body:
> From: "The Cunctator" <cunctator at gmail.com>

> What makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't make the arbitrary and
> elitist distinction between high and low culture, but democratically
> includes information that its audience thinks is of interest.

Agreed.

But part of not making that distinction involves setting the same
standards for verifiability regardless of whether the information is
about high or low culture.

> People should be *VERY HESITANT* about removing information that
> others have added.

By calling it "information" you're begging the question.

If it's not sourced there's no way to make a reliable judgement about
whether it IS "information."

My opinion is that it would be a good thing if people were a little
hesitant about _adding_ unsourced material.

> Sourcing is critical but the "I'm going to kill it if it isn't
> sourced" is a philosophy that should be wielded with UTMOST care.

"Kill" is a rather strong term for "adding a {{fact}} tag, waiting a
week or so, then moving it to the Talk page."


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Ben Lowe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen und usernamen, shouten und bitchen

body:
>
>
>
> At this rate, soon we won't be able to say if we are blokes or sheilas and
> slimvirgin will have to change his user name to appease the puritans.

... to "[[User:MyWeightAndSexualStatusArePotentiallyDivisive]]"


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
Nonsense expected if any administrator can tag as divisive.

Fred

On Feb 25, 2006, at 10:09 AM, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> User Alibabd seems to have tagged every football team supporter
> userbox template for speedy as divisive.  Was that expected?
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
On 2/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> User Alibabd seems to have tagged every football team supporter
> userbox template for speedy as divisive.  Was that expected?
> Guy (JzG)

It has absolutely zero relevance to Wikipedia, so I can't see what
other purpose it would have except for advocacy.


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
On 2/25/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > User Alibabd seems to have tagged every football team supporter
> > userbox template for speedy as divisive.  Was that expected?
> > Guy (JzG)
>
> It has absolutely zero relevance to Wikipedia, so I can't see what
> other purpose it would have except for advocacy.

Do you feel that same way about nationality userboxes?

--
geni


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail server moving

body:
Just a quick warning: I'm going to be moving our mail servers around tonight;
primary mail will be moving from zwinger to goeje, and OTRS will move from
ragweed to goeje. There will be some mail downtime, but hopefully not too bad.

Once we have remaining services moved off zwinger we can finish upgrading it. :)

Ragweed has been somewhat unreliable; it goes down fairly regularly, taking OTRS
offline until it's rebooted.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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list: foundation-l

from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
MHart wrote:

>>The argument is that since so much of the world turns to English as a
>>second language for information, it would be useful to have an English
>>Wikipedia written in simple, easy-to-understand English, but at the same
>>
>>
>I recently created a widget where you hold the mouse over an acronym and
>press some key combination and the definition of the acronym pops up. It
>reads the acronyms from a QuickBase database - almost 800 acronyms in the db
>(used at Intuit).
>
>Something like that would be great for English-as-a-second-language folks.
>An English-to-whatever dictionary widget. Hmmm... maybe I'll just write it
>real quick...
>
Acronyms are jargon, and should mostly not be a part of simple English.

Ec


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Alison Wheeler wrote:

>I've often thought that the 'simple English' was the right product aimed
>at the wrong market.
>
>Instead of targetting it at people how have English as a second language
>(who, quite rightly, want to learn English "properly"; long words and all)
>why not consider it as targetted at that other group who *need* simple
>English ...
>
>Children.
>
>Simple English is, I would have thought, perfect for pre-schoolers and
>under-12s generally as it sets out to explain concepts in simpler language
>and as that means a reduced vocabulary then let us target it at those who
>already daily use that reduced vocabulary.
>
Pre-schoolers  are not the right target for this.  They build their
essential vocabulary through conversation, and not through staring at a
computer screen.  Subject matter also needs to conform to children's
views of what is important in their world.

ESL people or others with reading problems are much better targeted.
The subject areas can be more advanced, but they must be put in simpler
language.  Before they get into reading the long words, they need to
master the short ones.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


subject: [WikiEN-l] "Trivia" sections in articles

body:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:

>Ben Yates wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia is not paper -- in a print encyclopedia, there's a limit on
>>the total information volume, so any trivia would push out something
>>more important; here, the contraints are easy navigability,
>>readability, etc.  I'm afraid I'm a bit baffled as to why /additional/
>>information at the end of an article upsets people so much, as long as
>>it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
>>like trivia sections, don't read them.
>>
>>
>The problem is not so much the fact that they exist as that the name
>"trivia" is meaningless. I mean, if this information is so "trivial",
>why bother including it? It should be "miscellaneous information".
>
So now you would distill the issue from a question of content to a
question of subject headings.  That IS trivial. :-)

Ec


body:
Ben Yates wrote:

>I'd argue that for most people, the word trivia is pretty disconnected
>from its epitemological roots, and in this case serves as a convenient
>placeholder for a more precise descriptor that nobody's thought of yet
>(and would probably be long and cumbersome).
>
IOW we should limit the Pedia to quadrivia. ;-)

Ec


from_name: Geoffrey Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
In all of this discussion of deleting userpages (which would deprive me
of some thoughtful essays, such as [[User:Wetman]]'s comments on a valuable
Wikipedia article), has any of the participants noticed that there are at
least two contests for the "Best user page"?

If attention devoted to user pages is attention & resources taken from
Wikipedia -- & therefore a Bad Thing -- then maybe someone should talk to
these horrible people who are encouraging people to improve their  user pages.
(Even though Jimbo's own page is one of those nominated by one group as
worthy of consideration.)

Or perhaps consider that this maillist has become an ivory tower, disconnected
with the daily actions of Wikipedia. But I am often wrong in my conclusions.

]honestly not attempting to be sardonic[
Geoff


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 06:11:25 +1100, you wrote:

>I was being diplomatic, thinking of all those millions of
>Christians in the Philippines and Brazil who think "Internet" is a pretty
>young trainee.

Cloff!
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Minh Nguyen

subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 2/25/06, Rudy Koot <r.koot at students.uu.nl> wrote:
>> How should PNG images with an alpha channel be handled? I've created
>> some nice images, but now IE6 users are complaining that they have a
>> black background. If I convert them to GIF/PNG-8 images they have an
>> ugly edge, which doesn't seem fair to Firefox/Opera/IE7 users. Is there
>> a better solution, such as MediaWiki automatically converting images for
>> IE6 users?
>
> The best compromise is to create a proper alpha PNG but use a set
> background color more appropriate than black (i.e. on Wikipedia,
> probably white). IE6 users will still see a jagged transition, but it
> won't stand out enough for them to complain.
>
> Also, links to Firefox, Opera, etc cost you nothing to distribute. :)

It'd be nice if this code
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js#IE_alpha_transparency>
were added to <http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/IEFixes.js>, but
at least you can point them to the code and have them add it to their
personal stylesheets.

--
Minh Nguyen <mxn at zoomtown.com>
AIM: trycom2000; Jabber: mxn at myjabber.net; Blog: http://mxn.f2o.org/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Trivia and popular culture sections

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

>On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 18:24:37 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>>People should be *VERY HESITANT* about removing information that
>>others have added. Editing for style, content, readability, utility,
>>grammar, flow, etc. are all critical but taking knowledge out of
>>Wikipedia just because you find it uninteresting or unimportant is
>>arrogant, rude, and destructive to the project.
>>
>>
>I hope that CyclePat *never* reads this :-)
>
>Of course we should think carefully before removing stuff other people
>care about, but when the trivia starts to overwhelm the encyclopaedic
>content, or individual trivial items start to outweigh individual
>significant items, or when a particular regional perspective comes to
>overwhelm the perspective of another region which may be more relevant
>or significant, it's time to think long and hard about what the
>article say *as a whole*.
>Guy (JzG)
>
>
If the trivial information begins to overwhelm the "important"
information the better alternative to deleting the trivia is to add mor
important information.  The only disadvantage to that approach is that
it requires work.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Why trivia and popular culture items need sources

body:
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:

>An editor took strong exception to my request for sources for
>"popular culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One
>of these items was:
>
>"The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball
>team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
>
>The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the
>SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for Pete's sake."
>
>I replied that if it was all that obvious it shouldn't be that hard
>to paste in a link from the team's website. Since I try to play fair,
>I proceeded to go to the team's website myself to get the link.
>
>Well, whaddaya know.
>
>The team's mascot is, in fact, NOT the Statue of Liberty, but a dog
>named Maddie, for Madison Square Garden.
>
This urban myth was quite harmless, but the story proves a point that
what people honestly believe may not always be true.  Harmless comments
are more quickly left unchallenged, but you can never be too safe.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Peter Mackay wrote:

>>Imagine the damage that would be done to Wikipedia if it
>>became known that our authors' personal ethical beliefs
>>overtly and purposely influenced the information we provide.
>>
>>
>Seems to be a winning strategy so far. <g>
>
>Results 1 - 10 of about 215,000,000 for Wikipedia. (0.09 seconds)
>Results 1 - 20 of about 79 for "Moral virtue". (0.42 seconds)
>
Amazing that it should take nearly five times as long to find so little
moral virtue. :-)

Ec


from_name: Rudy Koot

subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
How should PNG images with an alpha channel be handled? I've created
some nice images, but now IE6 users are complaining that they have a
black background. If I convert them to GIF/PNG-8 images they have an
ugly edge, which doesn't seem fair to Firefox/Opera/IE7 users. Is there
a better solution, such as MediaWiki automatically converting images for
IE6 users?

Cheers,

Ruud


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Updating rev_deleted as a bitfield

body:
On 2/24/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> In light of the past few months' experience in what kind of revision-deletion
> people would _like_ to be doing if we had it finished, I'm starting to complete
> implementation of rev_deleted, changing it from the originally planned flag to a
> bitfield:
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bitfields_for_rev_deleted
>
> The bitfield gives us some more options to suppress comments and usernames where
> necessary while keeping them in history in more common cases.

Are you planning on making this replace our current deletion
implementation (archive) alltogather? Because INSERT DELETE is evil
and it would be nice not having to deal with it.


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-26

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 270 of 286 tests (94.41%) FAILED!


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
On 2/25/06, Rudy Koot <r.koot at students.uu.nl> wrote:
> How should PNG images with an alpha channel be handled? I've created
> some nice images, but now IE6 users are complaining that they have a
> black background. If I convert them to GIF/PNG-8 images they have an
> ugly edge, which doesn't seem fair to Firefox/Opera/IE7 users. Is there
> a better solution, such as MediaWiki automatically converting images for
> IE6 users?

The best compromise is to create a proper alpha PNG but use a set
background color more appropriate than black (i.e. on Wikipedia,
probably white). IE6 users will still see a jagged transition, but it
won't stand out enough for them to complain.

Also, links to Firefox, Opera, etc cost you nothing to distribute. :)


body:
On 2/25/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway
>
> > On 2/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > > User Alibabd seems to have tagged every football team supporter
> > > userbox template for speedy as divisive.  Was that expected?
> > > Guy (JzG)
> >
> > It has absolutely zero relevance to Wikipedia, so I can't see
> > what other purpose it would have except for advocacy.
>
> At this rate, soon we won't be able to say if we are blokes or sheilas and
> slimvirgin will have to change his user name to appease the puritans.

No, you're confusing the questions of appropriate use of  template
transclusion and appropriate use of userspace.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Mail server moving

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:
> Just a quick warning: I'm going to be moving our mail servers around tonight;
> primary mail will be moving from zwinger to goeje, and OTRS will move from
> ragweed to goeje. There will be some mail downtime, but hopefully not too bad.
>
> Once we have remaining services moved off zwinger we can finish upgrading it. :)

Mailman moved, should work. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
On 2/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> Nonsense expected if any administrator can tag as divisive.
>

I don't see any sense in encouraging this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rangers_F.C.&action=history

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchester_City_F.C.&action=history

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Manchester_United_F.C.&action=history


from_name: Peter Mackay

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
> Chapman aka JzG
> Sent: Saturday, 25 February 2006 23:55
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny
>
> On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 14:27:31 +1100, you wrote:
>
> > it takes true dedication to spam those without Internet access.
>
> Ahem: it was *limited* not no access.

Point taken. I was being diplomatic, thinking of all those millions of
Christians in the Philippines and Brazil who think "Internet" is a pretty
young trainee.


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Tony Sidaway

> On 2/25/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > User Alibabd seems to have tagged every football team supporter
> > userbox template for speedy as divisive.  Was that expected?
> > Guy (JzG)
>
> It has absolutely zero relevance to Wikipedia, so I can't see
> what other purpose it would have except for advocacy.

At this rate, soon we won't be able to say if we are blokes or sheilas and
slimvirgin will have to change his user name to appease the puritans.

Pete, Fitzroy supporter


from_name: Robert Scott Horning

subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

>Alison Wheeler wrote:
>
>
>
>>I've often thought that the 'simple English' was the right product aimed
>>at the wrong market.
>>
>>Instead of targetting it at people how have English as a second language
>>(who, quite rightly, want to learn English "properly"; long words and all)
>>why not consider it as targetted at that other group who *need* simple
>>English ...
>>
>>Children.
>>
>>Simple English is, I would have thought, perfect for pre-schoolers and
>>under-12s generally as it sets out to explain concepts in simpler language
>>and as that means a reduced vocabulary then let us target it at those who
>>already daily use that reduced vocabulary.
>>
>>
>>
>Pre-schoolers  are not the right target for this.  They build their
>essential vocabulary through conversation, and not through staring at a
>computer screen.  Subject matter also needs to conform to children's
>views of what is important in their world.
>
>ESL people or others with reading problems are much better targeted.
>The subject areas can be more advanced, but they must be put in simpler
>language.  Before they get into reading the long words, they need to
>master the short ones.
>
>Ec
>
>
Eight to twelve year olds are hardly pre-schoolers.  Yes, they are
beginning readers, and to be honest, when I was learning a second
language by actually living in the country where it was spoken natively,
one of the best sources of learning basic grammar and understanding the
language (once I made the initial breakthrough to decode the vocabulary
mentally in the first place) was to sit down with a group of elementary
school students and go through their language primers.  Content that is
oriented toward an eight year old is also understandable (generally) to
a foriegner who is just picking up the langauge.  Generally a lot more
thought goes into those kind of primers as well compared to say a
Berlitz grammar guide, and they are paced toward an audience with a very
short attention span (children).  The only problem with trying to learn
a language this way is 1) obtaining the materials in the first place
(getting to know a large family with lots of kids does help to do this)
and 2) some adults are not prepared to try and learn out of the same
lesson books that children are using because of personal pride or honor
of some sort.

ESL and Early Childhood Education are usually seperated on most
university campii by seperate colleges, ESL in a Humanities or Foriegn
Language college and Early Childhood Education usually in a completely
seperate college of Education.  My contention here is that they do
essentially the same thing from two different viewpoints, but because of
pure political reasons that have nothing to do with the students
themselves but instead quests for academic power, these discliplines are
rarely coordinated or merged.  There is no reason to continue such a
struggle within Wikimedia projects.

--
Robert Scott Horning


subject: [Foundation-l] Fate of "Simple English"


subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
On 2/26/06, Rudy Koot <r.koot at students.uu.nl> wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> > The best compromise is to create a proper alpha PNG but use a set
> > background color more appropriate than black (i.e. on Wikipedia,
> > probably white). IE6 users will still see a jagged transition, but it
> > won't stand out enough for them to complain.
>
> I've tried to do this but really have no clue as how to do it? Any
> assistance would be appreciated.

I don't know what software you're using, but this is trivial in gimp.

Create/open your transparent png. Set your gimp background color to
the desired background color. Save the png, make sure that 'save
background color' is checked and ''save color values from transparent
pixels" is unchecked.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> If the trivial information begins to overwhelm the "important"
> information the better alternative to deleting the trivia is to add mor
> important information.  The only disadvantage to that approach is that
> it requires work.
>
As a work-free option (or at least _relatively_ work-free) one could
instead split the article, putting the trivia into a dedicated article
where it would be the main subject rather than just side trivia.
Granted, this does require some mental effort in coming up with a
reasonable subject for the new article - I doubt [[trivia about foo]]
would last long. But I recently did this with [[Stargate SG-1]] when the
trivia section started to become overwhelming, I split off [[list of
Stargate SG-1 cast]] and the majority of the trivia section just
coincidentally happened to be about casting so it went along with. :)


from_name: Jake Nelson

body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
 > [...]
 >
> But a lot of it is trivial, in the sense of being far more detail than
> any user of a general encyclopaedia will ever need or want; to include
> it would make it practically impossible to separate out the genuinely
> significant items from Hooke's life [...]

I think this is less a question of including the information as one of
structuring it. A lot of our more detailed articles could benefit from a
bit of [[inverted pyramid]] structure (not taken too far, I'd hope- I
hate when it gets overdone): First, a very basic summary in the pre-TOC
intro paragraph; Second, a more thorough description of important
achievements and explanations of notability, etc.; Third, a detailed
in-depth study of the subject.

-- Jake Nelson
[[en:User:Jake Nelson]]


body:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> There is an article on Robert Hooke.  It is a reasonable sized
> article, which cites as a source a book by Margaret 'Espinasse.
> 'Espinasse's book runs to about a thousand pages, I think, and cites
> among its sources Robert Gunther's "Early Science at Oxford", of which
> five full volumes are devoted to Hooke.  I have 'Espinasse's old copy
> of the Gunther, and could quite easily add all the information to the
> Hooke article, it is long since out of copyright and all information
> in it is in any case cited from the papers of the Royal Society,
> Robert Boyle and others.
>
It would be better to put something like that at Wikisource or Project
Gutenberg, of course. But if you wanted to write a summary of all of
that as Wikipedia articles you might be able to do it best as a
constellation of related articles focusing on specific sub-topics. For
example, the article on Isaac Newton has a general summary at [[Isaac
Newton]] and also more specialized articles at [[Isaac Newton's early
life and achievements]], [[The writing of Principia Mathematica]],
[[Isaac Newton's later life]], etc. - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Isaac_Newton for tons of stuff
about the man and his work.

A lot of Hooke's research would probably fit in better with articles
about the _research_ rather than about the _man_, so if you were to
write an article covering all of that I expect it would also shed pieces
into those topics as well. That's still a net gain for Wikipedia, so
again no reason not to go ahead and write it.

> Another example: should we add to an article on Giant Bicycles a
> mention of every single type and model of bicycle made by them over
> their history?  With the date and the name of the designer?  Or should
> we restrict ourselves to mentioning that, for example, some were
> designed by Mike Burrows, with a little more detail in the Mike
> Burrows article?
>
Split off [[List of Giant Bicycles models]]. Or if that's too large as a
single list, [[List of Giant Bicycles models (1972-1980)]], [[List of
Giant Bicycles models (1981-1990)]], [[List of Giant Bicycles models
(1991-2000)]], and [[List of Giant Bicycles models (2001-2010)]]. Put
them all in [[Category:Giant Bicycles]] to keep things organized,
especially if individual models start getting their own articles too.

We've got articles and lists for practically every piece of trivial
military equipment one can think of, lists of all manner of car models,
even lists of bus stops and tiny railways that have been defunct for
over a hundred years. Why not bicycles as well?
> And if we do adopt the approach of including *everything* verifiable,
> however trivial, what steps do we take to notify the reader that the
> items listed are not the most significant, but are merely included
> because somebody was interested in them for some local reason and
> therefore tracked down a source; that the items known to be much more
> significant will be added just as soon as someone can find a reliable
> source?  Is this not just a way of increasing bias?
>
Significance is in the eye of the beholder. I have absolutely no
interest in old defunct pissant frontier railway companies from a
hundred years ago, but there are railway enthusiasts for whom this sort
of thing is their _life_. I'm not going to judge them silly, though. I
have interests of my own that I'm sure they'd find equally trivial -
just a few hours ago I doubled the size of the article on Squerrik, a
fictional minor deity from Dungeons and Dragons that I'm sure even the
vast majority of rabid D&D players have never even heard of. As long as
the articles are clear about what their subject matter is up front -
"Foo is a defunct 20-mile railroad that existed from 1880-1885" or "Bar
is a minor deity from the standard 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons
cosmology" - then all I have to do is glance at the article and I can
immediately tell whether _I_ find the subject significant or not.
> My view is that when they wrote "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate
> collection of information" they had in mind keeping the focus on what
> is actually important, rather than running off after red herrings.
> Guy (JzG)
>
My view is that this means we're supposed to be writing _articles_,
rather than just almaniacal blobs of raw data. Granted, the "list of"
articles sometimes verge on that, but even they can serve Wikipedia well
as either indexes or as collections of mini-articles that would never
grow beyond stub sizes on their own. And an almaniacal blob can still
serve as raw material for eventually forging a real article on the subject.

IMO Wikipedia is similar to specialized encyclopedias such as "the
Encyclopedia of Railway Terms" or "the Encyclopedia of British Science
Fiction", except that Wikipedia specializes in every subject
simultaneously. We're the Borg of Encyclopedias - assimilate everything
we can get our hands on. :)


body:
On Sat, 25 Feb 2006 22:21:03 -0800, you wrote:

>If the trivial information begins to overwhelm the "important"
>information the better alternative to deleting the trivia is to add mor
>important information.  The only disadvantage to that approach is that
>it requires work.

There is an article on Robert Hooke.  It is a reasonable sized
article, which cites as a source a book by Margaret 'Espinasse.
'Espinasse's book runs to about a thousand pages, I think, and cites
among its sources Robert Gunther's "Early Science at Oxford", of which
five full volumes are devoted to Hooke.  I have 'Espinasse's old copy
of the Gunther, and could quite easily add all the information to the
Hooke article, it is long since out of copyright and all information
in it is in any case cited from the papers of the Royal Society,
Robert Boyle and others.

But a lot of it is trivial, in the sense of being far more detail than
any user of a general encyclopaedia will ever need or want; to include
it would make it practically impossible to separate out the genuinely
significant items from Hooke's life from exchanges of letters with
French astronomers about the use of "microscopical eyepieces" in
telescopes, or failed attempts to duplicate various experiments for
the Royal Society, or the weekly progress reports on the cataloguing
of the library.

Another example: should we add to an article on Giant Bicycles a
mention of every single type and model of bicycle made by them over
their history?  With the date and the name of the designer?  Or should
we restrict ourselves to mentioning that, for example, some were
designed by Mike Burrows, with a little more detail in the Mike
Burrows article?

And if we do adopt the approach of including *everything* verifiable,
however trivial, what steps do we take to notify the reader that the
items listed are not the most significant, but are merely included
because somebody was interested in them for some local reason and
therefore tracked down a source; that the items known to be much more
significant will be added just as soon as someone can find a reliable
source?  Is this not just a way of increasing bias?

My view is that when they wrote "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate
collection of information" they had in mind keeping the focus on what
is actually important, rather than running off after red herrings.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Justin Cormack

body:
On 26 Feb 2006, at 14:34, John Lee wrote:
>>
> Because when you're reading [[The Beatles]], you absolutely have to
> know
> how much Paul McCartney bought one of his houses for.

Not necessarily there, but the history of the economic position of
musicians is interesting. I would expect to see some information about
this under [[Richard Strauss]] for example (havent checked). Whether
this is the right information and place for it could be discussed, but
it is part of what some of us are interested in.

Justinc


subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> The best compromise is to create a proper alpha PNG but use a set
> background color more appropriate than black (i.e. on Wikipedia,
> probably white). IE6 users will still see a jagged transition, but it
> won't stand out enough for them to complain.

I've tried to do this but really have no clue as how to do it? Any
assistance would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Ruud


subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
Minh Nguyen wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>>On 2/25/06, Rudy Koot <r.koot at students.uu.nl> wrote:
>>
>>>How should PNG images with an alpha channel be handled? I've created
>>>some nice images, but now IE6 users are complaining that they have a
>>>black background. If I convert them to GIF/PNG-8 images they have an
>>>ugly edge, which doesn't seem fair to Firefox/Opera/IE7 users. Is there
>>>a better solution, such as MediaWiki automatically converting images for
>>>IE6 users?
>>
>>The best compromise is to create a proper alpha PNG but use a set
>>background color more appropriate than black (i.e. on Wikipedia,
>>probably white). IE6 users will still see a jagged transition, but it
>>won't stand out enough for them to complain.
>>
>>Also, links to Firefox, Opera, etc cost you nothing to distribute. :)
>
>
> It'd be nice if this code
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js#IE_alpha_transparency>
> were added to <http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/IEFixes.js>, but
> at least you can point them to the code and have them add it to their
> personal stylesheets.
>


subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
Minh Nguyen wrote:

> It'd be nice if this code
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Monobook.js#IE_alpha_transparency>
> were added to <http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/IEFixes.js>, but
> at least you can point them to the code and have them add it to their
> personal stylesheets.
>

It appears to be there, but wuth in the if-statement

    if (isMSIE55 && !doneIEAlphaFix)

so it probably is only enabled for IE5.5 not IE6.

Cheers,

Ruud


body:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 14:50:18 +0000, you wrote:

>Not necessarily there, but the history of the economic position of
>musicians is interesting. I would expect to see some information about
>this under [[Richard Strauss]] for example (havent checked). Whether
>this is the right information and place for it could be discussed, but
>it is part of what some of us are interested in.

There is a programme on the financial history of composers on Classic
FM.  But even that is mostly padding - for the most part it is not
actually that interesting.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
On 2/26/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> > Nonsense expected if any administrator can tag as divisive.
> >
>
> I don't see any sense in encouraging this:
>

Juding by the number of anons involved I don't see any evidence of
userboxes haveing an effect.
--
geni


subject: [WikiEN-l] Getting rid of userpages

body:
On 2/26/06, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> In all of this discussion of deleting userpages (which would deprive me
> of some thoughtful essays, such as [[User:Wetman]]'s comments on a valuable
> Wikipedia article), has any of the participants noticed that there are at
> least two contests for the "Best user page"?
>

Yes but Esperanza could rather a tricky oposition.

--
geni


from_name: Fastfission

body:
Along these lines, here is a potential way to sort out what should be
listed where:

Imagine two articles, one of something we can all agree is a very
"popular culture" thing (say, The Simpsons), the other of something
which is probably of more substantive historical value (say, the Enola
Gay).

If the Enola Gay appears on the Simpsons, and we feel compelled to put
a link one place or another, where should it go?

My suggestion: since the Enola Gay is the reference included in the
work of popular culture, the direction should be: Simpsons --> Enola
Gay. Knowing that the Enola Gay was featured in a Simpons episode does
not enhance your knowledge about the Enola Gay in any substantive way,
but knowing that Krusty was referencing the Enola Gay when he called
his airplane the "I'm-On-A-Rolla-Gay" might enhance your understanding
of the Simpsons.

I've applied this with some success before, such as when people wanted
to put pop-culture references to the Trinity atomic bomb test in the
[[Trinity test]] article. I removed them, and instead put them into
the pop-culture articles they came from (a TV show, a video game,
etc.). Knowing that the Trinity test way in a video game does not
really tell one anything about the Trinity test; knowing that the test
in a video game was modeled after a real test might help know
something about the video game.

Obviously there are places where this would be difficult to sort out
and borderline cases. But I think as a general principle it might help
keep some of these things in perspective, and prevent respectable
articles from being clogged up with these sorts of "in pop culture"
references.

FF

On 2/26/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett
>
> > On 2/25/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > > An editor took strong exception to my request for sources
> > for "popular
> > > culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One
> > of these
> > > items was:
> > >
> > > "The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball
> > > team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
> > >
> > > The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the
> > > SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for
> > Pete's sake."
> >
> > Even if true, it's not exactly interesting either.
>
> It is if mascots are your passion. Trust me - such people exist, and can
> give you enough information about mascots in fifteen minutes to last you the
> rest of your life and then some. We cannot determine what sort of people our
> readers might be, and assuming that they are PLU would be a grave mistake.
>
> Pete, bog-standard representative of humanity
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:40:53 +1100, you wrote:

>> My view is that when they wrote "Wikipedia is not an
>> indiscriminate collection of information" they had in mind
>> keeping the focus on what is actually important, rather than
>> running off after red herrings.

>The keyword is "indiscriminate". "Unimportant" is nowhere merntioned.
>Organising small but interesting facts into a trivia section, where there
>are enough to warrant doing so, is hardly indiscriminate.

Discrimination has more than one meaning.

>Sure, a lot of facts about old or uninteresting subjects need not be
>included, but if they are uninteresting, then they are hardly trivia.
>Trivia, by its very nature, is unimportant but interesting. If someone was
>moved to put it in, then you should know your subject very well indeed
>before deciding that it is useless to everybody.

No, trivia is simply trivial.  It can be interesting or uninteresting.

>For example, the Latin names of plants and animals are boring useless
>clutter to me, and IMHO, we could make for a better, more streamlined, more
>relevant encyclopaedia by removing such linnaecruft. But I'll bet London to
>a brick that if I started to remove this rubbish, one or two people would
>start getting agitated, saying that this unpronounceable, archaic nonsense
>was useful and interesting.

Mainly because it is the dominant system used by scientists to record
taxonomy, and is therefore highly relevant particularly where common
names are ambiguous or vary by location.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Hans Schroder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Strange message recieved

body:
FYI:

I have never used your site before and have not subscribed to it in any way.
I happened upon your site when I was looking up a woodworking term. By
mistake I think I hit a tab called discussion and up popped the following
message:

??. Your user name or IP address has been blocked from editing
You were blocked by Hall Monitor

Reason given: returning vandal, long term vandalism, warned repeatedly,
third block (see our blocking policy)

Your IP address is 64.136.26.235. Please include this address, along with
your username (if you are a registered user), in any queries you make.  ?.?

Perhaps someone has high jacked my computer somehow and used it to mess up
your site? Any comment you have regarding this issue would be welcome. Thank
you.


subject: [Wikitech-l] PNG with alpha channel

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I don't know what software you're using, but this is trivial in gimp.
>
> Create/open your transparent png. Set your gimp background color to
> the desired background color. Save the png, make sure that 'save
> background color' is checked and ''save color values from transparent
> pixels" is unchecked.

I tried fiddling with those checkboxes but that the currently selected
background color would have any effect didn't occur to me. Thanks

Ruud


from_name: VeryVerily

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
[[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Appeal of VeryVerily]]
[[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Appeal of VeryVerily/Proposed
decision]]

I'm coming to the mailing list because I don't know where else to turn.
I am asking for aid from anyone in the community, in any form you can
muster, to save me from another wrong ArbComm ruling which may
drive me off Wikipedia forever.

I hope the mailing list won't just dismiss this as some worthless
disgruntled complaint.  The AC can make poor decisions, as I think all
can acknowledge.

After a self-imposed exile of *a year* (because I could not edit under
the stress of constant blocking), I returned and worked very hard to
explain in painstaking detail to the ArbComm what they overlooked before.
They accused me of reverting "without discussion" based on a handful
of edits picked from my many thousands, but I explained (again) that
I was being stalked by an auto-reverter, and also I was dealing with
someone ("Ruy Lopez") who wrecks articles in batches with the same edits
to numerous articles.  I point out that I've always been responsible
about explaining edits when needed.  I similarly provided another, more
detailed, point-by-point, day-by-day account of what happened in each
of the cases they mentioned in their "Finding of Fact" (which I'd done
the first time in less detail).

None have contested the accuracy of my analysis (indeed, none have even
acknowledged it).  But they are not overturning the ruling that's based
on this accusation.

However, recently, all of the sudden, Raul654 tells me on his talk
page that the justification is a conflict I was in in May 2004 (!!),
seven months before the AC case, which was long since resolved and
over with, and which had never been mentioned in either case till now!
(And, as I noted, back then community norms were quite different; that
case went to a quickpoll, which voted to not take action.)

No other arbitrator will even tell me what they think I've done wrong.
I have tried to talk to them individually, and have gotten dismissive
responses, or none at all.

Jdforrester has gone so far as to apparently say that my thousands and
thousands of contributions (~12,000), the product of endless hours of
labor here, are OF NO BENEFIT TO WIKIPEDIA if I'm not willing to stay
under his conditions.  What am I to make of such a callous non-sequitur?

Raul says it's "galling" that I would complain when the evidence page
on the last arbitration was a mess - even though five cases were lumped
together and dozens of people were editing it, factors beyond my control.
In fact, I made very effort to respond to the arbitrators' points, but
they never seemed to even acknowledge it.  The final ruling still listed
articles which were reverted by a vandal stalking me (I reverted back)
as evidence of my "bad behavior".

This is all explained in detail in my appeal.

I once considered myself a major member of this community.  I have not
earned this hate.  And after more than a year, even if they're not sure,
they can't just let it be the past?  WP:AGF, WikiLove, all that?

So please anyone who has time take a look and comment.  I was a huge
contributor before, and I see so much that needs to be done and want
to pitch in.  But they'd have me edit as a second-class editor deprived of
legitimacy and vulnerable to arbitrary blocking.  With no justification
for making me one.

Thanks if you're still reading,

VV


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge

> Peter Mackay wrote:
>
> >>Imagine the damage that would be done to Wikipedia if it
> became known
> >>that our authors' personal ethical beliefs overtly and purposely
> >>influenced the information we provide.
> >>
> >>
> >Seems to be a winning strategy so far. <g>
> >
> >Results 1 - 10 of about 215,000,000 for Wikipedia. (0.09 seconds)
> >Results 1 - 20 of about 79 for "Moral virtue". (0.42 seconds)
> >
> Amazing that it should take nearly five times as long to find
> so little moral virtue. :-)

Appropriately enough, I cheated. I used the Google Image search for the
second one, and I gotta say that there are some weird and woolly images for
"moral virtue"!

Pete, of dubious virtue


body:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 12:35:01 -0700, you wrote:

>A lot of Hooke's research would probably fit in better with articles
>about the _research_ rather than about the _man_, so if you were to
>write an article covering all of that I expect it would also shed pieces
>into those topics as well. That's still a net gain for Wikipedia, so
>again no reason not to go ahead and write it.

Don't get me wrong - I think Hooke's *research* is a titanic
achievement, he was probably the greatest experimenter of his age, and
that was probably the golden age of the experimenter.  But much of the
verifiable detail is things like "Mr Hooke was asked about the
progress of the lenses, and stated that they required further
polishing but would be ready soon" or words to that effect.

I guess what I'm saying here is that not all that is verifiable, is
significant - even if we are not paper.  I don't think this is really
a particularly contentious view; in practice what is written on any
subject is only ever a tiny fraction of what *could* be written.  But
I have many subtexts here, not least of which is things like the
article Eep has now been deleted and re-created no less than six
times, centring on the fact that it is one of the words contained in
(but not part of the title of) a song which appears in one episode of
The Jetsons.  Not that I'm against covering popular culture, but the
effort expended can vary in inverse proportion to any objective
measure of merit.

Ho hum.  I have an article to write.  I will try to include at least
one piece of trivial information, I'm sure it will do me good.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
On 2/24/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> Without sources it is [[wikipedia:original research]] and inadmissible.

That's an extreme interpretation of that rule. We should shy aware
from removing information simply because it is unsourced. We should
only remove it if it is unsourced *and* we find it suspect.

Steve


body:
On 2/25/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> What makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't make the arbitrary and
> elitist distinction between high and low culture, but democratically
> includes information that its audience thinks is of interest.

Great according to whom?

Steve


body:
On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 07:57:49 +1100, you wrote:

>> Mainly because it is the dominant system used by scientists
>> to record taxonomy, and is therefore highly relevant
>> particularly where common names are ambiguous or vary by location.
>> Guy (JzG)

>Thanks, Guy! I should have whacked a smiley or two in there. I thought
>"linnaecruft" was a dead giveaway. But you see my point? Just because
>someone doesn't find arcane information interesting or useful doesn't mean
>that everyone sees it that way. We should be careful about removing
>information from an article unless we know what we are doing.

D'oh!  I can usually be relied on to spot irony at twelve paces...

Still and all, there is (to my mind) an important difference between
arcana and trivia.  Certainly as far as an encyclopaedia is concerned.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/24/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Pete, astonished to find that on Google China the medal tally for the Winter
> Olympics is very very different

Was this just a tongue in cheek remark? What do you mean the medal
tally "on Google China"? URL?

Steve


body:
On 2/24/06, Ben Yates <bluephonic at gmail.com> wrote:

> it doesn't make the rest of the article less useful.  If you don't
> like trivia sections, don't read them.

Your comment is a bit misplaced - we're editors on this list, but
you're giving advice to readers. Ultimately Wikipedia is about a small
number of people producing text for the rest of the world to read. So
ignoring a problem isn't really helping.

Steve


from_name: Andrew Gray

body:
On 26/02/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:

> > Don't get me wrong - I think Hooke's *research* is a titanic
> > achievement, he was probably the greatest experimenter of his
> > age, and that was probably the golden age of the
> > experimenter.  But much of the verifiable detail is things
> > like "Mr Hooke was asked about the progress of the lenses,
> > and stated that they required further polishing but would be
> > ready soon" or words to that effect.
>
> Detail that might be, but it is not what most people would call trivia in
> the accepted sense. If the material he used to grind the lenses was the fine
> ash produced by burning pieces of the True Cross, then that would be trivia.

The thing is, if we have seven hundred pieces like that it's "an
article in immense detail". If what we have is simply one line,

"* On [[14 January]] [[1687]], Hooke recieved a letter from Humphrey
Grafton of Cambridgeshire, enquiring after the 7s. 4d which he had
sent for a copy of Hooke's treatise on optics"

added because someone's great-to-the-n-grandfather was an
astonishingly uninteresting gentleman of Ely who occasionally wrote to
scientists, well, then it's trivia. If the writer was Newton or Pepys
and Hooke wrote a blistering reply, it might even be vaguely
interesting trivia.

A lot of these trivia entries would be perfectly fitted into a
comprehensive biography of the subject, or a book-length study... but
they don't neccessarily belong in an article which should, at most, be
a few thousand words.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk


body:
On 2/25/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> An editor took strong exception to my request for sources for
> "popular culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One
> of these items was:
>
> "The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball
> team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
>
> The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the
> SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for Pete's sake."

Even if true, it's not exactly interesting either.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/26/06, Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com> wrote:

> I'm somewhat of a newcomer here, so pardon me if I'm not
> up-to-date on what is evidently a fairly old issue.  As I
> understand it, the "wrong ArbComm ruling" you're complaining
> about here is that for at least the next 4 months, you are
> "required to discuss all reverts on the relevant talk page".
> Is that correct?
>

Or forever.  Anyway, hey just added the 4 month thing.  But there's no
guarantee
they'll go through with that.  Last time, they asked me to wait six months,
and I
voluntarily left for a year.  The escape clause that I be in no
"interpersonal
conflicts" is of course one I may be unable to meet, given how prone
users are to pick fights here.

Anyway, one main issue is that they refuse to say what a revert *isn't*,
though
I specifically asked for them to clarify this, and I was already (wrongly)
blocked twice for supposedly "reverting".  In the absence of such clarity, I
feel, probably correctly, that I can be blocked at any time because
an edit I make resembles in the page history, with or without my knowledge.
I believe Geni made some apt comments on this mailing list about how it
feels to be constantly blocked.

A user attempted to deny the history of the Ukrainian famine, using the same
discredited logic he always does.  I was blocked for trying to write
accurately
about this history.  That, is very wrong.  (I'm guessing a Holocaust denier
would
not be so coddled.)

Also, this restriction prevents me from doing RC patrol, counter-vandalism,
or defending myself against the next stalker that attacks me (and there's no
reason to think one won't).  Moreover, the AC ruling puts me in a bad light,
in
essence depriving me of legitimacy in the eyes of the community, with no
justification.  It implies that I'm an unreasonable user, which I am not and
never
have been.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that no one has told me what I've done
wrong or,
rather, no one has told me why my account of the edit histories in question
is
not adequate for them.  Many of the cases where they accused me of
misbehaving are so clearcut that really the AC should apologize for
attacking
me on those points.  But not a peep has been uttered about what I raised.

In essence, they ignored every point I made.  I wasted my time preparing a
solid
case thinking I would get a fair hearing from the current committee, and
have been
basically told to get stuffed.  How would that make you feel?

VV


from_name: Daniel P. B. Smith

body:
> From: "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com>
>
> On 2/24/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
>> Without sources it is [[wikipedia:original research]] and
>> inadmissible.
>
> That's an extreme interpretation of that rule. We should shy aware
> from removing information simply because it is unsourced. We should
> only remove it if it is unsourced *and* we find it suspect.
>
> Steve

In short, you do not agree with the verifiability policy, http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
Sorry if that last E-mail looked messy in your mail reader; somehow the
formatting got messed up.

VV


from_name: Matt Brown

body:
On 2/26/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> I hadn't imagined that there'd be a good reason to put such a reference on
> the SoL page. Obviously we fly along different wavelengths. The place to
> reference a team mascot is on the *team* page.

That's often the problem with trivia - misplacement.   People tend to
want to migrate information to the most "important" article related.

-Matt


body:
On 2/26/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Even if true, it's not exactly interesting either.
>
> It is if mascots are your passion. Trust me - such people exist, and can
> give you enough information about mascots in fifteen minutes to last you the
> rest of your life and then some. We cannot determine what sort of people our
> readers might be, and assuming that they are PLU would be a grave mistake.

Is it interesting to the average reader of an article about the Statue
of Liberty? Wouldn't the average reader go, "well, duh"? It would be
like listing every team that uses a [[bear]] logo or something on the
[[bear]] page.

Moral of the story: Just because it's interesting to some people
doesn't mean it's interesting enough to be on every page of the
encyclopaedia with a tangential connection.

Steve


from_name: Tony Sidaway

subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxes: A rational proposal

body:
On 2/24/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The evidence is overwhelmingly that the community (whoever the hell they
> are) wants a free webhost and "blog buttons" [1] to plaster all over them.

Well then they can toddle off to blogbuttons.com and get them, can't they?


from_name: John Lee

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>ObSheesh:
>
>During a guest appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992),
>Jay Leno asked him where his name came from, and he replied that he
>was named after the Beatles song "Hey Jude." [15 June 2001]
>
>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000179/bio
>
>What makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't make the arbitrary and
>elitist distinction between high and low culture, but democratically
>includes information that its audience thinks is of interest.
>
>People should be *VERY HESITANT* about removing information that
>others have added. Editing for style, content, readability, utility,
>grammar, flow, etc. are all critical but taking knowledge out of
>Wikipedia just because you find it uninteresting or unimportant is
>arrogant, rude, and destructive to the project.
>
>I love the Wikipedia trivia sections and I love the attitude that says
>"if it can be integrated into the text, it doesn't need to be
>mentioned as trivia", which I don't even see as a compromise.
>
>Sourcing is critical but the "I'm going to kill it if it isn't
>sourced" is a philosophy that should be wielded with UTMOST care.
>
>
Because when you're reading [[The Beatles]], you absolutely have to know
how much Paul McCartney bought one of his houses for.

John


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Damn, I love a good conspiracy theory.

Steve

On 2/26/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> > [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett
>
> >
> > On 2/24/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > Pete, astonished to find that on Google China the medal
> > tally for the
> > > Winter Olympics is very very different
> >
> > Was this just a tongue in cheek remark? What do you mean the
> > medal tally "on Google China"? URL?
>
> You can pretty much take it as read that if I say something as a mock-sig
> line after "Pete," then it's intended to be amusing.
>
> Pete, not always bang on target
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
On 2/23/06, Ben Lowe <ben.lowe at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't really understand the controversy over people stating their
> affiliations and beliefs, so long as they're not attacking other people.  (I
> have no problem with banning visible affiliation with groups where such
> affiliation is an inherent attack on others, such as the Klan, or the Nazi
> party.)  I've worked on several political campaigns, and I'm not offended

With respect, a large number of people on this list have also provided
statements to this effect: "I don't see what the controversy is about.
I have no problem with banning userboxes that fall on the correct side
of this particular line here". Obviously we don't agree on which line
appeals to us all :)

Steve


from_name: Daniel R. Tobias

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 27 Feb 2006 at 00:27, "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:

> It also seems to me that "ignorance-based debates" are not in
> themselves harmful, provided that there are mechanisms such that they
> don't drown out the informed. Everyone's worst nightmare is the 10
> pokemon fans drowning out the tenured professor in his own field. But
> does it actually happen?

It can cut both ways... would you want a bunch of tenured professors
passing judgment as to the notability of a Pokemon-related article?

One hopes that, in general, people of all levels of expertise and
interest use some common sense in their AfD participation and pay
some heed to the writings of others with more knowledge and interest
in the particular topic on which the article is written.

--
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/


from_name: Guy Chapman aka JzG

body:
On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 08:13:43 +1100, you wrote:

>Detail that might be, but it is not what most people would call trivia in
>the accepted sense. If the material he used to grind the lenses was the fine
>ash produced by burning pieces of the True Cross, then that would be trivia.

Cloff!
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


references:
<ce5402trs33c0ljrun04q1i956s9gvn65o@4ax.com>
	<20060226211500.XCEK14751.omta05ps.mx.bigpond.com@skyringstudy>
	<f3fedb0d0602261324l6d9fc1den@mail.gmail.com>

body:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:24:33 +0000, you wrote:

>The thing is, if we have seven hundred pieces like that it's "an
>article in immense detail". If what we have is simply one line,
>
>"* On [[14 January]] [[1687]], Hooke recieved a letter from Humphrey
>Grafton of Cambridgeshire, enquiring after the 7s. 4d which he had
>sent for a copy of Hooke's treatise on optics"
>
>added because someone's great-to-the-n-grandfather was an
>astonishingly uninteresting gentleman of Ely who occasionally wrote to
>scientists, well, then it's trivia. If the writer was Newton or Pepys
>and Hooke wrote a blistering reply, it might even be vaguely
>interesting trivia.
>
>A lot of these trivia entries would be perfectly fitted into a
>comprehensive biography of the subject, or a book-length study... but
>they don't neccessarily belong in an article which should, at most, be
>a few thousand words.

Thank you for coming up with an example so much better than my own.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG


from_name: Steve Summit

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
VeryVerily wrote:
> I'm coming to the mailing list because I don't know where else to turn.
> I am asking for aid from anyone in the community, in any form you can
> muster, to save me from another wrong ArbComm ruling which may
> drive me off Wikipedia forever.

I'm somewhat of a newcomer here, so pardon me if I'm not
up-to-date on what is evidently a fairly old issue.  As I
understand it, the "wrong ArbComm ruling" you're complaining
about here is that for at least the next 4 months, you are
"required to discuss all reverts on the relevant talk page".
Is that correct?


from_name: brion at pobox.com

subject: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki automated test run failure 2006-02-27

body:
An automated run of parserTests.php showed the following failures:

Running test BUG 361: URL within URL, not bracketed... FAILED!
Running test External links: invalid character... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2702: Mismatched <i> and <a> tags are invalid... FAILED!
Running test A table with no data.... FAILED!
Running test A table with nothing but a caption... FAILED!
Running test Link containing "#<" and "#>" % as a hex sequences... FAILED!
Running test Template with thumb image (wiht link in description)... FAILED!
Running test Link to image page... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A ISBN with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 1887: A <math> with a thumbnail... FAILED!
Running test BUG 561: {{/Subpage}}... FAILED!
Running test Simple category... FAILED!
Running test Section headings with TOC... FAILED!
Running test Media link with nasty text... FAILED!
Running test Bug 2095: link with pipe and three closing brackets... FAILED!
Running test Parser hook: static parser hook inside a comment... FAILED!
Running test Sanitizer: Validating the contents of the id attribute (bug 4515)... FAILED!

Passed 271 of 288 tests (94.1%) FAILED!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/23/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> If people refused to AfD anything they didn't know anything about (who
> can really say they know anything about my local garage band?), we would
> be deleting a lot less crap, if less good articles. It's all a question
> of trading off false positives for false negatives. I have rarely seen
> an ignorance-based debate that didn't end up getting closed as a keep,
> or being overturned by DRV.

An excellent argument for why AfD should never be democracy-based (or
believed to be that way). In these situations, you almost need someone
to step up, say, "Look, I actually know something about entomology. I
believe this insect is notable", wipe all the existing votes, and say
"now, does anyone actually disagree?"

It also seems to me that "ignorance-based debates" are not in
themselves harmful, provided that there are mechanisms such that they
don't drown out the informed. Everyone's worst nightmare is the 10
pokemon fans drowning out the tenured professor in his own field. But
does it actually happen?

(PS if anyone here is a pok?mon fan, just let me know and give me a
different demographic to pick on instead...)

Steve


from_name: BJörn Lindqvist

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> If people refused to AfD anything they didn't know anything about (who
> can really say they know anything about my local garage band?), we would
> be deleting a lot less crap, if less good articles. It's all a question
> of trading off false positives for false negatives. I have rarely seen

It used to be that way. It was always considered better to keep a
crappy article than to delete a good one. The deletion policy used to
read "In case of doubt *don't delete*"

> an ignorance-based debate that didn't end up getting closed as a keep,
> or being overturned by DRV.

So you admit the existance of ignorance-based debates on AFD? :)
Sounds like a good reason to get rid of the whole thing. The ignorance
is time-consuming, even for those who do not wish to get involved in
the ignorance debates.

--
mvh Bj?rn


from_name: The Cunctator

body:
On 2/26/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/25/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> > What makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't make the arbitrary and
> > elitist distinction between high and low culture, but democratically
> > includes information that its audience thinks is of interest.
>
> Great according to whom?

Well, it's what makes it successful, if we want to avoid value judgments.


body:
On 2/26/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > From: "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com>
> >
> > On 2/24/06, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> >> Without sources it is [[wikipedia:original research]] and
> >> inadmissible.
> >
> > That's an extreme interpretation of that rule. We should shy aware
> > from removing information simply because it is unsourced. We should
> > only remove it if it is unsourced *and* we find it suspect.
> >
> > Steve
>
> In short, you do not agree with the verifiability policy, http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V
>
I disagree with it strongly. The policy as stated goes way against the
stronger policy of Assume Good Faith.


subject: [WikiEN-l] A total loss of perspective

body:
On 2/24/06, SCZenz <sczenz at gmail.com> wrote:
> (I'm assuming here the Foundation even got a complaints from someone
> about that article--I literally know nothing about what's going on.  I
> just don't see how it could hurt to give them the benefit of the
> doubt.)

History tells us that the only thing that maintains the quality of
institutions is accountability and transparency. Please read [[The
Transparent Society]].


subject: [WikiEN-l] Newest admin abuse on Wikipedia: Voter intimidation

body:
On 2/23/06, Ilya N. <ilyanep at gmail.com> wrote:
> I love these messages.
>
> Wait wait no...I think I can do better
>
> Jimbo is the project's most destructive admin. Look at all the stuff he's
> done! He created the whole damn encyclopedia; this whole ordeal must be his
> fault.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but he hasn't really created
any of the encyclopedia. He's been letting other people do all the
work for him!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Welcome to Wikipedia tagline WAS: Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/23/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> geni wrote:
> > Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
> > posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
> > people.
>
> Can you give an example?

I consistently upset people.


from_name: Ben Yates

body:
But a constellation of related articles covering every detail of
Hooke's life won't happen all at once -- we'll have to wait for the
facts to accumulate before they can be organized comprehesibly.
Removing what you consider trivia because it doesn't fit perfectly
with the rest of the article short-circuits this process.

On 2/26/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26/02/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > > Don't get me wrong - I think Hooke's *research* is a titanic
> > > achievement, he was probably the greatest experimenter of his
> > > age, and that was probably the golden age of the
> > > experimenter.  But much of the verifiable detail is things
> > > like "Mr Hooke was asked about the progress of the lenses,
> > > and stated that they required further polishing but would be
> > > ready soon" or words to that effect.
> >
> > Detail that might be, but it is not what most people would call trivia in
> > the accepted sense. If the material he used to grind the lenses was the fine
> > ash produced by burning pieces of the True Cross, then that would be trivia.
>
> The thing is, if we have seven hundred pieces like that it's "an
> article in immense detail". If what we have is simply one line,
>
> "* On [[14 January]] [[1687]], Hooke recieved a letter from Humphrey
> Grafton of Cambridgeshire, enquiring after the 7s. 4d which he had
> sent for a copy of Hooke's treatise on optics"
>
> added because someone's great-to-the-n-grandfather was an
> astonishingly uninteresting gentleman of Ely who occasionally wrote to
> scientists, well, then it's trivia. If the writer was Newton or Pepys
> and Hooke wrote a blistering reply, it might even be vaguely
> interesting trivia.
>
> A lot of these trivia entries would be perfectly fitted into a
> comprehensive biography of the subject, or a book-length study... but
> they don't neccessarily belong in an article which should, at most, be
> a few thousand words.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com


body:
On 2/27/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/23/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > geni wrote:
> > > Wikipedia's internal politics long ago reached the point where it is
> > > posible to be a perfectaly good editor and still upset the wrong
> > > people.
> >
> > Can you give an example?
>
> I consistently upset people.
>
Oh yeah, and there are lots of editors who upset me.

And it seems that all those userbox-using editors are horribly
upsetting to a lot of people and they can't be *all* bad.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/27/06, BJ?rn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:
>It was always considered better to keep a
> crappy article than to delete a good one. The deletion policy used to
> read "In case of doubt *don't delete*"

"If in doubt, don't delete?"  It still does.  A fellow who tried
repeatedly to remove that without discussion was recently censured by
the arbitration committee.


from_name: Peter Mackay

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
> Chapman aka JzG
> My view is that when they wrote "Wikipedia is not an
> indiscriminate collection of information" they had in mind
> keeping the focus on what is actually important, rather than
> running off after red herrings.

The keyword is "indiscriminate". "Unimportant" is nowhere merntioned.
Organising small but interesting facts into a trivia section, where there
are enough to warrant doing so, is hardly indiscriminate.

Sure, a lot of facts about old or uninteresting subjects need not be
included, but if they are uninteresting, then they are hardly trivia.
Trivia, by its very nature, is unimportant but interesting. If someone was
moved to put it in, then you should know your subject very well indeed
before deciding that it is useless to everybody.

For example, the Latin names of plants and animals are boring useless
clutter to me, and IMHO, we could make for a better, more streamlined, more
relevant encyclopaedia by removing such linnaecruft. But I'll bet London to
a brick that if I started to remove this rubbish, one or two people would
start getting agitated, saying that this unpronounceable, archaic nonsense
was useful and interesting.

Pete, exsapiens


from_name: Rob

body:
On 2/27/06, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/26/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> >
> > In short, you do not agree with the verifiability policy, http://
> > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V
> >
> I disagree with it strongly. The policy as stated goes way against the
> stronger policy of Assume Good Faith.

"Trust, but verify"

The policies don't have to conflict.  People can add material in good faith
and still be completely wrong, which is exactly what happened in the Liberty
instance.


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Thumbnail and SVG regeneration

body:
I've started a process of forcing old rendered thumbnails to regenerate. This
will gradually replace old rendered images over the next couple days as several
issues have been fixed recently:

* Many PNG thumbs defaulted to unnecessarily high bit depth, wasting bandwidth
* JPEG thumbs were at a somewhat higher quality than needed, wasting bandwidth
* Some PNG and JPEG thumbs were sized a pixel off due to mismatches in how
MediaWiki and ImageMagick rounded the resized aspect ratio; these could get
resized in the client, leading to extra blurry scaling
* Lots of SVG rendering problems fixed by upgrading to librsvg 2.14.0

Since invalidating *all* thumbs brought things to a halt doing nothing but
rerendering, I've currently got it invalidating thumbs over a year old, and will
be moving up the cutoff date gradually over the next day or two.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
I am recused on VeryVerily's case as I have had trouble with the same
aggressive point of view editors he is butting heads with, editors
dedicated to whitewashing the history of totalitarian Communist
activities. VeryVerily ought to be able to edit provided he is
reasonably courteous, offers information from reliable references and
does not engage in sterile edit warring. Sterile edit warring is
reverting just to make a point. He ought to be judged by his current
behavior, not events which occurred in 2004. Arbitrators who feel
that a strong conservative point of view ought not to be expressed
should have recused themselves.

Fred

On Feb 26, 2006, at 8:52 PM, VeryVerily wrote:

> So please anyone who has time take a look and comment.  I was a huge
> contributor before, and I see so much that needs to be done and want
> to pitch in.  But they'd have me edit as a second-class editor
> deprived of
> legitimacy and vulnerable to arbitrary blocking.  With no
> justification
> for making me one.
>
> Thanks if you're still reading,
>
> VV


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
Correct, a holocaust denier will get rough treatment quick. The
crimes of Communism, such as the deliberate attempt to starve the
Ukrainian people into submission, while the Soviet Union was
EXPORTING FOOD, as pointed out in The Black Book of Communism are
whitewashed by point of view editors.

Fred

On Feb 26, 2006, at 10:29 PM, VeryVerily wrote:

> A user attempted to deny the history of the Ukrainian famine, using
> the same
> discredited logic he always does.  I was blocked for trying to write
> accurately
> about this history.  That, is very wrong.  (I'm guessing a
> Holocaust denier
> would
> not be so coddled.)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
So someone who is the fan of a football club is not allowed to have a
userbox saying so.

Deleting all the userboxes is totally disproportionate to any actual
harm. Just petty.

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 5:38 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 2/27/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "Tony Sidaway" <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote in
>> message news:
>> 605709b90602251844m45dd7f2btbcc9107f42160fac at mail.gmail.com...
>>
>>> On 2/26/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nonsense expected if any administrator can tag as divisive.
>>>>
>>> I don't see any sense in encouraging this:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>>> title=Rangers_F.C.&action=history
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>>> title=Manchester_City_F.C.&action=history
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
>>> title=Manchester_United_F.C.&action=history
>>>
>>
>>
> [...]
>
>> Have the particular changes to which you refer scrolled down
>> beloew my local
>> horizon?
>>
>
> No.  The nature and quantity of the edits visible in the history are
> simply intended to demonstrate that football is a ready source of
> factionalism.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Michael Snow

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
>
>> Steve Block wrote:
>>
>>> I think they were advocates rather than experts, weren't they?
>>
>> This is not the case and does them a great injustice. Though it's
>> possible such an assumption of bad faith from outsiders was behind the
>> dedicated attempts to drive them off.
>
> That's not a bad faith assumption.  Eric Burns is, on one level, a
> blogger who writes about webcomics.  Are we suggesting any blogger is
> a reputable expert on a given field?

No, we're not, but in the field of webcomics, it's quite plausible for
the reputable experts to come from the world of blogging. Perhaps after
we've dealt with irrational prejudices against webcomics, we can move on
to the problems caused by irrational prejudices against bloggers.

> There's a real problem with deciding the reliability and reputability
> of online content.  Eric Burns is also still an advocate on
> wikipedia.  The history of webcomics has not yet been written, so how
> can he be anything but?  And given his involvement in the webcomics
> field, how does one determine whether he is a partisan source?

If the history of webcomics has not yet been written, that would be a
good reason to write it on Wikipedia. Someone who understands the field
well enough to write a proper history can figure out who's a partisan
source, what information they're still useful for, and how to balance
their partisanship with other sources. It just requires critical
thinking and editorial judgment.

--Michael Snow


from_name: VeryVerily

subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
On 2/27/06, Theresa Knott <theresaknott at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> VeryVerily ought to be able to edit provided he is
> > reasonably courteous, offers information from reliable references and
> > does not engage in sterile edit warring.
>
> No one is stopping him from editing. All that is being required is
> that he discuss reverts on the talk page.

The big problems with the "fine print" here have already been pointed out by
me several times.  Again, why did I leave for a year?

And this means the appeal did nothing.

> He ought to be judged by his current
> > behavior, not events which occurred in 2004.
>
> How can we do that? He left Wikipedia for a year. His current edits
> are mostly to AC pages.

Voluntarily leaving for a year itself is considerable restraint.  Moreover,
you could at least restrict yourself to events at the end of 2004 which I
spent my time responding to.

You're asking me to jump through hoops.  Yes instead of editing in areas of
my interest I could edit on flowers and bunnies for four months and "prove"
not getting into conflict.  But why not just say a year-plus is enough and
let me "try again"?

Arbitrators who feel
> > that a strong conservative point of view ought not to be expressed
> > should have recused themselves.
>
> I don't believe there are any arbitrators who feel that.
>

Your statements on your talk page that even reverting stalker vandalism or
someone engaging in mass deletion is not acceptable suggests a problem.
This is standard behavior for most editors.  I think most admins would not
hesitate to use "rollback" on someone following them around and reverting
their edits, or otherwise vandalizing pages.  So why the double standard?

And I did go through procedure, asking for the ArbComm's help with the
stalker, and they not only did not provide it, but later said that the
situation was resolved "in light of" me being banned.

VV


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
> Chapman aka JzG

> On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:40:53 +1100, you wrote:
>
> >For example, the Latin names of plants and animals are
> boring useless
> >clutter to me, and IMHO, we could make for a better, more
> streamlined,
> >more relevant encyclopaedia by removing such linnaecruft.
> But I'll bet
> >London to a brick that if I started to remove this rubbish,
> one or two
> >people would start getting agitated, saying that this
> unpronounceable,
> >archaic nonsense was useful and interesting.
>
> Mainly because it is the dominant system used by scientists
> to record taxonomy, and is therefore highly relevant
> particularly where common names are ambiguous or vary by location.
> Guy (JzG)

Thanks, Guy! I should have whacked a smiley or two in there. I thought
"linnaecruft" was a dead giveaway. But you see my point? Just because
someone doesn't find arcane information interesting or useful doesn't mean
that everyone sees it that way. We should be careful about removing
information from an article unless we know what we are doing.

Peter (Skyring)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

>
> On 2/24/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Pete, astonished to find that on Google China the medal
> tally for the
> > Winter Olympics is very very different
>
> Was this just a tongue in cheek remark? What do you mean the
> medal tally "on Google China"? URL?

You can pretty much take it as read that if I say something as a mock-sig
line after "Pete," then it's intended to be amusing.

Pete, not always bang on target


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
When whatever is on the user page is combined with sustained
aggressive point of view editing as was seen in the case of User:Ruy
Lopez.. But after, not before. I don't like the facile assumption
that "I'm a Broncos fan" means I will edit war over it.

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 7:34 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

> Perhaps we could move away from issues of deletion and being "allowed"
> to have userboxes, and more asking userboxes advocates to appreciate
> the dim view that others take of their behaviour. That is, let's
> assume you're allowed to keep any userbox you like. Under what
> circumstances would you concede that exercising that right is not in
> the interests of the community and the project as a whole?
>
> Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
And just what is the basis for that crabbed view?

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 7:41 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> Should Wikipedia provide an official-looking template?  I
> don't think so.


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

> On 2/25/06, Daniel P. B. Smith <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
> > An editor took strong exception to my request for sources
> for "popular
> > culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One
> of these
> > items was:
> >
> > "The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball
> > team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."
> >
> > The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the
> > SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for
> Pete's sake."
>
> Even if true, it's not exactly interesting either.

It is if mascots are your passion. Trust me - such people exist, and can
give you enough information about mascots in fifteen minutes to last you the
rest of your life and then some. We cannot determine what sort of people our
readers might be, and assuming that they are PLU would be a grave mistake.

Pete, bog-standard representative of humanity


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Guy
> Chapman aka JzG

> On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 12:35:01 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >A lot of Hooke's research would probably fit in better with articles
> >about the _research_ rather than about the _man_, so if you were to
> >write an article covering all of that I expect it would also shed
> >pieces into those topics as well. That's still a net gain for
> >Wikipedia, so again no reason not to go ahead and write it.
>
> Don't get me wrong - I think Hooke's *research* is a titanic
> achievement, he was probably the greatest experimenter of his
> age, and that was probably the golden age of the
> experimenter.  But much of the verifiable detail is things
> like "Mr Hooke was asked about the progress of the lenses,
> and stated that they required further polishing but would be
> ready soon" or words to that effect.

Detail that might be, but it is not what most people would call trivia in
the accepted sense. If the material he used to grind the lenses was the fine
ash produced by burning pieces of the True Cross, then that would be trivia.

Pete, seeking more information on the details


subject: [WikiEN-l] 3RR block of User:Striver

body:
Yes, I spent some time checking this out too. Mongo blocked him
improperly on two scores, he had not actually broken 3RR and Mongo
was himself disputing the edit. But Striver is a rather vigorous
troublemaker, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Conspiracies_Guild&action=history

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 8:29 AM, David Gerard wrote:

> robert bloom wrote:
>
>
>> Hi. I belive i have become the vicitm of a admin abuse. I would
>> appreciate
>> if someone could take a look:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
>> User_talk:Striver#Three_revert_rule_violation
>> I request to be unblocked, and i aim to go report the admin for admin
>> abuser, possibly going further. Comments are welcomed, i rather
>> have them on
>> my talk page, since i rarly logg in here,
>>
>
>
> This is a current topic on [[WP:ANI]]:
>
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP%3AANI#Block_of_Striver
>
> So far opinion seems to be that MONGO blew his top and blocked in a
> dispute he was involved in, but the user has been so odious no-one is
> getting very upset about it. This edit in particular was enlightening:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
> title=Talk:Muawiyah_I&diff=39724519&oldid=39715229
>
>
> - d.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Userboxen

body:
Neutral point of view is a core Wikipedia policy. Harassing users who
are football fans doesn't logically relate to that policy. It just
interjects a sour note into our social scene. But you would no doubt
maintain that having a "social scene" is not "building an
encyclopedia". I would maintain making users feel at home, putting up
some pictures of the wife and kids and of their dog on the walls of
their "cubical" is part of building an encyclopedia. This userbox
fuss has done absolutely nothing to advance the project. Just wasted
our time and caused serious conflict, much more conflict than letting
things take their course would have resulted in.

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 8:37 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:

> On 2/27/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Feb 27, 2006, at 7:41 AM, Tony Sidaway wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Should Wikipedia provide an official-looking template?  I
>>> don't think so.
>>>
>>
>> And just what is the basis for that crabbed view?
>>
>>
>
> I'd hardly call it "crabbed".  Wikipedia isn't a football site and it
> isn't really intended to be used to promote rivalry between football
> fans, nor would it be in our interests to do so.  Templates used in
> this manner give the false impression that it is, and also draw focus
> away from the encyclopedia and onto external issues.
>
> As there is nothing that can be included on a template that an editor
> cannot say much better in his own words, the *only* reasons for using
> a template instead would be for social networking on the basis of
> shared interests.  Such shared interests should be justifiable on the
> basis of utility to Wikipedia.  Where knowledge of a language and
> interest in football may be justifiable, partisanship such as football
> teams, political parties and beliefs, don't serve that purpose at all.
>  All that a "Manchester United fan" template tells you is that its
> owner prefer that team to others.
>
> Would we permit a WikiProject with membership restricted to Manchester
> United fans, socialists, vegetarians, muslims or Roman Catholics?
> Looking at WikiProject Islam and its associated projects I see that
> they are very careful not to exclude non-Muslims from membership.  The
> Judaism and Christianity projects are the same.
>
> Using userbox templates, people with partisan interests can bypass
> this restriction, and the Catholic Alliance deletion debate showed
> just how effectively this can be used to disrupt Wikipedia.  Nearly
> every single person in that debate who voted to keep the page did so
> after the page's creator spammed his talk page with a plea to vote to
> keep the page.
>
> If the neutrality policy is to remain our cornerstone, we must avoid
> giving the impression that it doesn't really mean anything.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

body:
On 2/27/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> * Many PNG thumbs defaulted to unnecessarily high bit depth, wasting bandwidth

Wee!

> * JPEG thumbs were at a somewhat higher quality than needed, wasting bandwidth

Oh no! We already have more than a few thumbs showing ringing
artifacts. This is especially true for images which have jpeg
artifacting in their orignal. ..... Or is this like the off by one fix
below, something which has been in for a while but not something that
all the thumbs have caught up with yet?

> * Some PNG and JPEG thumbs were sized a pixel off due to mismatches in how
> MediaWiki and ImageMagick rounded the resized aspect ratio; these could get
> resized in the client, leading to extra blurry scaling

Wee! Wee!

> * Lots of SVG rendering problems fixed by upgrading to librsvg 2.14.0

Cool. I need to upgrade my local copy.

> Since invalidating *all* thumbs brought things to a halt doing nothing but
> rerendering, I've currently got it invalidating thumbs over a year old, and will
> be moving up the cutoff date gradually over the next day or two.

Okay.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Appeal for community support

body:
> I don't imagine the current AC (I cannot speak for past committees,
> though I fully expect they would say the same) will penalise you for
> other people causing conflict with you.

But you did.  I didn't asked to be stalked, and I was even clear about what
provoked it so I can't even be blamed for being the victim of vandalism.

> I believe Geni made some apt comments on this mailing list about how it
> > feels to be constantly blocked.
>
> If people abuse the AC decision to block you spuriously, I expect the
> AC will have some very clear things to say on the matter.

But you didn't.  I specifically asked you to review such a block, and no
comment was made on it by any arbitrator (well, except Fred Bauder in his
mailing list post, but he was recused).

I believe we are giving you the chance to show yourself to be a
> legitimate user.  That is my intention.  I am certain that none of the
> AC considers reversions of vandalism to count in your ruling.  I
> personally undertake to unblock you if anyone blocks you for reverting
> vandalism.

Well this reflects well on you; at least one member of the AC is willing to
commit to something positive.  Instead of Raul talking down to me like he
owes no one a fair shake.

> me on those points.  But not a peep has been uttered about what I raised.
>
> Visit not the sins of the father on the son.  I was myself not a
> member of that committee, and do not consider myself responsible for
> the decisions, whether they were right or wrong.

I'm not saying you are personally responsible, but as you now are part of
the AC you can take institutional responsibility, like governments do.  Or
if that's too much, add a "finding of fact" that the past ruling was in
error.

We have undertaken to look at your case again when we have some more
> evidence to base our actions on.  If you can manage four months of
> good editing (and I see no reason why you cannot), your restrictions
> will likely be lifted.  That doesn't fulfill my description of "get
> stuffed".

Well there was already quite a lot of evidence my contributions history.
Maybe the third time would be the charm, but why after two crash-and-burns
should I be hopeful?

Anyway, I feel like you're asking me to make a bunch of uncontroversial
(frivolous?) edits (what did I say, on bunnies and flowers).  Anyone can do
that and it proves nothing, so yes it seems you're just telling me off for
another length of time.

VV


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
I think we need to adopt standards of what is an acceptable source
which is in accord with the nature of the subject. In this case, it
is not going to be a book published by the Oxford University Press,
blogs may have to serve, as well as comixs websites. The alternative
is to drastically trim our popular culture coverage, which is one of
the bright spots of Wikipedia, if sometimes considered eccentric and
unscholarly.

Fred

On Feb 27, 2006, at 8:46 AM, Delirium wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>
>> If the history of webcomics has not yet been written, that would be a
>> good reason to write it on Wikipedia.
>>
>>
> That seems directly contrary to the long-established "no original
> research" policy.  When it comes to history articles, Wikipedia is not
> the place to publish novel historical narratives of any sort, whether
> they be on the Cold War or on webcomics, but a place to document
> *existing* historical narratives.
>
> To quote some verbiage from the policy page that's been there nearly
> forever:
>
> "If you have an idea that you think should become part of the
> corpus of
> knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have
> your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news
> outlet, and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan
> manner."
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Steve Bennett

> On 2/26/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > > Even if true, it's not exactly interesting either.
> >
> > It is if mascots are your passion. Trust me - such people
> exist, and
> > can give you enough information about mascots in fifteen minutes to
> > last you the rest of your life and then some. We cannot
> determine what
> > sort of people our readers might be, and assuming that they
> are PLU would be a grave mistake.
>
> Is it interesting to the average reader of an article about
> the Statue of Liberty? Wouldn't the average reader go, "well,
> duh"? It would be like listing every team that uses a
> [[bear]] logo or something on the [[bear]] page.

I hadn't imagined that there'd be a good reason to put such a reference on
the SoL page. Obviously we fly along different wavelengths. The place to
reference a team mascot is on the *team* page.

Pete


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On 2/27/06, Daniel R. Tobias <dan at tobias.name> wrote:
> It can cut both ways... would you want a bunch of tenured professors
> passing judgment as to the notability of a Pokemon-related article?

A professor in Pokemonology, yes...

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's destiny

body:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 23:08:16 -0500, you wrote:

>It can cut both ways... would you want a bunch of tenured professors
>passing judgment as to the notability of a Pokemon-related article?

Don't raise false hopes, it's not kind.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG