body:
--- Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:06:40 -0800 (PST), Puddl Duk
> <puddlduk at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 10:38:43 +0000, Theresa
> Knott
> > > <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:53:06 +0600, Arno M
> > > <redgum46 at lycos.com> wrote:
> > > > >  these always were unsuitable to minors.
> > > >
> > > > Wikipedia is a wiki. That means _anyone_ can
> edit
> > > it, including those
> > > > people who like to prey on children. Wikipedia
> is
> > > not suitable for
> > > > minors and will be banned from schools soon
> enough
> > > anyway in the same
> > > > way that chat rooms are banned from schools.
> > > >
> > > > Wikipedia is an adult encylopedia, and should
> > > cater for adults.
> > > >
> > > > Theresa
> > >
> >
> > 1) Just because preditors may edit wikipedia
> doesn't
> > mean we lack editorial control.
>
> But it does make wikipedia as unsafe as a chatroom
> for children.
>
> > 2) Removing children from the argument doesn't
> really
> > change it. Many adults don't want to run into some
> of
> > this content in an encyclopedia.
>
> I have no argument with that. All i'm saying is
> leave the kiddies out of it.
>
>
> Theresa
>

Writing an encyclopedia should include a sense of who
our target audience is, and this should <help> shape
policy. Rather than preditors defining who we are.

<amended earlier comment>

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] We should not not abide by personal and secret decisions

body:
This is really sick.  Not only were bans supposedly made
against me by four people (out of nine admins, originally),
but they were kept secret.  No one told me.  This is, by
definition, entrapment.

Obviously, we have an out of control system in which two
people with an axe to grind can get someone banned for a
year.  Worse, they did so on th every articles on which I
and others have the most success CO-OPERATING.  Josiah,
JayJG, JFWolff and I have very different ideas about
Judaism, yet we obviously have been able to work on these
Judaism articles.

It was an outside user who does NOT edit on these articles,
Simonides, who was trying to get me banned for personal
reasons.  He also tried to get others banned as well, and
gummed up a number of people in RFCs for months.

So someome is trying to ban me from editing articles,
whilst in full compliance with Wikipedia policy. There is
not a single example of this happening to anyone else,
period.

To put it bluntly, they are making up rules to apply to a
single person that have never been applied to anyone else
in the same situation.  That is not Wikipedia policy; that
is a gross violation of Admin authority, it is a personal
attack, and has no legitimacy.

My record of practical cooperation with others on the
various Judaism articles is just as good as anyone else,
and this attempt by Simonides and his friends and
sockpuppets to ban me is being done out of spite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Judaism

If someone persists in threatening me with this "ban", then
I will have no choice but to report this gross violation of
Admin authority as a personal attack, and issue a RFC
against such people.

Robert (RK)

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list: foundation-l

from_name: Chad Perrin

subject: >>: Re: [Foundation-l] And blocked again

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
> and do not
> understand the situation in other countries than your own!

Perhaps the problem is that you haven't effectively explained why the
suggestions you've been given aren't useful.  There are two components
to understanding: one is being receptive to the information, and the
other is presenting it in an understandable manner.  Consider whether
you've presented it in an understandable manner before blaming others.
Another listmember (sannse) has done an admirable job of presenting your
concerns, I think, and that example is worth noting.

> It is better for me to quit wikipedia and you are to blame.

I disagree with that, even though you weren't talking to me.  Keep in
mind that you can get more done by being nice than by offending the very
people you're asking for help.

--
Chad


list: wikimedia-l


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Alison Russell

subject:
[Wikitech-l] LocalSettings.php file not being created. Connection
	failed.

body:
Installing Wiki on a Stick, so following the document
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_on_a_stick

Installed 1.4beta6 instead of 1.3.10 because of empty page being
displayed(bug #736 in v1.3.x) instead of a 1.3 install success page and
localSettings.php file not being written. Got an error when I hit the
Install! button for v1.4beta6 which I copied below:

MediaWiki 1.4beta6 installation

Please include all of the lines below when reporting installation problems.
Checking environment...

    * PHP 5.0.0: ok
    * PHP server API is apache2handler; ok, using pretty URLs
(index.php/Page_Title)
    * Have XML / Latin1-UTF-8 conversion support.
    * PHP is configured with no memory_limit.
    * Have zlib support; enabling output compression.
    * Turck MMCache not installed, can't use object caching functions
    * Found GD graphics library built-in, image thumbnailing will be enabled
if you enable uploads.
    * Installation directory: W:\www\wi
    * Script URI path: /wi
    * Warning: $wgProxyKey is insecure
    * MySQL error 2003: Can't connect to MySQL server on 'localhost' (10061)

Something's not quite right yet; make sure everything below is filled out
correctly.

Then next to the MySQL server text box, into which I entered localhost, a
red message with Connection failed.

So any ideas? Attached the two log files from Apache folder again, still
don't have any log/error files in \mysql\data\. Are they turned on be
default? and how can I check this?

Any ideas? You help is much appreciated.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

> If you think the ideals on which the Nazi Party traded were overtly
> murderous, you are mistaken.
>
> Essentially, what you're saying appears to be:  "The hammer and sickle
> is okay because it has been sensationalized differently."  That
> roughly equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol."
>
> If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika.  If the
> swastika is "a symbol of a murderous regime," though, then the hammer
> and sickle is as well.  Please, either ascribe abhorrence to both or
> to neither.  I'll respect either decision.  Just don't try to pretend
> that one is okay and the other is not.

Are we talking about the symbol, or what associations have been made to
it?  In your option I would prefer to ascribe abhorrence to neither.
The symbols alone just sit there and do nothing.  It's what people do
with them that makes the difference.

In the same way money is intrinsically worthless.  A dollar bill has
value when you roll it up and use it to snort coke.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] We may not have a policy for only one user

body:
Again, let me stress that it is a gross violation of Sysop
and Admin power to create rules that apply to only one
person, and to no one else. By definition, when Wikipedia
Admins engage in such behaviour, they are violating their
own mandate, and thei "rulings" have no authority and are
not binding.

1* I am not involved in any flame wars.  So why the year
long ban?

  Not a single Wikipedian was ever given a year ban when
they were NOT in a flame war.

2* I am not involved in any revert wars or edit wars. So
why the ban?

3* The supposed problems are in articles in which the
articles HAVE ALREADY BEEN RESOLVED, long ago!  So why the
ban?

  Not a single Wikipedian was ever given a year ban when
parties amicably came to an issue.  It seems that some
Admins are in a near-violent rage that the system actually
worked, and parties peacefully worked out their
differences.  What kind of sick people think that such a
result is grounds for a year long ban?

4* I repeatedly take week-long (or longer) Wiki-breaks
(like the last 10 days) to let things cool down and allow
other people to have their say without any problem.  So why
the ban?

5* I have taken many contentious articles OFF of my
Watchlist, and simply let others do what they want, rather
then engage in multiple arguments.  So why the ban?

6* I have asked for and successfully used mediation when
necessary.  So why the ban?

7* I have been successfully working with a large group of
others on potentially acrimonious articles, without revert
wars, and with great progress being made on many articles.
So why the ban?

I have e-mailed Jimbo Wales about this previously, and he
was unable to come up with a *single* instance of this ever
happening. Ever.  We are unfortunately dealing with a small
number of people abusing their Admin power out of some sort
of personal vengeance.

If it happens to one person, it will happen to others.

What steps should we take next to initiate disciplinary
action against them for these serious violations?

Robert

=====
I?m astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it?s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. - Woody Allen

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from_name: Theresa Knott

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Actually looking at this users editing behaviour it is pretty clear
that this is not a new user at all. This is a sockpuppet account
created to troll.

Theresa


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Charles Matthews wrote:

> You have no idea about my intentions, so leave it out.

Ditto.  Does that make my point clear enough for you?

>
> I note that you posted 14 times to this list yesterday.  On one thread,
> which I was not reading.  That strikes me as quite enough traffic.

Many of my posts have been for the purpose of defusing possible
flare-ups.  On the other hand, I wasn't aware there was a post quota as
well as a "no flames" policy.

>
> If you can't take a reasonable prompt that this is not UseNet, then that
> would be your problem.  The fact that you typed a two-paragraph reply to my
> mail, and hit return, all within three minutes, strikes me as good evidence
> that you are a hasty, combative poster.

Actually, I just type quickly (typically close to 100wpm), and my
computer beeps when new email arrives.  It kinda comes with the
necessities of one of my jobs.  Claims that you understand my intentions
based on how quickly I offer responses are spurious at best.

>
> Now, if you have anything to post about improving the English Wikipedia,
> please do so.

Yes, I have:  Don't try to demonize me.  You can make veiled threats
about shutting me up all you like, but the fact remains that you've made
inaccurate statements about my actions and intentions, and you don't
seem to care that I tried to correct those innacuracies.  I even
apologized for my misstep, but (again) you don't seem to care.

I've made my point to my own satisfaction.  If you insist on continuing
to berate me for something I haven't done, you can do so without my help.

--
Chad


subject: [WikiEN-l] new user

body:
JAY JG wrote:

>> Look what the cat dug up:
>>    [[User:NSM88]]
>
> In case people here aren't aware, when neo-Nazis use the number "88"
> it is code for "Heil Hitler", "H" being the 8th letter of the alphabet.

Such a usage on their part is wasted if their potential audience does
not know that.

Ec


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: the Epopt of Boskone

subject:
avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads
	in	Wikipedia?)

body:
> NSK said:
> > Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia?
> > it's  because I know that nobody will know that an article or paragraph
> > was written  by me.
>
> Good grief, is that what it's all about?

And I thought /I/ was arrogant and self-centered....


from_name: Arno M

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Controversial articles (was Writing about sexual topics
 responsibly is not censorship)

body:
" I really cannot blame parents, school boards and other community leaders
if they act to prevent children from accessing graphic images such as a
bloke sucking himself off, but such action would also deny children
access to thousands of well-researched articles which are not in
themselves offensive.

This is going to happen anyway.  We have an article on Donkey Punch and
one on Dirty Sanchez, and those alone, unillustrated, are enough to take
Wikipedia well out of the realm of the child-safe."

There are quite a few other problem articles in wikipedia. Examples are articles like f**k, articles with porn links like the one on porn queen Jenna Jameson, articles with pictures of or links to extreme violence like the Nick Berg one (I said nothing at the time, but the decision to have that photo showing his severed head published - even through a link and with a warning - was a disgrace) - these always were unsuitable to minors.

--
_______________________________________________
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http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Whitespace in articles

body:
It doesn't matter whether the editor puts a space after * or #, since the decoding will insert one regardless of whether there is one, none, or several.

RickK

Tomer Chachamu <the.r3m0t at gmail.com> wrote:
Can anybody explain policy on whitespace? Specifically:

1) On lists (* and #) should there be spaces after those stars and hashes?
2) In headings (===Text===) should there be spaces, as in "=== Text ==="?
3) Should there be blank lines before/after these headings?
4) Should there be blank lines at the end of articles, i.e. before and
after interwiki links and category inclusions? This often causes an
(IMO) unsightly amount of blank space at the end of an article.
5) When and why were interwiki and category links moved to one a line?

I seem to have done a lot of contributions related to whitespace
recently (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=R3m0t
and previous pages) and I'm wondering whether I am indeed making
correct changes.

Thanks, Tomer Chachamu
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Writing about sexual topics responsibly is not
	censorship

body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:
> Christiaan Briggs wrote:
>
>> The thing is Nicholas, you're argument that you shouldn't have to jump
>> through hoops to not see the image is just as valid for those who wish
>> not to jump through hoops to see the image. And you're the one wanting
>
>
> How do you decide you _want_ to see the image before knowing what the
> image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have no idea what
> it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they do _not_ want to
> see a photograph of it. If the image is unconditionally inlined, you've
> removed that choice from them.

That argument runs both ways, I'm afraid.

--
Chad


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I have e-mailed Jimbo Wales about this previously, and he
> was unable to come up with a *single* instance of this ever
> happening. Ever.  We are unfortunately dealing with a small
> number of people abusing their Admin power out of some sort
> of personal vengeance.

Robert,

The small group of people can grow. I suggest you learn and move on.
We all try to get along, and be courteous and professional to each
other. Not abiding by the rules denotes an unwillingness to work with
other people, and this only leads to isolation. You put your seatbelt
on when you drive around, no? Some rules do benefit both society and
you. Enjoy.

=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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body:
Skyring wrote:

> I was thinking along the lines of a "printed" Wikipedia and a
> "working" Wikipedia. The "printed" version could be what you describe
> above, perhaps under a different name of Brikipedia or Slikipedia or
> Chikipedia.org, and it could be printed on demand or distributed on CD
> or made available on the web, the selling point being that it is
> accurate, uptodate and free of nasty surprises such as lewd images or
> vandalised articles. Possibly the lewd images could be available if
> you jump through a few hoops, click on a warning notice and provide a
> credit card merely for verification purposes. <g> Meanwhile the
> Wikipedia we know and love keeps on churning away in all its glory
> producing an uptotheminute and occasionally shocking encyclopaedia
> with all the merriment and mayhem of edit wars, debates over clitoral
> images and so on.
>

I find it quite interesting that, after all this debate, we've ended up
with a suggested solution that involves pretty much realizing the dream
that started all this wacky Wikipedia fun: an encyclopedia on every
schoolchild's desk.

--
Chad


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
Nicholas Knight said:
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>> Nicholas Knight said:
>>
>>>Because instead of letting the user choose to see the image by
>>>clicking
>>> one link, you require them to disable ALL images, then reenable ALL
>>>images, in order to see that one image.
>>
>>
>> The precise arrangements depend on the browser design.  I believe the
>> experience you describe pertained to some of the earlier browsers,
>> such as NCSA Mosaic.  Good modern browsers allow a lot of fine
>> control.
>
> The experience I describe pertains to Firefox, the only browser I make
> meaningful use of, and which had its 1.0 release late last year.

I also use the current production version of Firefox, and for me switching
images on and off is a single mouseclick or a single shortcut key.  It may
be that you are not making the best use of your browser's available
controls.


from_name: Zoney

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 05:40:19 -0700, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> How is that different from the hammer and sickle?
>
> Fred
>

I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi
regime with Soviet Russia.

I would think the Hammer and Sickle is not as immediately abhorrant a
symbol (although admittedly I am not in the US).

Zoney

--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


body:
John Lee said:
> We are still presuming that our reading audience overlaps a lot
> with our  technically-inclined editors!

Not really.  Browser operation requires no technical skills beyond the
ability to use a mouse.


from_name: David Gerard

body:
Tony Sidaway (minorityreport at bluebottle.com) [050215 12:04]:

> Yes, we must get it right.  But there are no intrinsically unpleasant
> images, just ones that are useful in an article and ones that are not.
> I've already explained why I think autofellatio is an excellent case of an
> article that needs a photographic illustration.  We should be able to
> display that illustration without apologising, and it really would help if
> people would learn how to operate their web browsers.

One reason it needs a photograph, as opposed to a line drawing, is to
demonstrate at a glance that it's actually possible!

Expecting people to learn how to use their web browsers is possibly asking
a bit much - almost 90% still use Internet Explorer (though less on
Wikipedia). A preference to disable all images *is currently in the works*.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
> The hammer and sickle has much wider acceptance.  It's still the symbol of
> Aeroflot, it's a popular design on t-shirts and the like, and variants
> incorporating the hammer and sickle or other work-related symbols (spade,
> torch and hoe in the case of the British Labour Party's old symbol) have
> enjoyed considerable popularity and virtually no controversy.  The regime
> was murderous but the ideals it traded on were not.

I'm sure you can find millions of kulaks who would politely disagree
with you.  No, wait, you won't -- they all starved to death.


body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 13:04:30 -0500, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
>
>>Nicholas Knight wrote:
>>
>>>How do you decide you _want_ to see the image before knowing what the
>>>image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have no idea what
>>>it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they do _not_ want to
>>>see a photograph of it. If the image is unconditionally inlined, you've
>>>removed that choice from them.
>>
>>That argument runs both ways, I'm afraid.
>
>
> I don't understand. How does it run both ways?
>

Allow me to present an edited version, prepared for the purpose of
supporting the opposing view:

"How do you decide you _don't want_ to see the image before knowing what
the image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have no idea
what it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they _do_ want to
see a photograph of it. If the image is removed from the page, you've
removed that choice from them."

I added "ease of" for purposes of accuracy: it should have been included
in the original comment by NK as well, for precision, since one can use
browser preferences to block images.

--
Chad


body:
Nicholas Knight said:
>
> Tag controversial images, preferably into a couple categories (nudity,
> blood/gore, could probably think of one or two other good ones). Let
> the  user set a preference for their defaults (maybe give them a toggle
> they  can hit at will while browsing to turn all on/off), and then let
> them  easily select single controversial images to display. There are
> several  options for the last part, Javascript being the easiest, and
> it can be  combined with a server-side mechanism for those that have
> disabled or  lack Javascript support.
>
I think this is a sensible solution, though the tagging leaves it open to
some abuse. For instance the category of images containing nudity contains
some images that most of us would probably agree the user would not expect
to be blocked--some sacred pictures from the Sistine Chapel ceiling are in
there because they happen to contain representations of naked people.
This isn't an unsolvable problem, but we would get some edit wars arising
and the effect of such tag wars on individual browsing experiences could
be quite widespread.  Perhaps the browsing categories should be protected
and some kind of VfD/RfM-style process used for placing images into
categories.
That does look like a very workable approach.


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] management

body:
I have a journalist... looking for a wikipedian (or not) who might
report on his use of wikipedia in his working environment.

But he wants someone working in private firm rather, not a student, not
a teacher, not a researcher...

He would need an interview as soon as possible, in english is possible.
This interview is meant for a french paper (monthly publication I think)
on management (so read by a lot of managers of private business firms).

The interview would probably require citing the person name (real name)
and likely a picture as well.

Right now, we could not succeed to find such a person.

If you are in such a situation, please contact him at serge.courrier
(AT) pobox.com.

Thanks a lot for your help for a desesperate journalist who will not
close his article as long as he has not found such a person

Anthere


from_name: Matt R

body:
 --- Tony Sidaway <minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> John Lee said:
> > We are still presuming that our reading audience overlaps a lot
> > with our  technically-inclined editors!
>
> Not really.  Browser operation requires no technical skills beyond the
> ability to use a mouse.

After having spent many long hours trying to explain some very basic computing
concepts to my parents, I'm going to have to disagree.

Matt

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: management

body:
I hope I do not disturb this list too much in proposing another topic of
discussion than artificial languages and ads... but right... we know
little of our end users.

We know OURSELVES.
We do not know WHO read the encyclopedia.

WHO ?

Anthere a ?crit:
> I have a journalist... looking for a wikipedian (or not) who might
> report on his use of wikipedia in his working environment.
>
> But he wants someone working in private firm rather, not a student, not
> a teacher, not a researcher...
>
> He would need an interview as soon as possible, in english is possible.
> This interview is meant for a french paper (monthly publication I think)
> on management (so read by a lot of managers of private business firms).
>
> The interview would probably require citing the person name (real name)
> and likely a picture as well.
>
> Right now, we could not succeed to find such a person.
>
> If you are in such a situation, please contact him at serge.courrier
> (AT) pobox.com.
>
>
> Thanks a lot for your help for a desesperate journalist who will not
> close his article as long as he has not found such a person
>
> Anthere


from_name: Skyring

body:
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:08:31 -0500, Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 09:45:29AM +1100, Skyring wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:20:45 -0800 (PST), Rick <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > We've had this discussion on several pages.  Nobody can agree on
> > > what "explicit images" means.  Do we slap that tag on the pictures
> > > from Abu Graib?  From Auschwitz?  From Dresden?  How about images of
> > > Adolf Hitler and George Bush?
> >
> > I would say that images which would not normally be found in school
> > encyclopaedias or museums such as the Smithsonian would be a good rule
> > of thumb, and I'm not just talking about sexual images.
>
> The Smithsonian, of course, is the work of the U.S. government, which
> has all manner of politically-driven standards it must follow.  This is
> not a problem we have.

Indeed not. Nevertheless, the standards are there and doubtless drive
the public perception of what is proper to display to the public in
general and schoolchildren in particular.

> > I was in the Holocaust Museum in Washington a few weeks back and
> > although schoolchildren are welcomed and encouraged to attend, certain
> > exhibitions had warnings posted at the entrance. And rightly so.
>
> I was in the National Museum of the American Indian a few months ago.  I
> was surprised by how -little- there was about the bloodier and more
> unpleasant parts of the history.  I don't know if that's because the
> museum operators chose to exhibit mostly "friendly" or "politically
> correct" bits, or because people with a well-deserved grudge didn't care
> to participate in creating the museum.  Or maybe I somehow missed the
> wing with the smallpox blankets and the Trail of Tears.

You are correct, but I think you are reading more into my example than
was ever put into it. Certainly Wikipedia does not seem to suffer from
any such coyness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Trail_of_Tears

> > I don't think there is any hard and fast guide as to what exactly
> > makes an image offensive, disturbing or explicit, but I think that the
> > Wikipedia community could be trusted to find a consensus on a case by
> > case basis. My feeling is that the Autofellatio photograph would be
> > generally agreed as being one that should not be generally accessible
> > to schoolchildren.
>
> My opinion is that the Autofellatio photograph is not a very good image
> for an encyclopedia ... *not* because it depicts a man licking his
> penis, but because it is stylistically poor and unfitting.
>
> Likewise, my opinion is that the Goatse.cx image is not fitting for
> Wikipedia because displaying it is far too close to *participating* in
> the trolling-behavior with which that image is so closely linked.
>
> Schoolchildren don't much enter into it.

Perhaps we are beating different drums. I don't particularly care
about such images. In the grand scheme of Wikipedia they are trivia.
What I do care about is the spectre of some hardliner with a huge
television following deciding that such images make Wikipedia
unsuitable for children, demonstrating how easily such images may be
accessed, and mounting a crusade against Wikipedia with the objective
of forcing schools and parents to boycott this thing of ours.

> > I use schoolchildren as an example, not because I want to emasculate
> > or prudify Wikipedia to the level that it offends nobody, but because
> > schoolchildren are prime users of information resources such as
> > Wikipedia, and the last thing we should do is to make it difficult for
> > them to use Wikipedia. I know that some people here think that
> > individula users should accept all responsibility, but many teachers
> > and parents don't see it that way.
>
> I'm guessing that by saying that we would "make it difficult for school-
> children to use Wikipedia" you mean that by depicting sexuality frankly
> we would tickle the sensors of [[censorware]] programs, causing
> Wikipedia to be blocked.

No.

> Sadly, there are many fools in the world, and fools appear to be the
> chief market for censorware.  Both the flaws and the deliberate biases
> of popular censorware products have been more than adequately
> demonstrated.  We are talking about software which already regularly
> blocks educational material on breast cancer and HIV/AIDS; which has
> been found to selectively block pro-choice (abortion-rights) sites but
> not pro-life (anti-abortion) sites; and which in one case has blocked
> TIME Magazine's Web site when TIME criticized censorware.
>
> (See http://www.peacefire.org/info/blocking-software-faq.html.)
>
> I don't see any way Wikipedia can benefit from kowtowing to that kind of
> nonsense.  If Wikipedia is blocked by censorware, so much the worse for
> censorware; it will be one more illustration of its uselessness and one
> more charge to be brought against its use.

I agree, but the inevitable result of allowing offensive images,
especially sexually explicit images, to be freely available to anyone
who looks up Wikipedia is that there will be strong and vocal
opposition, and millions of US schoolchildren will be denied access.
The more well-known Wikipedia becomes, the sooner this will happen. I
really cannot blame parents, school boards and other community leaders
if they act to prevent children from accessing graphic images such as
a bloke sucking himself off, but such action would also deny children
access to thousands of well-researched articles which are not in
themselves offensive.

> > I was engaged in discussion in another forum, and someone brought up
> > an example of the Wikipedia article on the Nile River. An innocuous
> > article, one might imagine, but it so happened that at the time my
> > correspondent was opening it up for the benefit of a schoolchild it
> > had recently been vandalised and consisted of nothing but obscenities.
>
> This sounds to me like you're comparing people who upload controversial
> images with people who vandalize Wikipedia.

No. I've moved on to another topic now.

>  That doesn't seem to me
> like a very productive comparison to make.
>
> > Maybe we should be thinking about having default material that is
> > known to be in a useful and "safe" state and that the "live" material
> > can only be accessed by specifically setting some flag or clicking on
> > an accept button or some similar mechanism.
>
> Wikipedia's job is to describe the world, and the world is "live" and
> not "safe", too.

The world also includes bigots and religious crusaders with huge
followings, and I make no doubt that they do not share your opinions.
--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: management

body:
Anthere said:
> We do not know WHO read the encyclopedia.

When I was at the Grauniad we commissioned a company to come and attach to
the site, for a period of some weeks, a pop-up survey that was seen by a
randomly selected subset of users, who then would have the option of
filling it in.
You can also learn a certain amount by looking at web server logs.
Country of origin, ISP, and some information about the software being used
to browse.  Also Referer (where Wikipedia is reached as a result of an
external link on another website.) With tracker cookies (a form of
spyware) you may also find out which other sites are being visited.  A
benign use of this latter technique would be an in-house domain-wide
tracker that would record the Wikipedia sister sites that have been
visited by a user.  This latter technical information wouldn't tell us
about our users so much as how Wikipedia was being used.  How much was
from academia, how much from school networks, how much from different
countries and different ISPs, and so on.


from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Zoney wrote

> I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi
> regime with Soviet Russia.

You could be wrong about that.

> I would think the Hammer and Sickle is not as immediately abhorrant a
> symbol (although admittedly I am not in the US).

I think that's a reasonable opinion.  Perhaps it should be phrased that the
intentions of those displaying symbols of the USSR are typically rather
different.

Charles


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Nicholas Knight said:
>
>
>>Tag controversial images, preferably into a couple categories (nudity,
>>blood/gore, could probably think of one or two other good ones). Let
>>the  user set a preference for their defaults (maybe give them a toggle
>>they  can hit at will while browsing to turn all on/off), and then let
>>them  easily select single controversial images to display. There are
>>several  options for the last part, Javascript being the easiest, and
>>it can be  combined with a server-side mechanism for those that have
>>disabled or  lack Javascript support.
>>
>>
>>
>I think this is a sensible solution, though the tagging leaves it open to
>some abuse. For instance the category of images containing nudity contains
>some images that most of us would probably agree the user would not expect
>to be blocked--some sacred pictures from the Sistine Chapel ceiling are in
>there because they happen to contain representations of naked people.
>This isn't an unsolvable problem, but we would get some edit wars arising
>and the effect of such tag wars on individual browsing experiences could
>be quite widespread.  Perhaps the browsing categories should be protected
>and some kind of VfD/RfM-style process used for placing images into
>categories.
>That does look like a very workable approach.
>
>
>
Great! If we have both Nicholas and Tony in agreement on this, we have
the beginnings of a consensus. Possibly we need different tags for
{{artistic nudity}} and {{hardcore porn}}, and we can argue on the
nuances that lie inbetween? Let's develop some tag classes, and then get
tagging! Then we can worry about what we do with the tag information later.

-- Neil


from_name: NSK

subject: avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service adsin	Wikipedia?)

body:
On Tuesday 15 February 2005 12:55, John Lee wrote:
> > NSK wrote:
> > You allow these people to put their names and biographies
> > in the articles they write
>
> hell will freeze over before we do that.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Fred Bauder said:
> You are probably not in Eastern Europe either.

The swastika is illegal in Germany and some German politicians have called
for a Europe-wide ban on use of that symbol.  The BBC reported that senior
Christian Democrats and Social Democrats were taking this suggestion
seriously.  A group of politicians from Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia,
Hungary and the Czech Republic asked for a matching ban on the red star
and the hammer and sickle.  I think it's unlikely that either ban would
gain widespread enough support to pass, but if forced to choose I'd say
the German ban had far more chance of passing.


body:
On Tuesday 15 February 2005 13:33, John Lee wrote:
> Signing people's names on articles? You've got to be kidding me. They
> get the history and their own user page already, and that's enough.

No, it's not. Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia? it's
because I know that nobody will know that an article or paragraph was written
by me.

On our projects, such as http://www.nerdypc.org , we give credit for every
contributed paragraph or section. We even allow our authors to choose what
licence they like (but contributing to an existing article means using the
same licences).

For example, see at http://nerdypc.wikinerds.org/index.php/Zsync :

"[...] requests from the server on a second round-trip transmission. This
paragraph contributed by Antaeus Feldspar."

"[...] but the .zsync attribute file need not be on the same server as the
actual file. This paragraph contributed by ssd."

(this text is GFDL1.2 and CC-By-SA-2)

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


body:
John Lee said:
>>
> I'd love to see you say that to the people who pour into Mozillazine
> for  tech support everyday. Browser operation is simple? True in
> theory, but  in practice....
>
There are people who have problems programming the timer on their video
recorders.  This doesn't mean that the broadcasters must make arrangements
on behalf of those people.


body:
NSK said:
> Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia?
> it's  because I know that nobody will know that an article or paragraph
> was written  by me.

Good grief, is that what it's all about?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:34:16 -0800, the Epopt of Boskone
<sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi
> > regime with Soviet Russia.
>
> I have to agree with Zoney here: few would consider them equivalent.
> Soviet Russia was directly responsible for an order of magnitude more
> deaths than the Nazis, and indirectly responsible for two orders of
> magnitude more.
>

I do not doubt that assertion, but it's more to do with the specific
circumstances involved. Eastern Europe was mentioned. Well, the USSR
sure wanted to control those countries, but the complete eradication
of their peoples was not attempted (even if less "total" activities
were going on). I don't doubt many in Eastern Europe would not like to
see a hammer and sickle, but I don't think it's remotely comparable to
what the Swastika stands for to Jews.

And also, if we are to begin considering "indirect deaths", well, the
US is responsible for quite a lot "indirectly".

Zoney
--
~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
On Tuesday 15 February 2005 13:35, Theresa Knott wrote:
> What did he actually do that was blockable?

He displayed Nazi symbols on his userpage. He must be blocked. Please don't
let Wikipedia to become Nazipedia.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Wouter Vanden hove

body:
Marco Krohn wrote:
> nevertheless I very much agree that the Wikipedia is
> very good concerning mathematical topics.
>
>
>>That and the meltdown of another similar math project.
>
>
> which is?

MathWorld
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/faq.html#shutdown
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/erics_commentary.html

wouter vanden hove


body:
Neil Harris said:
>>
> Great! If we have both Nicholas and Tony in agreement on this, we have
> the beginnings of a consensus. Possibly we need different tags for
> {{artistic nudity}} and {{hardcore porn}}, and we can argue on the
> nuances that lie inbetween? Let's develop some tag classes, and then
> get tagging! Then we can worry about what we do with the tag
> information later.

I don't think we should have a "hardcore porn" category, on the grounds
that pornography usually means material with no other meaningful purpose
than to sexually stimulate the viewer, and this purpose is not consistent
with Wikipedia's goals.  "Photographic depictions of sex acts", "Line
drawings of sex acts", etc, would probably be the right category for most
material that, if viewed outside the context of an encyclopedia, would
tend to be pornographic.
"Artistic nudity" is a bit too general--the term has been used to describe
cheesecake and posed erotica that has no artistic merit.  Again I'd be
inclined to stick to clinical descriptions rather than risk opening the
debate on artistic merit.  Thus Leonardo's famous Vitruvian Man (currently
one of the inmates of the "images containing nudity" category) would be in
"line drawings where genitals are visible" or something.


body:
John Lee said:
> support from a plain vanilla install without any
> add-ons

Seems a little specific.  A bit like "until you can hit that target while
facing the other way, blindfold while whistling Dixie".


from_name: James Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] RK, naughty pictures, and how better to flame me

body:
Anthere is entirely right about RK's notification -- I
botched it badly, and have apologized about four
times, but I'll do it again if necessary.  No
sanctions should apply to RK for any editing of
Judaism-related articles prior to his having been
informed upon his return.  However, RK, I hope you
will consider calming your rhetoric about the
allegedly unusual punishment levied against you.
Theresa has given you excellent advice which I hope
you will take.  If you don't want to appeal to the AC,
talk to Jimbo -- if he feels you were unfairly treated
(which I think you implied in your comment about an
email you received from him), surely he has the right
(some would say the responsibility) to reverse the
decision.  Either way, I am sure that both the AC and
Jimbo would appreciate your handling the matter as
calmly as possible -- I certainly wasn't "out to get
you" when I voted on the arbitration decision against
you, and I doubt other arbitrators were either.  If we
truly erred in our decision, I have faith it will be
remedied.

Regarding the recent brouhaha over the photos, what
I'll say is this.  If Wikipedia decides as a community
it will display explicit photos of sexual acts, then I
won't stop editing, but I'm afraid I'll have to stop
recommending it to most of the people I currently
recommend it to (normally families with bright teenage
children, given my work in a high school).  You can
call me, my friends, and my acquaintances all the
names you like (compare us to Nazis, if Godwin will
let you), but those are the cold hard facts.

And I have to be honest: I will probably not choose to
introduce my students to Wikipedia with a class
project (as I had hoped to do) if the photos are
displayed inline.  Too many questions to have to
answer to administrators (real-life school ones)
about.  Again, you can call us censorious or
narrow-minded or anything you like, but as long as I
want to call myself employed, I'll have to live that
way.  I don't know if you think Wikipedia will lose
much by my ceasing to advocate it to every man, woman,
and child I talk to.  I'll let you decide for
yourself: certainly I don't think it's much of a
threat in strictly numerical terms (it won't affect
Wikipedia's pocketbook or editor population by more
than a few hundred bucks or a few editors either
direction)!  But it's the reality of the situation,
and I think all the talk about browsers, etc.
(frankly, I think 90%+ of our reader population either
doesn't know how to shut off photos or considers it
too great a hassle for WP to be worthwhile, but that's
unsubstantiated guesswork) ignores the truth of the
situation.

Noble principles are fine and all that, but even the
most remarkably open free speech laws recognize that
there are some kinds of speech not suitable to all
occasions.  Now go ahead and yell at me -- if you want
ammo, I use IE and subscribe to Christian moral and
ethical principles.  I'm sure someone can make use of
those against me. :-)

All my best to all of you, who keep my inbox full and
my brain moving.  I wish you good fortune this cold
February,

James W. Rosenzweig
jwrosenzweig at yahoo.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today!
http://my.yahoo.com


subject: top posting (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user)

body:
> Wouldn't it be better to top-post...?
> --
> NSK
> http://portal.wikinerds.org

 +-------------+
 | Do Not Feed |
 |  the Troll  |
 +-------------+
       ||
      _||_


body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:09:56 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Skyring said:
> >
> > I agree, but the inevitable result of allowing offensive images,
> > especially sexually explicit images, to be freely available to anyone
> > who looks up Wikipedia is that there will be strong and vocal
> > opposition, and millions of US schoolchildren will be denied access.
> > The more well-known Wikipedia becomes, the sooner this will happen. I
> > really cannot blame parents, school boards and other community leaders
> > if they act to prevent children from accessing graphic images such as a
> > bloke sucking himself off, but such action would also deny children
> > access to thousands of well-researched articles which are not in
> > themselves offensive.
>
> This is going to happen anyway.  We have an article on Donkey Punch and
> one on Dirty Sanchez, and those alone, unillustrated, are enough to take
> Wikipedia well out of the realm of the child-safe.  If we can agree that
> there will be a demand for a child-safe fork of Wikipedia, let us start
> formulate the policies and mechanisms that will enable us build it in
> tandem with the main one.  There's no need for us to bowdlerize our main
> fork if all we need do is produce a child-safe website containing filtered
> content on those subject that would be of interest to K12.

You're right. It's not just images.

A thought occurred to me that it would be reasonably easy for any
zealot to show that Wikipedia is the devil's tool. Just as we get
vandals who think it is fun to replace a well-presented informative
article on the River Nile with a few obscenities - and this is
literally child's play - so too we might get zealots who can arrange
for an article to contain objectionable material just in time for them
to "discover" it at a press conference.

"Here is Wikipedia's article on Our Lord, Jesus Christ," the Reverend
Hardmind might say, opening up the article and showing that the
Messiah is bending over to receive the divine blessing of twelve
disciples, their robes around their ankles and their smiles around
their ears.

Never mind that the image was inserted only minutes previously. The
damage has been done.

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
On Tuesday 15 February 2005 14:26, slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> the Nazis, so that edit amounted to vandalism, as did changing the
> "wars against Jews" on [[Jew]] to the "wars caused by Jews." Admins

This is typical trolling-vandalism behaviour. I am sure all experienced
wikipedians can recognise this behaviour and I hope we all agree that this is
a banable offence.

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Chad Perrin

body:
sannse wrote:
>
>
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>> Allow me to present an edited version, prepared for the purpose of
>> supporting the opposing view:
>>
>> "How do you decide you _don't want_ to see the image before knowing
>> what the image is about? Someone going to [[Autofellatio]] may have no
>> idea what it's about, but once they know, may be quite sure they _do_
>> want to see a photograph of it. If the image is removed from the page,
>> you've removed that choice from them."
>
>
> What a beautifully written argument for linking the image rather than
> showing it inline.  I agree with you completely.

Intentionally misinterpreting my point is hardly a valid argument.

--
Chad


from_name: Delirium

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: management

body:
Anthere wrote:

> We do not know WHO read the encyclopedia.
>
> WHO ?

My guess would be that the majority of our readers don't read Wikipedia
on purpose, but stumble here either through links to a specific article,
or google hits on a specific article.  (We might get some sense of
whether that's true by analyzing the referrer data in the logs.)

-Mark


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: management

body:
Delirium wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> We do not know WHO read the encyclopedia.
>>
>> WHO ?
>
>
> My guess would be that the majority of our readers don't read Wikipedia
> on purpose, but stumble here either through links to a specific article,
> or google hits on a specific article.  (We might get some sense of
> whether that's true by analyzing the referrer data in the logs.)
>
> -Mark

I suspect you're quite right in that supposition.

--
Chad


body:
Karl A. Krueger said:
>
> Trying to reach out to the censorious by dropping the nekkid pixx0r is
> a waste of time.  They *don't care* if we have nekkid pixx0r or not;
> our evil is obvious in that we don't parrot their party line about
> whatever hot-button issue they fuss about.
>

Hear hear!  I couldn't have put it better myself.

Let's not kid ourselves that Wikipedia will ever be suitable for schools.
My son says his school blocked access to *any* site whose contents could
be altered in realtime by people other than the site owners--that includes
forums as well as Wikis. I can see their point and I think they're being
very sensible.
The grundies, on the other hand, are not going to be satisfied.  The best
we can do is limit the damage by admitting that no public Wiki can ever be
considered child-safe.  The kids will still come and read Wikipedia, and
learn from it, but they'll do so with the thrill of transgression.  This
is not a bad thing.  Wikis are, or should be, powerful weapons against
ignorance.  It's as well that we should not appease our natural enemies.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject:
avoiding forks (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] public service ads in
	Wikipedia?)

body:
On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 01:26:55 +1100, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> I use my full name (rather than a net handle) on Wikipedia because it seems
> more proper, and also the credit clearly then goes to ME ME ME ME ME.
> Have they seen the history pages? It's usually clear which two or three
> editors are primarily responsible for an article text.

Less clear than it might be. On a minor page you have to check about
10 edits to see that there are 1 or 2 people who wrote almost
everything. On pages with much traffic it's more like checking 50 to
find 5 of them.

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] And blocked again

body:
Does anyone have to say anything about this? Or should I just start to
collect Japanese IP-addresses to block them on nl: to get a reaction?

Andre Engels

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:35:02 +0700, Walter van Kalken
<walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> Well it was nice for the 2 or 3 hours I was able to do something. I am
> blocked yet again op Japanese wikipedia.
>
> Waerth/Walter van Kalken


subject: [Foundation-l] And blocked again


subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan

body:
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:13:42 +0700, Walter van Kalken
<walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> How do I think you can solve this? On dutch nl: I am a sysop and a
> proponent of hard blocking policies. If somebody vandalizes they get
> blocked for 24 hours, period. I heard there are problems on Japanese
> wikipedia with getting sysops and there is a shortage of hands so that
> is why Japanese as the only wikipedia decided to block open proxies. So
> you need to get more sysops.

I find it rather strange for you to call for hard blocking policy.
Apparently you don't mind blocking someone because there are 2 vandals
on the same computer or same IP-address, and yet you are complaining
for being blocked because there are 50 in the same country. Is there
that much difference?

Andre Engels


subject: [Foundation-l] Blocking on Japan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>> Apparently, to you, killing someone for being a Jew is more wrong than
>> killing someone for speaking out of turn.  To me, it's equivalent in
>> either case, because in both cases it is murder.
>
>
> The idea of "hate crimes" is a fairly recent one.  This would mete out
> punishment according to the intentions of the person doing the killing.
> If a "hate crime" deserves harsher punishment, then a "love crime" such
> as euthanasia clearly deserves more lenient treatment.

If this was the proper venue and email thread for that discussion, I'd
make some well-supported ethical arguments against separating "hate
crime" from similarly malevolent crime.  Since it's not, though, I'm
just noting that I take issue with that division of crime types.

This doesn't in any way mean I think anyone should be more lenient on
"hate crimes": only that non-"hate" crimes should not be held to a
different standard.

>>> And also, if we are to begin considering "indirect deaths", well, the
>>> US is responsible for quite a lot "indirectly".
>>
>>
>> Let's not start with the circumstantial ad hominem comparisons.  It
>> would be nice if you'd retract that statement.
>
>
> I see nothing "ad hominem" in that general statement.  No specific
> individual is being attacked.

circumstantial ad hominem (as distinct from the more commonly recognized
argumentum ad hominem):  the logically fallacious use, as an argument,
of unflattering comparisons between disreputable or otherwise disliked
figures with other participants in a debate, often achieved by
implication rather than explicit statements

All "ad hominem" means is "to the person", in essence.  An "argumentum
ad hominem" or "ad hominem argument" is an argument that references the
person, rather than the opposing argument.  A "circumstantial ad
hominem" is an implication of the person circumstantially with some
subject of discourse, in this case mass-murdering tyrannical regimes.

The reference to the US had no value in proving the repugnance of the
swastika in relation to other symbols, though it was an effective
implication of unflattering comparisons of American participants in the
debate to certain widely-loathed 20th century tyrants and their governments.

--
Chad


from_name: John Lee

body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Skyring said:
>
>
>>I agree, but the inevitable result of allowing offensive images,
>>especially sexually explicit images, to be freely available to anyone
>>who looks up Wikipedia is that there will be strong and vocal
>>opposition, and millions of US schoolchildren will be denied access.
>>The more well-known Wikipedia becomes, the sooner this will happen. I
>>really cannot blame parents, school boards and other community leaders
>>if they act to prevent children from accessing graphic images such as a
>>bloke sucking himself off, but such action would also deny children
>>access to thousands of well-researched articles which are not in
>>themselves offensive.
>>
>>
>
>This is going to happen anyway.  We have an article on Donkey Punch and
>one on Dirty Sanchez, and those alone, unillustrated, are enough to take
>Wikipedia well out of the realm of the child-safe.  If we can agree that
>there will be a demand for a child-safe fork of Wikipedia, let us start
>formulate the policies and mechanisms that will enable us build it in
>tandem with the main one.  There's no need for us to bowdlerize our main
>fork if all we need do is produce a child-safe website containing filtered
>content on those subject that would be of interest to K12.
>
>
I strongly disagree. This is the web, yes, but there are quite a number
of people who just want to be able to browse and read about sexual
topics without being exposed to outrageous photographs "in your face".
There is minimal harm done in linking or having a tiny thumbnail linking
to the larger image. Appropriate encyclopedic images should be kept, but
should not be thrust in our readers' faces. It's just plain common
sense. It's the same reason we don't directly link to Goatse; we err on
the side of caution. The same applies here.

I prefer linking, actually, because it's only one click away for those
who want to view it. It's five clicks on the other hand for those who
don't want to view it. Assuming the two groups are equal, the decision
is common sense.

There's a dimension I feel everyone in this debate has been missing. It
doesn't matter that the image is harmless or that a thumbnail hurts
nobody or that censorship is wrong or that most of us aren't really
offended. What matters is what our readers think. Like it or not, our
readers are still squeemish about these things. It doesn't matter that
four billion people won't be offended by these images if the other two
billion are the only ones who have access to Wikipedia and a substantial
number of them are offended. These people will not like it, even if it's
just a tiny thumbnail. They have no good reason; all they know is they
don't like it. And until the other four billion gain access to Wikipedia
or the two billion stop being "prudes", we have to live with it.

Without editors, Wikipedia is nothing. Without readers, Wikipedia is
nothing. We, editors, cannot impose our opinions on the readers. And a
substantial amount of our readers are offended by inline images of a man
sucking his dick. It's simple as that. It doesn't matter *why* they're
offended; nothing we say can change their minds. They'll just leave,
with probably a bad thing or two to say the next time they hear the word
"Wikipedia".

Remember, our image is integral as well. No matter how we try to
convince people, the damage has been done if we allow seriously
offensive images to be displayed inline. For most people who can read
Wikipedia, it's just too much to take. They don't care; they don't want
the image shoved in their face or their kids' face or anyone's face.
Whether they have a good reason or not, it doesn't matter. We cannot and
should not persuade them to change their opinion.

I think this dispute marks a critical turning point in our history -
will the readers' or editors' interests triumph? It's interesting here,
because the editors are under no obligation to continue work, and there
is substantial overlap between readers and editors. Our case is unique,
and the only reason the editors' interests have held out so long is
because until now, most readers have also been editors. That is no
longer the case. Wikipedia is reaching for a broader audience everyday,
and we must cater to this audience which is considerably more
conservative and technology-averse than our traditional editors.

This image dispute is not the only example of readers versus editors;
just look at the efforts to move editor-only templates to the talk pages.

Until recently, the interests of most editors and most readers
overlapped. This is no longer the case, and we can no longer assume
people will understand how or why Wikipedia works, nor can we assume
they will make an effort to do so. We now have to respond to consumers'
needs appropriately, and how well we do this will be a significant
indicator of Wikipedia's viability.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Tony Sidaway wrote:

>Nicholas Knight said:
>
>
>>_I KNOW HOW TO OPERATE MY WEB BROWSER!_ I shouldn't have to make five
>>mouse clicks (or two keystrokes and three mouse clicks at most
>>efficient) to avoid seeing this crap in a general-purpose encyclopedia.
>>
>>
>>
>Could you explain why you used the word "crap" in the above explanation of
>why you don't want to use your browser controls?  Do you consider five
>mouseclicks to be more or less pleasant than viewing something you,
>personally, have assessed as "crap"?
>
>
It's one click for someone who desires the image. It's five clicks for
someone who doesn't desire the image. If both groups are equal (and
knowing Wikipedia's audience, they won't; guess which group is larger?),
who should have to make the sacrifice?

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Chad Perrin wrote:
>
>> If you think the ideals on which the Nazi Party traded were overtly
>> murderous, you are mistaken.
>>
>> Essentially, what you're saying appears to be:  "The hammer and sickle
>> is okay because it has been sensationalized differently."  That
>> roughly equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol."
>>
>> If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika.  If the
>> swastika is "a symbol of a murderous regime," though, then the hammer
>> and sickle is as well.  Please, either ascribe abhorrence to both or
>> to neither.  I'll respect either decision.  Just don't try to pretend
>> that one is okay and the other is not.
>
>
> Are we talking about the symbol, or what associations have been made to
> it?

Yes.

> In your option I would prefer to ascribe abhorrence to neither.
> The symbols alone just sit there and do nothing.  It's what people do
> with them that makes the difference.

Great.

>
> In the same way money is intrinsically worthless.  A dollar bill has
> value when you roll it up and use it to snort coke.

. . . or make little bowtie shapes as party favors.  Currency is only a
means of keeping track of trade value: it is not the value itself.  I
agree with you 100% on that.

--
Chad


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:24:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>>Chad Perrin wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If you think the ideals on which the Nazi Party traded were overtly
>>>murderous, you are mistaken.
>>>
>>>Essentially, what you're saying appears to be:  "The hammer and sickle
>>>is okay because it has been sensationalized differently."  That
>>>roughly equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol."
>>>
>>>If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika.  If the
>>>swastika is "a symbol of a murderous regime," though, then the hammer
>>>and sickle is as well.  Please, either ascribe abhorrence to both or
>>>to neither.  I'll respect either decision.  Just don't try to pretend
>>>that one is okay and the other is not.
>>
>>Are we talking about the symbol, or what associations have been made to
>>it?  In your option I would prefer to ascribe abhorrence to neither.
>>The symbols alone just sit there and do nothing.  It's what people do
>>with them that makes the difference.
>>
>>In the same way money is intrinsically worthless.  A dollar bill has
>>value when you roll it up and use it to snort coke.
>>
>
>
> Any chance of you'all taking this to private email? You are no longer
> discussing  a wikipedia related issue.
>

Actually, I think we just reached an at least two-person consensus on
the principle behind a wikipedia-related issue.  In any case, I have no
problems taking it off-list if any more discussion is needed, and I'll
shut up now (barring further wikipedia-related discussion to which I
wish to respond).

--
Chad


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:

>On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:24:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Chad Perrin wrote:
>>
>>
>>>If you think the ideals on which the Nazi Party traded were overtly
>>>murderous, you are mistaken.
>>>
>>>Essentially, what you're saying appears to be:  "The hammer and sickle
>>>is okay because it has been sensationalized differently."  That
>>>roughly equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol."
>>>
>>>If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika.  If the
>>>swastika is "a symbol of a murderous regime," though, then the hammer
>>>and sickle is as well.  Please, either ascribe abhorrence to both or
>>>to neither.  I'll respect either decision.  Just don't try to pretend
>>>that one is okay and the other is not.
>>>
>>>
>>Are we talking about the symbol, or what associations have been made to
>>it?  In your option I would prefer to ascribe abhorrence to neither.
>>The symbols alone just sit there and do nothing.  It's what people do
>>with them that makes the difference.
>>
>>In the same way money is intrinsically worthless.  A dollar bill has
>>value when you roll it up and use it to snort coke.
>>
>>
>Any chance of you'all taking this to private email? You are no longer
>discussing  a wikipedia related issue.
>
>
Theresa, have you already forgotten that you were the one who started
this thread just because you didn't like someone having Nazi symbols on
his user page.

Determining whether the Hitler, Stalin or Bush regimes were in fact
murderous may indeed be outside the scope of this mailing list, but
addressing how we handle symbols is very much on topic.  It is certainly
more on topic than an extensive thread about trivialities such as
autofellatio.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin said:
>
> The swastika has been used for other
> purposes for hundreds of years before World War II, including as a
> Christian symbol, while the hammer and sickle went from obscurity to
> symbol of an oppressive, mass-murdering regime in a relative blink of
> an  eye.
>
The hammer and sickle has much wider acceptance.  It's still the symbol of
Aeroflot, it's a popular design on t-shirts and the like, and variants
incorporating the hammer and sickle or other work-related symbols (spade,
torch and hoe in the case of the British Labour Party's old symbol) have
enjoyed considerable popularity and virtually no controversy.  The regime
was murderous but the ideals it traded on were not.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin wrote

> Apparently, to you, killing someone for being a Jew is more wrong than
> killing someone for speaking out of turn.  To me, it's equivalent in
> either case, because in both cases it is murder.

There is a policy on this list about personal attacks.

Charles


subject: [Foundation-l] On the blocking of anonymous proxies

body:
Wikipedia is in no way under an obligation to allow anyone to speak
out on their pages, just like a publisher is not under an obligation
to publish your book. I very much am opposed against blocking
anonymous proxies on sight (at least, beyond what is necessary to stop
actual ongoing vandalism), but there are no first amendment rights
violated.

Wikipedia is giving certain means of communication to some, in fact to
many, people. It is under no legal obligation to do so, nor to extend
this possibility in any way. We are not forbidding or disabling you or
anyone else to speak out their mind. We are just restricting who can
use OUR material to do so.

Andre Engels

On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 19:43:14 -0500, Charles Podles
<charles.podles at gmail.com> wrote:
> An anonymous user posted the following on
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Blocking_policy :
>
> == Blocking anonymizer's proxies is unconstitutional ==
>
> *'''The right to anonymous free speech is protected by the 1st
> amendment of the US constitution.'''
>
> *'''Anonymity--the ability to conceal one's identity while
> communicating--enables the expression of  political ideas and the
> practice of religious belief without fear of intimidation or public
> retaliation.'''
>
> :''Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse.
> Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express
> critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny
> of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill
> of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect
> unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an
> intolerant society.''
> :<small>Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission,
> 1995.</small>
>
> Some Wikipedia members (sysops) have implemented a policy to routinely
> block users that choose to post using an anonymous proxy
> ([[Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Anonymous_and_open_proxies]])
>
> These members of Wikipedia have decided to block the ability of people
> to the right of anonymity giving reasons related to the need to curb
> vandalism of articles.
>
> These are not sufficient reasons to limit my liberties and the
> liberties of others. The WP community is strong enough to withstand
> vandalism, without resorting to these measures.
>
> Case in point: On February 9, [[User:David.Monniaux]] blocked IP
> address 168.143.113.125 (anonymizer.com), a respected and paid service
> for anonymous browsing. This IP address was used by hundreds of WP
> users that wanted to protect their anonymity.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=168.143.113.125.
> The steps taken by David Monniaux in blocking of that IP address have
> been disputed by me.
> ([[Talk:French_legislation_against_cult_abuses#Controversy_with_an_anonymous_user]].
>
> I kindly request Wikipedia editors to re-open the debate about the
> right of the people to contribute to Wikipedia while protecting their
> rights to free speech, and to curb sysop powers to utilize blocking
> policies.
>
> Copies of the above have been sent to:
> * The Electronic Privacy Information Center http://epic.org/
> * The Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/
> * The American Civil Liberties Union http://aclu.org/
>
>  --[[User:38.119.107.72|38.119.107.72]] 23:53, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


body:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 03:59:39 -0000 (GMT), Tony Sidaway
<minorityreport at bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Skyring said:
> >
> > "Here is Wikipedia's article on Our Lord, Jesus Christ," the Reverend
> > Hardmind might say, opening up the article and showing that the
> > Messiah is bending over to receive the divine blessing of twelve
> > disciples, their robes around their ankles and their smiles around
> > their ears.
> >
> > Never mind that the image was inserted only minutes previously. The
> > damage has been done.
>
> That will happen and it's only a matter of time.  Okay, I know this sounds
> like Chicken Licken, but I think it's inevitable.
> If schools and parents like Wikipedia's content we should provide it, but
> not in raw Wiki form.  Then when the good reverend fulminates against
> Wikipedia's editing engine we can just turn around and say that's just the
> workfloor, not the version schoolkids see.  We come clean, we admit that
> a full-blown Wiki is not a suitable environment for teaching and it's no
> place to leave your kids unattended.
> It should be possible to scan Wikipedia for about 5000 articles that would
> be useful to K12, choose a reasonably stable version and check it for
> suitability.  Remove sections if necessary.  Then store that in a
> MediaWiki running with editing turned off and you have the start of a
> school Wikipedia.
> We could rely on the pride of individual editors to perform the task of
> reviewing and copy-editing their own copies of candidate articles in
> userspace and submitting for the school wiki.  Use an appointed standards
> committee of trusted editors to vet the content.

Do I detect a certain amount of tongue in cheek above?

I was thinking along the lines of a "printed" Wikipedia and a
"working" Wikipedia. The "printed" version could be what you describe
above, perhaps under a different name of Brikipedia or Slikipedia or
Chikipedia.org, and it could be printed on demand or distributed on CD
or made available on the web, the selling point being that it is
accurate, uptodate and free of nasty surprises such as lewd images or
vandalised articles. Possibly the lewd images could be available if
you jump through a few hoops, click on a warning notice and provide a
credit card merely for verification purposes. <g> Meanwhile the
Wikipedia we know and love keeps on churning away in all its glory
producing an uptotheminute and occasionally shocking encyclopaedia
with all the merriment and mayhem of edit wars, debates over clitoral
images and so on.

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: [WikiEN-l] Reply to Tony, David, and Christiaan

body:
Sorry, I get mine in digest form -- I'm sure I'm
breaking a thread.

Tony's reply to me included the following:

> In my opinion we should just stick
> it into "What
> Wikipedia is not".  Wikipedia is not a
> classroom-friendly environment.

If this is true, Tony (and perhaps it is), I think
it's sad.  Part of the vision Jimbo often shares is
the idea of sending Wikipedia to poor schools in
developing nations -- I'd hate to think we were
abandoning that dream.  If we are, maybe I need to
take some time and think about what I'm really doing
at Wikipedia: granted, the ideal of zero censorship is
its own noble enterprise, but is it the noble
enterprise I signed on for?  A difficult question. I'm
not advocating paranoia (deleting all sex-related
articles and pretending humans are born under
cabbages).  I'm suggesting that there is a difference
between an article seriously detailing what a sexual
practice is and an article with a picture of a man
sucking his penis.  The first one I can see in a
school -- perhaps a liberal-minded school, but a
school nonetheless.  I can't really envision a school
where the picture is acceptable.  Maybe I'm not
imaginative enough.

David Gerard commented in reply to me:

> What other classes of photos would you require be
> links rather than inline
> in this case, and would the planned option to have
> images as either links
> or inline be of use in this context?
>
> - d.

David, I'm not completely clear what you're asking me.
 If I understand you correctly, I'd argue that any
explicit depiction of violent killing or dismemberment
would also qualify as a linked photo topic.  Again,
it's not because Wikipedia should describe in detail
the horror of what humanity does to humanity.  It's
that seeing it visually depicted can be overwhelming.
We should absolutely talk about Nick Berg.  We should
absolutely give people the opportunity to watch a
video of what happened to Nick Berg.  I don't think it
therefore follows that we need to stream that video
into the article directly.  The goal is to educate and
inform.  If people honestly can't see a
difference....well, I'm baffled, and I guess I'll have
to think about how to explain the distinction.  And
the suggested option would be a good one, David,
assuming that the default was to link.  If the default
is "inline", that means that most of the users we'll
drive off will be driven off, since they'll see
whatever image shocks them before they discover the
toggle switch in "my preferences".

Christiaan said in reply to me:

> > sexual acts, then I  won't stop editing, but I'm
> afraid I'll have to
> > stop recommending it to most of the people I
> currently recommend it to
> > (normally families with bright teenage children,
> given my work in a
> > high school).
>
> If they're bright I'm sure they'll make their own
> way here.
>
> Christiaan

I'm sure they will, Christiaan.  I'm not suggesting
that what I do is all that remarkable.  But I am sure
we all do recommend the site to others (I'm personally
responsible for about a dozen people knowing and
relying on Wikipedia for information, though sadly all
refuse to edit -- I'm sure most of you have invited
many more than I have), and so I think it's legitimate
to ask us all to consider whether we will still do
this.

Recently, in my area, the publically owned television
station (a type of tv called "Public Access" in my
area) banned a program from its channel that was
broadcasting pornographic images (the program was
called "Mike Hunt TV"....say it a few times fast if
you don't get it).  "Mike" argued that the airwaves
were public, and he had as much right as the next
person to say and show what he liked on his program.
Personally, I ended up disagreeing with him: no one I
know watches the informative programming on Public
Access, mostly because it has become known as a home
for pornographic images and lunatic POV rants.  I'd
like it if Wikipedia didn't become Public Access -- if
people didn't worry about clicking a Wikipedia link at
work or in front of their kids (just as people in my
area now don't often click to Public Access to see
what's on....because they fear they know exactly what
will be on).

Are we making a usable encyclopedia, or an experiment
in free speech and democracy?  We seem to keep saying
we're an encyclopedia project.  Well, if we are, I
think we need to ask ourselves how to reach the
broadest possible audience with the most possible
information.  If that's not the goal of an
encyclopedia, I don't know what is.  And it seems to
me that providing linked images provides almost the
same breadth of information, while improving the size
of our audience by a measurably larger amount.

Thanks for taking me seriously -- always makes me feel
better, even when everyone disagrees with me. :-)

James R.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin

> It's not a personal attack.  It's a statement of my analysis of your
> apparent views on the matter.  I didn't say "Apparently, to you, killing
> someone for speaking out of turn isn't wrong."  What I said was that you
> apparently think it's MORE wrong to murder someone for ethnic reasons
> than politically oppressive reasons.  If that is not the case, you might
> want to think about the logical contradiction in your earlier statements.
>
> To claim I'm making a personal attack is to misrepresent my words and my
> intentions.  I don't think you're doing so intentionally, but that
> opinion will change if you continue to do so after I've explained it for
> you.

Slow down.  I haven't been in dialogue with you.  I didn't say anything
other than that there is a policy on personal attacks.

Since you apparently are getting me confused with Zoney, I suggest you are
posting hastily, and without regard to the purpose of the list.  Just back
off, will you?

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin said:
>
> Essentially, what you're saying appears to be:  "The hammer and sickle
> is okay because it has been sensationalized differently."  That roughly
>  equates to saying "It's no big deal: it's just a symbol."

Absolutely.  I also don't think it's good to get worked up about the
crucifix, which has been used as a symbol of hatred from time to time.
Or, for that matter, the swastika.>
> If it's just a symbol, the same is true of the swastika.

Quite.  But it is the case (and I don't condone this) that the symbol is
banned in Germany and seen as extremely insensitive in most of Europe.
Thugs don't generally daub the hammer and sickle on people's gravestones.
If my son went out wearing a hammer and sickle t-shirt his friends might
think, at most, that it was either rather stylish or a bit old school; if
he went out wearing a swastika they probably wouldn't even talk to him.
I'm simply describing a situation that pertains in my country and in most
European countries.  I didn't invent it.


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
> From: "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:43:06 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice about an abusive editor?
>
>
> Some time ago I criticized user:Xed on his/her talk page for insulting a
> notable wikipedian without justification.
>
> Xed responded on my talk page with "Fuck off you little shit" -- you can
> see the brief exchange that ensued here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slrubenstein#Small_mind
>
> Now, normally I reach a point where I am able just to ignore such
> irritants.  But when someone stops writing on my talk page, and e-mails me
> directly, I kinda feel they have crossed a line.  I just received this e-mail:
>
>> X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
>> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:46:13 GMT
>> X-Authentication-Warning: tingxi.wikimedia.org: apache set sender to
>> wiki at wikimedia.org using -f
>> To: Slrubenstein <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
>> Subject: Cunt
>> From: Xed <xed2507 at yahoo.co.uk>
>> X-Mailer: MediaWiki interuser e-mailer
>> X-PMX-Version: 4.7.0.111621, Antispam-Engine: 2.0.2.0, Antispam-Data:
>> 2005.2.15.12 (pm8)
>> X-PMX-Information: http://www.cns.ohiou.edu/email/filtering/
>> X-PMX-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CT 0, __CTE 0,
>> __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_MAILER 0, __MIME_VERSION 0,
>> __SANE_MSGID 0'
>>
>> It's interesting to read here:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt
>> that "North Americans generally find the word more offensive than the
>> British and Australians; in Britain, unlike in America, "cunt" can be used
>> as a jovial term of endearment in specific contexts"
>> As someone quotes on my talk page, "Thank God it was the convicts and not
>> the puritans".
>> What a sycophantic cunt your are.
>> Love,Xed
>
> I'd appreciate it if someone would either calm me down, or suggest what
> kind of disciplinary actions may be appropriate at this point.
>
> 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


body:
I think emails of this nature should be considered as we deal with a user
who indulges in them.

Fred

> From: "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:43:06 -0500
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Advice about an abusive editor?
>
>
> Some time ago I criticized user:Xed on his/her talk page for insulting a
> notable wikipedian without justification.
>
> Xed responded on my talk page with "Fuck off you little shit" -- you can
> see the brief exchange that ensued here:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slrubenstein#Small_mind
>
> Now, normally I reach a point where I am able just to ignore such
> irritants.  But when someone stops writing on my talk page, and e-mails me
> directly, I kinda feel they have crossed a line.  I just received this e-mail:
>
>> X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
>> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:46:13 GMT
>> X-Authentication-Warning: tingxi.wikimedia.org: apache set sender to
>> wiki at wikimedia.org using -f
>> To: Slrubenstein <rubenste at ohiou.edu>
>> Subject: Cunt
>> From: Xed <xed2507 at yahoo.co.uk>
>> X-Mailer: MediaWiki interuser e-mailer
>> X-PMX-Version: 4.7.0.111621, Antispam-Engine: 2.0.2.0, Antispam-Data:
>> 2005.2.15.12 (pm8)
>> X-PMX-Information: http://www.cns.ohiou.edu/email/filtering/
>> X-PMX-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CT 0, __CTE 0,
>> __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_MAILER 0, __MIME_VERSION 0,
>> __SANE_MSGID 0'
>>
>> It's interesting to read here:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt
>> that "North Americans generally find the word more offensive than the
>> British and Australians; in Britain, unlike in America, "cunt" can be used
>> as a jovial term of endearment in specific contexts"
>> As someone quotes on my talk page, "Thank God it was the convicts and not
>> the puritans".
>> What a sycophantic cunt your are.
>> Love,Xed
>
> I'd appreciate it if someone would either calm me down, or suggest what
> kind of disciplinary actions may be appropriate at this point.
>
> 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_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
NSK wrote:
> Anyone knows how to make KMail display my signature properly in topposting?

No, and it probably doesn't support such, since top posting is Bad and
Annoying and the KMail developers know what they're doing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

references:
<BE373BC3.BC00%fredbaud@ctelco.net>	<BE373C10.BC05%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<4cc603b05021504443e553ec5@mail.gmail.com>

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:
> Also, he claims to be from Tampa Bay, yet writes in British English.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Ta_bu_shi_da_yu&diff=prev&oldid=10286449

I was born, raised, and still live in southern Washington State and my
writing style is a bastardized version of Commonwealth, American, and
"are you completely nuts?" English. Someone's writing style is not
exactly a foolproof method of determining their location.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Chad Perrin wrote:
>>
>>> Apparently, to you, killing someone for being a Jew is more wrong
>>> than killing someone for speaking out of turn.  To me, it's
>>> equivalent in either case, because in both cases it is murder.
>>
>> The idea of "hate crimes" is a fairly recent one.  This would mete
>> out punishment according to the intentions of the person doing the
>> killing.  If a "hate crime" deserves harsher punishment, then a "love
>> crime" such as euthanasia clearly deserves more lenient treatment.
>
> If this was the proper venue and email thread for that discussion, I'd
> make some well-supported ethical arguments against separating "hate
> crime" from similarly malevolent crime.  Since it's not, though, I'm
> just noting that I take issue with that division of crime types.
>
> This doesn't in any way mean I think anyone should be more lenient on
> "hate crimes": only that non-"hate" crimes should not be held to a
> different standard.

Ultimately we agree.  A person killed in a hate crime is no more or less
dead than one killed in the course of a bank robbery.

The lack of malevolence is a strong argument in favour of
decriminalizing euthanasia.

>>>> And also, if we are to begin considering "indirect deaths", well, the
>>>> US is responsible for quite a lot "indirectly".
>>>
>>> Let's not start with the circumstantial ad hominem comparisons.  It
>>> would be nice if you'd retract that statement.
>>
>> I see nothing "ad hominem" in that general statement.  No specific
>> individual is being attacked.
>
> circumstantial ad hominem (as distinct from the more commonly
> recognized argumentum ad hominem):  the logically fallacious use, as
> an argument, of unflattering comparisons between disreputable or
> otherwise disliked figures with other participants in a debate, often
> achieved by implication rather than explicit statements
>
> All "ad hominem" means is "to the person", in essence.  An "argumentum
> ad hominem" or "ad hominem argument" is an argument that references
> the person, rather than the opposing argument.  A "circumstantial ad
> hominem" is an implication of the person circumstantially with some
> subject of discourse, in this case mass-murdering tyrannical regimes.
>
> The reference to the US had no value in proving the repugnance of the
> swastika in relation to other symbols, though it was an effective
> implication of unflattering comparisons of American participants in
> the debate to certain widely-loathed 20th century tyrants and their
> governments.

While I can readily recognize that there is such a phenomenon as
"circumstantial ad hominem", I still can't see how it applies to the
present circumstances.  While the disreputable figures may have been
very well identified, it strains the imagination to attempt to identify
which participants were being thus compared.  Any participant who so
imagines himself to be the subject of such comparisons by virtue of that
simple statement could very well be the victim of his own paranoid
imagination.

The reference to the US may reflect upon the leadership of the US, whose
stars and stripes are viewed by some with equal repugnance.  But to the
best of my knowledge the members of that leadership are not participants
in our debate, and none of us living outside of the United States has
suggested that our American participants should be held responsible for
the excesses of their government.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> The United States manipulates symbols when it requires schoolchildren to
> recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Per multiple Supreme Court decisions, no one can be required to recide
the Pledge of Allegiance. Whether or not peer pressure causes unwilling
recitation is another matter.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Whitespace in articles

body:
Tomer Chachamu wrote:
> 5) When and why were interwiki and category links moved to one a line?

I think this is a personal style thing, but I should note that issues
similar to this have been argued over for years in programming circles.
General consensus from programming applied here would tend to advise
interwiki and category links be one per line. It limits visual clutter
and eases editing.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> Are we talking about the symbol, or what associations have been made
>> to it?
>
> Yes.

Some years ago, when I was working in the administration of pensions for
a large insurance company someone answered the application question,
"Are you single, married, widowed or divorced?" in exactly the same
way.  :-)

Ec


body:
the Epopt of Boskone wrote:
>  +-------------+
>  | Do Not Feed |
>  |  the Troll  |
>  +-------------+
>        ||
>       _||_

Who is this guy, and can someone please block him?


from_name: Mark Williamson

body:
Yeah.

If you don't want to edit Wikipedia, then just don't edit Wikipedia
and leave us alone.

Mark

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 12:49:23 -0800, the Epopt of Boskone
<sean at epoptic.org> wrote:
> > NSK said:
> > > Have you ever wondered why I rarely edit at Wikipedia?
> > > it's  because I know that nobody will know that an article or paragraph
> > > was written  by me.
> >
> > Good grief, is that what it's all about?
>
> And I thought /I/ was arrogant and self-centered....
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

body:
John Lee said:
>
>
> Until we can have an option of viewing the same document with or
> without  potentially offensive images, we *must* err on the side of
> caution and  provide a link. It's the same as not directly linking to
> Goatse but  giving users' an option to visit the site if they *really*
> want to. Why  should this be any different? Is not directly linking to
> Goatse  attempting to control how you see the world?
>
I still think you're grossly mischaracterizing the inline option.
Inlining does not force the browser to download the image, or to display
it even if it does.  The browser issues a HTTP GET and obtains the HTML of
a page and renders that page.  This may or may not involve the browser
issuing more HTTP GETs in order to obtain the binary of the images
referred to in IMG tags embedded in the HTML.  It's entirely under the
control of the browser and thus, subject to browser design and selection,
under the control of the user.
So users *already* have the option of downloading only those images that
they want to see.  In the worst case they can run lynx in a cmd window
(Windows) or xterm (MacOS, BSD, Linux).
In addition, users can control their stylesheets (either by the on-site
override or using their browser controls) and use this to suppress image
display.
You may say "until", I say that what you propose is available to our users
*now*.
"Oh but it's too complicated", I hear you say. "Our users are Moms and
Dads, not geeks."  Well people will say precisely the same thing when you
have your on-site image controls.  Even a straightforward "reload without
images" button on the top nav will be too complicated for some people; as
for selecting whether they want to see objectionable images or not, it
will have to be hidden away in some page in special: and it will be every
bit as hideous as anything in the much maligned Internet Exploder.  What's
more, its behavior will change over time, probably at a fairly rapid rate
as category hierarchies are changed and the feature evolves.


from_name: sannse

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

 > [a reply in anger]

As I've been saying to Waerth on IRC - David was really trying to give
advice here and not to offend.  I've been hearing about this situation
for a while now, and understand Waerth's deep frustration and anger.
But it's new and rather peculiar sounding to most here I think.

This situation with his provider is quite different from the one most
people will have - but perhaps can be compared with a random user trying
to persuade AOL to change its whole system because the user can't access
a site they want to see.  His provider simply isn't going to listen -
however much sense he makes with reasons that proxies are a Bad Thing.
And, as Waerth has said, he has no option of changing provider.

Waerth has had to put up with regular blocks for a long time through no
fault of his own.  I think any of us wiki-addicts would be as upset at this.

I don't know what the solution is, except for ja. being asked to change
their policy here.  I don't see why the blocking system cannot be told
to ignore this particular set (although I don't know the technicalities
of course).  Note that these blocks are *not* in response to vandalism -
proxies are blocked automatically even if no bad edits have come from
that address.  Waerth is an excellent contributor, active in foundation
issues as well as local issues, it's a real shame to see him distressed
by this problem.

--sannse

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from_name: Tomer Chachamu

subject: [WikiEN-l] Whitespace in articles

body:
Can anybody explain policy on whitespace? Specifically:

1) On lists (* and #) should there be spaces after those stars and hashes?
2) In headings (===Text===) should there be spaces, as in "=== Text ==="?
3) Should there be blank lines before/after these headings?
4) Should there be blank lines at the end of articles, i.e. before and
after interwiki links and category inclusions? This often causes an
(IMO) unsightly amount of blank space at the end of an article.
5) When and why were interwiki and category links moved to one a line?

I seem to have done a lot of contributions related to whitespace
recently (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=R3m0t
and previous pages) and I'm wondering whether I am indeed making
correct changes.

Thanks, Tomer Chachamu


body:
On Tuesday 15 February 2005 16:26, David Gerard wrote:
> I picture a future version of Mediawiki in which the history of particular
> sentences is visible.

This will be possible in the software I will finish later this year, but I
won't give details now. As I implement it I will include more info at
http://maatworks.wikinerds.org/index.php/NGWP

--
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org


from_name: Rich Holton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Whitespace in articles

body:
>
> Current MediaWiki handling of vertical whitespace is a bug, plain and
> simple.  Someday it'll bug me enough to learn PHP to fix it.
> Multiple
> blank lines in the source should not mean multiple blank lines in the
> output.  I support hacks to fix really ugly cases, but I think here
> the solution is to fix the code, not make the articles an ugly mess
> to
> work around it.
>
As far as the extra blanks line for each category line, there is a very
simple patch that seems to correct this available at
bugzilla.wikipedia.org, only waiting for someone with access to
implement it.

-Rich Holton
(en.wikipedia:User:Rholton)

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from_name: Charles Matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: new user

body:
Chad Perrin wrote

> 2.  You're still misrepresenting my words and intentions with that crap
> about a policy on personal attacks.  You didn't inform me of it for the
> sole purpose of being randomly informative: you did so with the intent
> of pointing out some imagined personal attack I made.  Of this, I'm
> convinced.  In that regard, you are mistaken.

You have been asked, politely if firmly, not to drag this list down with
flames.

You have no idea about my intentions, so leave it out.

I note that you posted 14 times to this list yesterday.  On one thread,
which I was not reading.  That strikes me as quite enough traffic.

If you can't take a reasonable prompt that this is not UseNet, then that
would be your problem.  The fact that you typed a two-paragraph reply to my
mail, and hit return, all within three minutes, strikes me as good evidence
that you are a hasty, combative poster.

Now, if you have anything to post about improving the English Wikipedia,
please do so.

Charles


from_name: Stuart Orford

subject: [WikiEN-l] Whitespace in articles

body:
--- Tomer Chachamu <the.r3m0t at gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anybody explain policy on whitespace?
> Specifically:
>
> 1) On lists (* and #) should there be spaces after
> those stars and hashes?
> 2) In headings (===Text===) should there be spaces,
> as in "=== Text ==="?
> 3) Should there be blank lines before/after these
> headings?
> 4) Should there be blank lines at the end of
> articles, i.e. before and
> after interwiki links and category inclusions? This
> often causes an
> (IMO) unsightly amount of blank space at the end of
> an article.
> 5) When and why were interwiki and category links
> moved to one a line?

1) It doesn't matter.
2) It doesn't matter.
3) It doesn't matter.
4) It doesn't matter.
5) It doe... oh :) I'm not sure, but it's been the
usual way for some time now.

Basically, there aren't any hard and fast rules on
these sorts of things, because they get in the way of
what's important (which is writing an encylopedia). If
you want to trim whitespace as you go through, then
that's fine, but making wholesale changes seems like a
lot of effort for very little reward. But there's no
rules against it either :)

A better solution to the excessive space at the bottom
of articles would be a tweak to MediaWiki to supress
the extra "

" it seems to create in place
of each category link (although this is probably a
long way down the priority for the developers).

-- sjorford

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