to the wrong languages. it would > be both maddening and it would also promote Wikipedia's cross-language > reach. That's just plain evil! Yes it's funny, but unfortunately I don't think new visitors will appreciate that. -- MacGyverMagic From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:37:58 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:37:58 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <0FdWyL00F2E20000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> <0FdWyL00F2E20000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Message-ID: Wasn't it originally written for April Fools Day? Why are you suddenly objecting against it being used? -- MacGyverMagic From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:39:00 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:39:00 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:April Fool Message-ID: Maybe we should have a cat to tag hoax articles with. And just delete all the untagged hoaxes that come by. -- MacGyverMagic From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:45:28 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:15:28 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Category:April Fool In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424BC6B8.4010004@gmail.com> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: >Maybe we should have a cat to tag hoax articles with. And just delete >all the untagged hoaxes that come by. > >-- MacGyverMagic > > About 2 days ago, this whole thing was sounding rather interesting. Now it's a dead horse that's been flogged, buried, dug up and flogged some more, hung on the castle walls for a few days, and we're still trying to flog it. (No, that wasn't supposed to make sense. Apologies if it did.) In summary: Great idea, if only it had been done 10 years ago. -- Alphax 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 From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 31 09:49:54 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:49:54 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day References: <20050330212142.17287.qmail@web51602.mail.yahoo.com> <2245.192.168.0.9.1112227853.squirrel@happy.minority-report.co.uk> Message-ID: <002d01c535d7$00499430$9e7c0450@Galasien> Tony Sidaway wrote > Can't we just put that lovely toilet roll holder on the front page. > *once*? Has Wikipedia become so anal? Wipe the thought from your mind. And then paper over the cracks. Thought: just make [[April Fool's Day]] the featured article. Charles From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:51:27 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:51:27 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <424B8CAD.8090708@telus.net> References: <20050330130233.27956.qmail@web51608.mail.yahoo.com> <20050330130708.Y61333@agora.rdrop.com> <424B5969.8050906@gmail.com> <424B8CAD.8090708@telus.net> Message-ID: A good alternative, now Bishonen seems to object to the article from his user page to be used. -- MacGyverMagic On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:37:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote: > Deathphoenix wrote: > > > Geoffrey Burling wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote: > >> > >>> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia > >>>> doing this. > >>>> Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. > >>> > >>> There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]]. > >> > >> Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet > >> paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like > >> [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC? > >> > >> Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists? > > > > Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could > > use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, > > we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a > > fake, when in fact, it's not. > > Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true > that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea. > > Ec > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 09:57:30 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:57:30 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use "unusual articles" for April Fools day - the fool is they're all (allegedly) true In-Reply-To: <20050331093133.GO23009@thingy.apana.org.au> References: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050331093133.GO23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: So come over to [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know]]. I'm ready for suggestions on what to include tomorrow. :) On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:31:34 +1000, David Gerard wrote: > John Fader (jfader at gmail.com) [050331 10:48]: > > > ==Things you'll wish you never knew== > > ''From wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles|stupidest articles]]:'' > > "All true and verified." Perfect :-) > > > - d. > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From viajero at quilombo.nl Thu Mar 31 10:59:55 2005 From: viajero at quilombo.nl (Viajero) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:59:55 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 4/1 FA: Nintendo Entertainment System :( Message-ID: <424BD82B.6060303@quilombo.nl> So now his eminent worthiness Mark a.k.a. Raul has decreed that [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] will be the Featured Article tomorrow, despite the overwhelming support for UTPH at [[Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#European_toilet_paper_holder]]. It seems to me a spectacularly lame and unimaginative choice. If running a genuinely ersatz text was too daring, at least we could have run an oddball article that looked like a hoax, but I guess even that was too much for the timid souls at the steering wheel. I am disappointed by the process by which this decision was reached and I especially disappointed by the outcome, but I guess it reflects the fact that Wikipedia EN is overpopulated by geeky teenagers who probably prefer Red Bull to red wine and Game Boys to sex. Signed, Just Another Dinosaur From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 11:08:24 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:38:24 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Ultra slow again - preventing deletion and moves In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <424BDA28.4060009@gmail.com> Violet/Riga wrote: >>In addition my watchlist seems to perpetually consist of "Internal >>error" .... I assume I am not the only one. >> >> > >Nope, you're not! Well I say that but in the last half hour it seems >to be working again - I'll leave the [[WP:RM]] stuff until tomorrow >though. > >~~~~ Violet/Riga > I'm perpetually getting "Internal error" ... on my contributions. It comes up OK the first time, possibly when I select a certain namespace, then crashes when I select a limit or "Hide minor". -- Alphax 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 From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 31 12:51:39 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 04:51:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050331125139.21541.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote: > Those of you who have not delved into the Britannica may not know this > (check out our Category of 1911 Britannica content for examples), but > it is peppered with subtle wit. An April Fools' hoax is by its nature > something different -- a hoax! an attempt to pull a fast one on the > very people we set out to inform! -- and this too has a long and > noble tradition within the academic and scientific community. The BBC > (both radio and TV), Nature, Discover, and Scientific American have > all run regular April Fool's hoaxes (with, I might add, a straight > face -- never acknowledging it was a hoax until the following > day/issue). EB 1911 is also famous for being very POV. Those publications you cited also do not have to be extra careful about their perception - we do. Any hoax that I find in the main namespace will either be moved or deleted as all vandalism should. I like the idea of having a separate hoax Main Page at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005]] and having any hoax "article" at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005/Foo]] with 'Foo' being the 'article' name. A large banner could be on the regular Main Page pointing this the 'new and improved Main Page.' -- mav __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 31 12:53:32 2005 From: charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com (Charles Matthews) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:53:32 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article References: <20050331125139.21541.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006901c535f0$a810e5b0$9e7c0450@Galasien> mav wrote > I like the idea of having a separate hoax Main Page at [[Wikipedia:April > 1, > 2005]] and having any hoax "article" at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005/Foo]] > with > 'Foo' being the 'article' name. A large banner could be on the regular > Main > Page pointing this the 'new and improved Main Page.' Fool banner -> foobar. Well, it's promising. Charles From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 31 12:59:33 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 04:59:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] 4/1 FA: Nintendo Entertainment System :( In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050331125933.83195.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Viajero wrote: > So now his eminent worthiness Mark a.k.a. Raul has decreed that > [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] will be the Featured Article tomorrow, > despite the overwhelming support for UTPH at > [[Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#European_toilet_paper_holder]]. ETPH is not an article - let alone featured. That "article" can and should be on the alternate Main Page at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005]]. A huge banner on the real Main Page could point to the alternate Main Page. > It seems to me a spectacularly lame and unimaginative choice. If > running a genuinely ersatz text was too daring, at least we could have > run an oddball article that looked like a hoax, but I guess even that > was too much for the timid souls at the steering wheel. Sadly [[exploding whale]] was already on the Main Page. As was Emperor Norton of the United States. Either Main Page summary could have been written with a bit more wit to work. I wouldn't mind if we recycled one or the other for just this day though. > I am disappointed by the process by which this decision was reached and > I especially disappointed by the outcome, but I guess it reflects the > fact that Wikipedia EN is overpopulated by geeky teenagers who probably > prefer Red Bull to red wine and Game Boys to sex. I for one prefer sex above all those other things you mentioned. :) -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 31 13:06:36 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:06:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050331130636.77568.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true > that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea. I also very much like this idea. But finding such oddball topics to write about is hard enough. Finding enough to make them feature worthy is even harder. Then there is the time and effort it takes to put the article through FAC. So having an alternate Main Page at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005]] seems to be a good thing to do as well. All the real hoaxes would go there and the stuff that just looks like a hoax but is real content goes on the real Main Page. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From maveric149 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 31 13:15:04 2005 From: maveric149 at yahoo.com (Daniel Mayer) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:15:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: 6667 Message-ID: <20050331131505.89484.qmail@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bishonen wrote: > So, again: anybody? Can/will my userpage be from my userspace untimely > ripp'd and used in a way I protest against? Or not? What do you think? > Should I hurry up and try to get it speedied? Legally you don?t have a leg to stand on since the text on that page in under the GNU FDL. But morally it would be very rude for somebody to use the text in a way you didn?t want since it is clearly marked as being in your userspace. -- mav __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From macgyvermagic at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 13:21:43 2005 From: macgyvermagic at gmail.com (MacGyverMagic/Mgm) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:21:43 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: <20050331130636.77568.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050331130636.77568.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Well, let's get things going then. We need to get this thing up before midnight. On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 05:06:36 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer wrote: > --- Ray Saintonge wrote: > > Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true > > that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea. > > I also very much like this idea. But finding such oddball topics to write about > is hard enough. Finding enough to make them feature worthy is even harder. Then > there is the time and effort it takes to put the article through FAC. > > So having an alternate Main Page at [[Wikipedia:April 1, 2005]] seems to be a > good thing to do as well. All the real hoaxes would go there and the stuff that > just looks like a hoax but is real content goes on the real Main Page. > > -- mav > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 13:23:59 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:23:59 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Use "unusual articles" for April Fools day - the fool is they're all (allegedly) true In-Reply-To: References: <42eaa3d05033016481ae4eb7e@mail.gmail.com> <20050331093133.GO23009@thingy.apana.org.au> Message-ID: <742dfd06050331052352368cf9@mail.gmail.com> Yes, there is a lot of this going on. The list of unusual articles is thoroughly delightful... SJ On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:57:30 +0200, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > So come over to [[Wikipedia talk:Did you know]]. > I'm ready for suggestions on what to include tomorrow. :) > > On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:31:34 +1000, David Gerard > wrote: > > John Fader (jfader at gmail.com) [050331 10:48]: > > > > > ==Things you'll wish you never knew== > > > ''From wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles|stupidest articles]]:'' > > > > "All true and verified." Perfect :-) > > > > > > - 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 > -- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] From alphasigmax at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 13:24:03 2005 From: alphasigmax at gmail.com (Alphax) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 22:54:03 +0930 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 4/1 FA: Nintendo Entertainment System :( In-Reply-To: <424BD82B.6060303@quilombo.nl> References: <424BD82B.6060303@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <424BF9F3.2040100@gmail.com> Viajero wrote: > So now his eminent worthiness Mark a.k.a. Raul has decreed that > [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] will be the Featured Article > tomorrow, despite the overwhelming support for UTPH at > [[Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#European_toilet_paper_holder]]. > It seems to me a spectacularly lame and unimaginative choice. If > running a genuinely ersatz text was too daring, at least we could have > run an oddball article that looked like a hoax, but I guess even that > was too much for the timid souls at the steering wheel. > > I am disappointed by the process by which this decision was reached > and I especially disappointed by the outcome, but I guess it reflects > the fact that Wikipedia EN is overpopulated by geeky teenagers who > probably prefer Red Bull to red wine and Game Boys to sex. > > > Signed, > Just Another Dinosaur How about we run [[Exploding whale]] again - it /looks/ like a hoax, but it isn't. -- Alphax 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 From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 13:35:19 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:35:19 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article In-Reply-To: References: <20050331130636.77568.qmail@web51606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <742dfd0605033105355529d046@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:21:43 +0200, MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote: > Well, let's get things going then. We need to get this thing up before midnight. Having an alternate main page full of hoaxes, as many people have noted, is a poor joke at best. If we tried next year, we could produce an Onion-quality collection of silliness. But that's not a hoax; we could do that on any day at all. Raul, you should have posted to this list about your decision about the FA tomorrow: that is, to ignore the recent poll... The only reason I can see not to run the hoax article is that its writing and humor wasn't tight enough. But it has certainly made a lot of people I know laugh. SJ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 13:48:03 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:48:03 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Jimbo Wales de-sysopped In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <742dfd0605033105483ebe1e91@mail.gmail.com> Updates for the Community Portal, Ed? ;-) On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:02:47 -0800, Poor, Edmund W wrote: > For immediate release: > > Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, was de-sysopped today by a coalition > of rogue admins (the Troll League) and his account blocked indefinitely. > The new GodKing, Rickk, immediately reinstated > > RK weds Helga! The long-awaited wedding will feature mav147 wearing the > traditional Muslim headscraf (click here for picture). > > Kim Jong-Il brings peace to Palestine. The leader of the world's > remaining Hermit Kingdom outlawed both Judaism and Islam throughout the > Middle East, replacing all forms of religious worship with the playing > of old Beatles records. > > (I was saving these, but ... ) > > Uncle Ed > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > -- +sj+ _ _ :-------.-.--------.--.--------.-.--------.--.--------[...] From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 17:29:13 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:29:13 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Today is the LAST DAY to nominate articles for the International Writing contest Message-ID: <742dfd06050331092959eb43c7@mail.gmail.com> If you've seen a wonderful new article this past month, which should be more widely recognized, please submit it to the writing contest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_writing_contest This contest is being held in parallel with the German, Japanese, Dutch, and Ukranian wikipedias. Please contribute to this bit of peaceful international collaboration :-) Cheers, SJ From bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com Thu Mar 31 18:02:53 2005 From: bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:02:53 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote on 2005/03/31 11:37: > Wasn't it originally written for April Fools Day? Why are you suddenly > objecting against it being used? Written for April Fool's day? Why, no, not at all. It was written as a joke between friends, for comedic bonding, it's basically a dialogue. That doesn't show in the product, but then it wasn't written for a product but for the writing process itself, the back-and-forth. Modestly, if we had been going for an April 1 hoax page, I think we could have made a funnier one. But the process has been hilarious, for my taste, and surely harmless to wikipedia, or even beneficial. The contributors are all committed and productive editors, and some of us were getting close to burning out on the project. The joking-around cheered us up. The userspace isn't paper. When there began to *be* a product there, an imperect one, I thought I might nominate it on WP:FAC on April 1. That seemed quite daring--so limited were my horizons! TBSDY preempted the plan by stumbling on the page in February and FAC'ing it on the spot. Proposing it for the Main page for April 1was first done by several people on that FAC vote, not by any of the contributors. But we were quite happy to go along with the idea, and have been promoting it some. I would love to see it used tomorrow, just *not* for some alternative "Click here for how we might have April fool'd you" Main page. That's what I'm objecting to. Please don't, for that purpose, move it, copy it, link to it, or use it. Bishonen From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 31 18:24:41 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:24:41 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> References: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Message-ID: <424C4069.3000202@sprintmail.com> Bishonen would love to have his European Toilet Paper Holder article use as a robust April Fools trick. He just doesn't want it wasted on a feeble substitute gesture. (In case you didn't catch that because it was at the end of his message). Hence the current subject "Lame-O-Rama". Tom Haws "And [the angel] said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." From christiaan at last-straw.net Thu Mar 31 18:28:26 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:28:26 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions In-Reply-To: <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <21951a04ed3115104f484fe0f5f68bcd@last-straw.net> Answers.com response to my query (below): On 31 Mar 2005, at 11:26 am, GuruNet Support wrote: > Dear Christiaan, > > Thank you for contacting GuruNet. > > We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention, Christiaan, > and have forwarded your message to our Engineering Team. The problem > is that we are working from a dump of Wikipedia content, but > apparently, there is no dump of the Commons data. However, our > engineers are aware of the problem and are looking into a solution > that will work best all around. > > We'll let you know when we've deployed a solution to this problem. > Similarly, if you could keep us informed of any development at > Wikipedia regarding this matter, we'd really appreciate it. > > If we can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to > contact us. > > Sincerely yours, > Alan Baklor > GuruNet Customer Support > http://www.gurunet.com > The Answer Engine > On 28 Mar 2005, at 1:32 am, Christiaan Briggs wrote: > >> I sent them the following message via >> http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp >> >> To whom it concerns, >> >> I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from >> Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com >> >> I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on >> Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as >> crediting authors): >> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >> >> From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are >> uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather >> than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a link >> to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full description >> on the Wikipedia page. >> >> So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was >> uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added >> directly to its Wikipedia page): >> http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg >> >> However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that >> matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons >> page): >> http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08 >> -14.jpg >> The info of which you will find by following the link on the page >> above to: >> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004 >> -08-14.jpg >> >> This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as >> we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not >> have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons, >> we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in a >> technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions. >> >> I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this process >> but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this issue at >> their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue at their >> end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image info from >> Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second example above). >> >> I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia >> emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me. >> >> Thanks for your time, >> Christiaan Briggs >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan From anthere9 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 31 18:38:58 2005 From: anthere9 at yahoo.com (Anthere) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:38:58 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Images on Answers.com and copyright conditions References: <423ce2a4a5a8820f0d6b76c60c438184@last-straw.net> <423D2451.5020007@yahoo.com> <84b9e57addca87e61d11dd67060c7b3c@last-straw.net> <42445115.3040809@yahoo.com> <424464F9.5060001@yahoo.com> <03a2075273f7b0533796b04ae6a69ed2@last-straw.net> <21951a04ed3115104f484fe0f5f68bcd@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <424C43C2.8060206@yahoo.com> Very good. Thanks for keeping us informed Christiaan. Ant Christiaan Briggs a ?crit: > Answers.com response to my query (below): > > On 31 Mar 2005, at 11:26 am, GuruNet Support wrote: > >> Dear Christiaan, >> >> Thank you for contacting GuruNet. >> >> We really appreciate your bringing this to our attention, Christiaan, >> and have forwarded your message to our Engineering Team. The problem >> is that we are working from a dump of Wikipedia content, but >> apparently, there is no dump of the Commons data. However, our >> engineers are aware of the problem and are looking into a solution >> that will work best all around. >> >> We'll let you know when we've deployed a solution to this problem. >> Similarly, if you could keep us informed of any development at >> Wikipedia regarding this matter, we'd really appreciate it. >> >> If we can be of any further assistance, please don't hesitate to >> contact us. >> >> Sincerely yours, >> Alan Baklor >> GuruNet Customer Support >> http://www.gurunet.com >> The Answer Engine > > >> On 28 Mar 2005, at 1:32 am, Christiaan Briggs wrote: >> >>> I sent them the following message via >>> http://www.answers.com/main/contact_us.jsp >>> >>> To whom it concerns, >>> >>> I'm writing regarding copyright conditions of images from >>> Wikipedia.org used on Answers.com >>> >>> I noticed recently that many of the Wikipedia images used on >>> Answers.com do not appear to follow copyright conditions (such as >>> crediting authors): >>> http://www.answers.com/library/Wikipedia+Images >>> >>> From what I can tell this problem is restricted to images that are >>> uploaded to Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org (rather >>> than directly to Wikipedia), which results in there only being a >>> link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons page rather than a full >>> description on the Wikipedia page. >>> >>> So for instance this image includes relevant info because it was >>> uploaded directly to Wikipedia (and hence the description was added >>> directly to its Wikipedia page): >>> http://www.answers.com/topic/broads-jpg >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Broads.jpg >>> >>> However this image does not include image info (and nor, for that >>> matter, does it include the link to the relevant Wikimedia Commons >>> page): >>> http://www.answers.com/topic/bees-collecting-pollen-2004-08-14-jpg >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004-08 -14.jpg >>> The info of which you will find by following the link on the page >>> above to: >>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bees_Collecting_Pollen_2004 >>> -08-14.jpg >>> >>> This is obviously not an ideal situation from our point of view, as >>> we'd like to have the image info on the Wikipedia image page and not >>> have to direct people to another page, however, for various reasons, >>> we're stuck with the current setup, which looks to have resulted in >>> a technical hitch causing Answers.com not to follow licence conditions. >>> >>> I'm wouldn't have a foggiest clue about the mechanics of this >>> process but it seems to me that, until Wikipedia deals with this >>> issue at their end, Answers.com still needs to deal with the issue >>> at their end, meaning Answers.com needs to pull the relevant image >>> info from Wikimedia Commons when appropriate (as per the second >>> example above). >>> >>> I'm in contact with administrators and other editors via a Wikipedia >>> emailing list, so I will be sure to pass on any response you send me. >>> >>> Thanks for your time, >>> Christiaan Briggs >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christiaan >> From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 18:56:37 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:56:37 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] A cheerful Fool's compromise Message-ID: <742dfd060503311056636b8e4c@mail.gmail.com> > I agree with Pete's point - I'd very much like to avoid the major fight which seems brewing > over this (quite frankly, I regret ever taking this to a poll in the first place) I think we would all like to avoid that! And when I say "we," I include the 15 or so admins who voted for featuring the article on the Main Page tomorrow. Raul's categorization of this as a disagreement between a mob and a group of respected editors is wishful thinking. The current proposal, to pretend the whole discussion didn't happen, doesn't currently seem to be avoiding a fight... So here is my suggestion: Let's put up a Featured Article blurb about the European toilet paper holder for the first half of the day tomorrow. The previously-scheduled FA blurb (which, as many have noted, has nothing to do with April Fools) can replace it at midday. The former blurb can have "recent featured articles" links to other bizarre featured articles, with the text "featured articles" linking to [[nihilartikel]]. Can someone come up with a suitable banner saying "Featured Article for '''April 1, 2005''' " to put at the top and bottom? Aside from that banner, and the "See also" section linking to [[nihilartikel]] (and other relevant links?), the hoax article could stay in Bishonen's namespace, as another minor clue for the observant. --SJ PS - I was in the library yesterday and to my surprise, found a historical sketch including a toilet paper holder from a da Vinci blueprint for a flush toilet; a sign that the community chose an appropriate topic? I have a photocopy to upload... it is remarkably clear that Leonardo's raised valve design was meant to double as a toilet paper holder. From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Thu Mar 31 20:34:15 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:34:15 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] 4/1 FA: Nintendo Entertainment System :( In-Reply-To: <424BD82B.6060303@quilombo.nl> References: <424BD82B.6060303@quilombo.nl> Message-ID: <3FE2AE20-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> I'm glad to know that we're making personal attacks because of a failure to put fake material on the front page. It displays a maturity and respect for the project that speaks volumes. What? Silent is a volume. -Snowspinner On Mar 31, 2005, at 4:59 AM, Viajero wrote: > So now his eminent worthiness Mark a.k.a. Raul has decreed that > [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] will be the Featured Article > tomorrow, despite the overwhelming support for UTPH at > [[Wikipedia_talk: > Featured_article_candidates#European_toilet_paper_holder]]. It seems > to me a spectacularly lame and unimaginative choice. If running a > genuinely ersatz text was too daring, at least we could have run an > oddball article that looked like a hoax, but I guess even that was too > much for the timid souls at the steering wheel. > > I am disappointed by the process by which this decision was reached > and I especially disappointed by the outcome, but I guess it reflects > the fact that Wikipedia EN is overpopulated by geeky teenagers who > probably prefer Red Bull to red wine and Game Boys to sex. > > > Signed, > Just Another Dinosaur > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > From Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org Thu Mar 31 20:35:52 2005 From: Snowspinner at mail.wikimedia.org (Snowspinner) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:35:52 -0600 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> References: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Message-ID: <79C1754C-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> On Mar 31, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Bishonen wrote: > > Please don't, for that purpose, move it, copy it, link to it, or use > it. > I'm not sure what to point out - no article ownership or the GFDL. -Snowspinner From hawstom at sprintmail.com Thu Mar 31 21:08:49 2005 From: hawstom at sprintmail.com (Tom Haws) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:08:49 -0700 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <79C1754C-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> References: <0FdWyU0285230000.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> <79C1754C-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> Message-ID: <424C66E1.9070801@sprintmail.com> Snowspinner wrote: > > On Mar 31, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Bishonen wrote: > I'm not sure what to point out - no article ownership or the GFDL. Or good manners and common courtesy. Let's Be Nice; it's his personal joke. Tom From bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com Thu Mar 31 22:56:27 2005 From: bishlist at ungoodthinkful.com (Bishonen) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 00:56:27 +0200 Subject: [WikiEN-l] April Fool's Day Lame-O-Rama In-Reply-To: <79C1754C-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> References: <79C1754C-A224-11D9-A32C-000D93AC9B46@engl.uic.edu> Message-ID: <0FeZyA5670D9FFFF.bishlist@ungoodthinkful.com> Snowspinner wrote on 2005/03/31 22:35: > > On Mar 31, 2005, at 12:02 PM, Bishonen wrote: > > > > > Please don't, for that purpose, move it, copy it, link to it, or use > > it. > > > > I'm not sure what to point out - no article ownership or the GFDL. > > -Snowspinner I see what you mean, Snowspinner, I apologize for my poor list skills. I understand that I ought to have repeated passages from the messages I posted earlier today, that addressed these concerns before you voiced them (IMO). I was assuming people would have read and would remember what I'd said, but having followed the traffic for a day, I see that that wasn't very realistic. Sorry, I'm new to mailinglists, I only just joined this one, and I'm a bit out of my depth. Here's what I'd said about ownership and the GFDL in the earlier messages, before making that plea for people to leave ETPH in my userspace: I. >I will only actually do it [[protest against using ETPH for the special April Fool's page]] > if the other contributors want me to. [[Turns out they do.]] II. > [I'm] trying to learn if I have > any jurisdiction (morally, and by courtesy--I know I haven't legally) over > a page in my userspace, namely the ETPH article. [Mav helpfully replied that "morally it would be very rude for somebody to use the text in a way you didn't want since it is clearly marked as being in your userspace."] Hope that helps, and thank you Tom Haws for assuming good faith. I'm female, btw. Bishonen From christiaan at last-straw.net Thu Mar 31 23:18:48 2005 From: christiaan at last-straw.net (Christiaan Briggs) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 00:18:48 +0100 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia == Fox News (was: Friday's featured article) In-Reply-To: References: <424AE71B.9030309@quilombo.nl> <9fff166dd9a4c846bf6acbe360a8795b@last-straw.net> Message-ID: <50fa010f2a5133dc80a172f648794fb2@last-straw.net> As I read your message I really thought I was going to find "April fools!!" at the bottom. Christiaan On 30 Mar 2005, at 9:32 pm, Snowspinner wrote: > OK. Here's the thing I think you may be missing. People are not smart. > My students would not catch a link to Nihilartikle, or whatever the > name is. They would not think that it's April 1st. They would not > figure out the clues that you are suggesting we leave. They would miss > it. They would fall for the joke. > > The problem is that they'd fall for misinformation in an article too. > They're not critical enough. They're not sharp enough to question > everything. And this isn't because they're stupid. It's because, well, > most people aren't smart enough to have well tuned bullshit detectors. > > People think our articles have problems. People think Wikipedia is > full of misinformation, hoaxes, and lunacy. > > Even if April Fool's articles weren't malicious vandalism, quite > frankly, it's not funny. It's too close to the perceived reality, and > it doesn't make any strides towards parody. of the perceived reality. > > -Snowspinner > > On Mar 30, 2005, at 2:14 PM, Christiaan Briggs wrote: > >> Participating in April fools and the phenomena you describe below >> really couldn't be more divorced in my opinion. >> >> Christiaan >> >> On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:48 pm, Snowspinner wrote: >> >>> I meant the suggestion in terms of reputability. I don't think we're >>> seen as having a neo-conservative agenda. But I think we're about as >>> trusted by a lot of people. In fact, I know we are. Five minutes >>> ago, sitting in my office, I heard another TA tell a student not to >>> use Wikipedia as a source because "anyone can edit it" so it must >>> not be reliable. She looked to me for affirmation, and I said that, >>> actually, it's very reliable and that false information gets removed >>> quickly. She wasn't convinced, and told the student not to use it >>> anyway. >>> >>> We can't afford to knowingly post false information. Too many people >>> think we do it already. >>> >>> -Snowspinner From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 23:44:25 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:44:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A cheerful Fool's compromise In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503311056636b8e4c@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd060503311056636b8e4c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050331154470dd8f16@mail.gmail.com> > The previously-scheduled FA blurb (which, as many have noted, has nothing > to do with April Fools) can replace it at midday. ...that is, in the spirit of "your prank should be pulled by midday, or you're the fool..." SJ From 2.718281828 at gmail.com Thu Mar 31 23:44:25 2005 From: 2.718281828 at gmail.com (Sj) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 18:44:25 -0500 Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: A cheerful Fool's compromise In-Reply-To: <742dfd060503311056636b8e4c@mail.gmail.com> References: <742dfd060503311056636b8e4c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <742dfd06050331154470dd8f16@mail.gmail.com> > The previously-scheduled FA blurb (which, as many have noted, has nothing > to do with April Fools) can replace it at midday. ...that is, in the spirit of "your prank should be pulled by midday, or you're the fool..." SJ