body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

> G'day Ray,
>
>> Karl A. Krueger wrote:
>>
>>> Yup.  See also [[euphemism treadmill]].  Creating a politically-correct
>>> neologism won't change the situation:  People who are misleading the
>>> public (by pretending to scientific research they aren't doing) don't
>>> like having the fact pointed out.
>>
>> 20,000 Google hits is not a characteristic of a neologism.
>
> So it's a euphemism, not necessarily a neologism.  A slight
> improvement; like being rescued from the fire and dumped into the
> frying pan.

Whatever rhetorical label you want to attach to the terminology only
obfuscates the issues.

> The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
> "pseudoscioence" does not.
>
> Assume Good Faith is a community tool, not an explanation of how to
> achieve NPOV.

And in you mind good faith is not essential to NPOV?

> Describing astrology, Intelligent Design[0], the healing power of
> magnets[1], etc. as "pseudoscience" is entirely accurate.

Not without evidence.

> Describing it as "alternative science" is adopting a label that
> fraudsters and dupes (e.g. I've no doubt many astrologers really
> believe they're telling the truth, which makes them more dupes than
> liars themselves) would prefer, conjuring up as it does positive
> thoughts of the spiritual knowledge of the Ancients of the Orient, as
> with "alternative medicine".

So because fraudsters and dupes choose to use such a label then their
guilt must be transferred to anyone that uses the term?  I don't know
what you mean by "the spiritual knowledge of the Ancients of the
Orient".  It seems like an ignorant  substitute for a lack of facts and
knowledge.

> Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia.  Encyclopaedias are expected to tell
> the truth, whether they do so in a neutral tone of voice or not.

I don't subscribe to the same self-righteous interpretation of "the
truth" as you.  That's perhaps why I need to read a neutral point of
view to be able come to a scientific conclusion.  Neutral point of view
is different from your "neutral tone of voice"

> It is not POV to call a liar a liar; it is not NPOV to refuse to do
> so.  NPOV does not oblige us to give all sides a fair hearing.  That's
> called "journalistic balance", and it's an ethically bankrupt concept
> which inevitably hands victory to the biggest liar.

It defies journalistic balance to limit one's offensive epithets to one
side only.  Calling someone a liar requires some basis for saying so.
Your presumption that he is a liar is not such a basis.  I'm sorry to
hear that you believe the debate to be to be between two sets of liars.

> We're obliged to be truthful, and neutral; we're not obliged to be
> "balanced".  We should be careful that, in our rush to give
> pseudoscience a fair hearing, we do not start POV-pushing for them.

We shouldn't be POV pushing for either side, neither for what you cal
"pseudoscience" nor scientism.

> Someone, I think it was David Gerard, said recently that we won't get
> into trouble if we lean too far towards what Jack Lynch calls "SPOV":
> 'tis better to be thought of as scientifically accurate than to be
> considered a haven of confused POV-pushing liars.  If it was him, he's
> exactly right.

Being scientifically accurate, no matter where it leads us, is superior
to being todies of SPOV-pushing liars.

> [0] That is, the American extremist Christian fraud "Intelligent
>     Design", not the concept of an intelligent designer
>
> [1] By which I mean those who promise to send you a motivational VHS
>     tape and a packet of fridge magnets for just $199.95 (+ $4.95 p&s)
>     and if you pay NOW by credit card you'll get not one, not two, but
>     FOUR free sets of steak knives ...

What happened when you tried to get your money back?  I can understand
that such an expereince could give rise to your bitterness.

Ec


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating

body:
> That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something
> to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.

Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template.
Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.

Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature
from "references" and "external links"  to "sources" and "further
reading".  I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work
a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps
academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood
"sources", etc.  If a template is being created, it's probably a good
opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing
it there.

Steve


list: wikitech-l

from_name: epzachte at chello.nl

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Esperanto wikipedia xml dump log incorrectly reports
	all went well

body:
Esperanto wikipedia xml dump log incorrectly reports all went well

File size of 20051211_pages_full.xml.bz2 is less than 1 Mb, but log says:

eowiki 2005-12-12T04:47:45+0000 OK: ... building articles XML dump, with text prefetch from /var/backup/public/wikipedia/eo/pages_articles.xml.bz2...
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:49:49+0000 OK: ... building current XML dump, with text prefetch from /var/backup/public/wikipedia/eo/pages_current.xml.bz2...
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:06+0000 OK: ... building full XML dump, with text prefetch from /var/backup/public/wikipedia/eo/pages_full.xml.bz2...
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:25+0000 OK: ... XML done.
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:25+0000 OK: ... title list
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:26+0000 OK: ... calculating MD5 hashes:
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:30+0000 OK: ... cleaning obsolete links
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:30+0000 OK: ... setting symlinks
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:31+0000 OK: Marking complete.
eowiki 2005-12-12T04:52:31+0000 SUCCESS: done.

By the way German dump failed as well

dewiki 2005-12-12T04:31:31+0000 ABORT: full prefetched XML dump failed

Erik Zachte


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
The debate started about Scientific POV, but it seems that in referring
to the Sympathetic POV he was exercising the Sarcastic POV.

Ec

Steve Bennett wrote:

>I notice SPOV seems to be being used to mean "scientific point of view"
>and "sympathetic point of view". Should these possibly be disambiguated
>to SciPOV and SymPOV?
>
>
>>Mark Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Someone, I think it was David Gerard, said recently that we won't get
>>>
>>>
>>>into trouble if we lean too far towards what Jack Lynch calls "SPOV":
>>>
>>>
>>>'tis better to be thought of as scientifically accurate than to be
>>>considered a haven of confused POV-pushing liars.  If it was him, he's exactly right.
>>>
>>>
>>It wasn't me, but it's still exactly right ;-)
>>
>>This proposal to purge the word "pseudoscience" smacks of
>>Sympathetic Point Of View. We don't do that here.
>>


body:
It also made #4 on the "gainers of 2005" list.

Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Keith Old
> Sent: Wednesday, 21th December 2005 12:22 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia makes Google's 2005 Zeitgeist
>
>
> Folks,
>
> We have made Google's 2005 end-of-year Zeitgeist list under
> phenomena see (
> http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2005/phen> omena.html).
>


from_name: Sherool

subject: [WikiEN-l] Well, we have at least one important supporter

body:
On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 17:09:53 +0100, Geoffrey Burling
<llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:

> I know he's Canadian, & for some reason I think he lives in Vancouver.
> If that's right, then I suspect he must be on speaking terms with Ray.
>
> http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20051209
>
> Geoff

On the topic of webcomic strips I found this a little amusing (it's a few
days old so sorry if it's already been posted, I'm currently up to 836
unread messages from the mailing list :P):

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16

--
[[User:Sherool]]


subject: [Wikitech-l] Spanish full xml dump only 6 Mb

body:
On dec 12 Spanish Wikipedia was dumped succesful according to log.
Then on Dec 13 a new dump started but did not finish

Is there a mechanism to auto rerun failed dump jobs?
Or at least collect all errors in one file for quick examination?

Erik Zachte


from_name: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason

subject: [Wikitech-l] Skins for deletion: Amethyst

body:
On 12/19/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> If there's no objection, I'm going to remove the Amethyst skin from the default
> set. It's very buggy, and also, um, kinda ugly IMHO. :)

Why not leave it be? There's someone maintaining it and some people
proabably find it useful.

* Deleted = useful to noone
* Kept = useful to someone

I go with #2;)


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: [MediaWiki-CVS] extensions Tidy.php,NONE,1.1

body:
On 12/21/05, Ben Garney <beng at garagegames.com> wrote:
> var Arnfjr Bjarmason wrote:
>
> >Update of /cvsroot/wikipedia/extensions
> >In directory sc8-pr-cvs1.sourceforge.net:/tmp/cvs-serv16873
> >
> >Added Files:
> >       Tidy.php
> >Log Message:
> >* An extension that adds a tidy tab to all pages
> >
> >
> >--- NEW FILE: Tidy.php ---
> >(This appears to be a binary file; contents omitted.)
> >
> >
> Is there a reason this is showing up as binary..? From a convenience
> perspective,  I'd love to read the code. :) From a CVS standpoint,
> though, is this an indication the file has the wrong mode?

It's due to stupid logic in the script that parses the file, it thinks
a file is binary if it finds any byte with a value less than ' ' (32)
and higher than 127 line 5 of that file is the following:

 * @author ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at gmail.com>

On that line there are three characters and six bytes with chr > 127,
or ?, ? and ? with the first byte being 195 and the second byte being
134, 182 and 176, respectively. So python thinks that file is a binary
file, although it obviously isn't.

I'll change the script so that it only checks whether the first five
lines contain any characters < ' ', hopefully that will resolve the
issue.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Namespace changes ready for code review

body:
On 12/20/05, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at ...> writes:
> >
> > Magnus's Rewiew extension is just that, and it doesn't make sense to
> > make special considerations for extension in the main code by
> > definition. If extensions want something from the main codebase their
> > authors can add hooks to the main code and modify things with those
> > hooks.
> >
>
> But this "extension" already has its own table in the data model!  Granted the
> review/validate feature can be coded to capture different data than it does now,
> but the presence of a VALIDATE table in the data model firmly entrenches the
> notion that pages are validateable within the Mediawiki "ontology".  It thus
> shouldn't be bad design to recognize and control this notion elsewhere in the
> datamodel.

The only reason why there's a validate table in the main distribution
is because Review used to be in the main code, the database definition
will presumably be moved to the extensions module along with the rest
in time, Magnus?


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: Stable version now with cache (Tim,
	this one's for you!:-)

body:
On 12/21/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just one question: if a given template is updated, and it is decided that
> the changes should be propagated, is it possible to do this automagically,
> or does some poor sod have to go around "re-stabilising" a bunch of
> articles?

Anything else would defeat the purpose. We need to provide the right
tools to minimize the pain of operations like this.   ... And, of
course, avoid putting factual information in template pages if that is
followed strictly, who cares if a 'stable' page has a somewhat
outdated look and feel.


from_name: amgine at saewyc.net

subject: [Wikitech-l] Thai Wikinews logo

body:
I've been unable to contact anyone who can help this project gain a logo.

Thai Wikinews has created a logo,
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikinews-logo-th.png. A 135 pixel
size may be found at
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Wikinews-logo-th.png/135px-Wikinews-logo-th.png

I'm sure the project would really appreciate if this change could be
implimented.

Amgine


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
On Monday 19 December 2005 16:08, Brock Batsell wrote:

>
> Indeed.  I realize that that policy is there, but in my opinion, this
> was not a case of 'excessive personal attacks'; in fact, the attacks
> were far from personal considering they were form letters.  This was a
> case of abusing WP:POINT.  I'm most certainly not arguing against a
> block, one is necessary.  A block of 4 months, however, is clearly out
> of line and against policy.
>

Thank you.

Anyway, karmafist has now placed another indef block on me (because he "didn't
see it on the logs".  This is getting ridiculous.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: Brock Batsell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> Thank you.
>
> Anyway, karmafist has now placed another indef block on me (because he "didn't
> see it on the logs".  This is getting ridiculous.
>
I have discussed the block with several administrators and there's more
history there than I realized.  Your edits were disruptive, as I said
before, and you had been blocked twice before for the same reason.
Since you ignored the first section of my e-mail regarding the validity
of your use of the word deletionist (which you have ignored in the
past), I won't be defending you any longer in AN/I.

Regards,
[[User:Bbatsell]]


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [Wikitech-l] Review feature

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 12/20/05, Henning Heitk?tter <hheitkoetter at web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>The input element has to be empty:
>>http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html#dtdentry_xhtml1-transitional.dtd_input
>>
>>I'm not sure if this prohibits the use of "background-color" (probably
>>not), but the placement of "yes" and "no" inside the input-element isn't
>>valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional.
>>
>>
Fixed it, but still no colors in Firefox 1.5 :-(

>
>It works in Internet Explorer, so the coding must be invalid!
>
>
LOL

Magnus


subject: [Wikitech-l] Yet another reason to have a "stable article" system

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

> I'm totally confusing between "validation", "review" and "stable"
> concepts and who want what!? On a dynamic site like Wikipedia the
> "stable" concept seem very odd for me. Does that imply any
> restrictions to modify the article further? Are we all ok to say an
> article is never really finished?

Forget validation. It was an odd name for review. I actually can't
remember why I called it that...
In other news:
* "review" = everyone and their grandma can give their opinion on
article versions
* "stable" = a few selected people can call a version on an article
"stable" if they deem it good enough for the unprepared reader.
To come:
* "review" might become a way to guide the tagging of "stable"
* "stable" versions will be served to anons is available instead of the
latest version. Logged-in users will have an option.

This seems to be compatible with your proposal.

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
On Wednesday 21 December 2005 08:56, Brock Batsell wrote:
> Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Anyway, karmafist has now placed another indef block on me (because he
> > "didn't see it on the logs".  This is getting ridiculous.
>
> I have discussed the block with several administrators and there's more
> history there than I realized.  Your edits were disruptive, as I said
> before, and you had been blocked twice before for the same reason.

Yes, I have been blocked twice before for the same behavior.  I resumed it
because, both times, after giving the involved admins plenty of time to
explain why my behavior was wrong, I got no answer; thus, I made the
conclusion that they had conceded defeat. I'm aware that karmafist has
accused me of simply "gaming the system" and trying to make him look bad; you
should be aware that he cannot read minds and has no way of knowing my actual
intent or motives.

I do dispute your claim that they were "disruptive", but that's neither here
nor there.

> Since you ignored the first section of my e-mail regarding the validity
> of your use of the word deletionist

The most recent email made no mention of that as far as I can see; the one
before that (which was received early Monday morning CST) I had simply
overlooked until now.

Anyway, if all that is necessary for a user to be blocked is for a particular
admin to assert that certain behavior is unacceptable, without having to
explain, then I am willing to put up with that.  The lesson learned here has
been more one of how Wikipedia really works than that my behavior was wrong
(you're the only one who has made any attempt to explain why the latter might
be so, and you actually have a good point, although I have some issues I
would like to discuss with you in private if you don't mind).

If this is the system, I will work within it.  Fair enough.  In the end, it's
Wikimedia's property, and they get to set the rules, however arbitrary and
nonsensical they may be.  The remnants of my earlier period of irrational
Peikoffism blinded me to that, and I alone bear responsibility for that.  I
simply have to decide whether or not those restrictions are worth the
benefit.  At the moment, they are.
--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: Keith Old

subject: [WikiEN-l] Biographies of living persons - new draft guideline

body:
On 12/21/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've done a rewrite of the proposed guideline at
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/temp
>
> It's rewritten very much in the style of a quickly usable guideline -
> you should be able to get the whole idea from the intro, the rest is
> details.
>
> I've also tried to greatly tighten the writing from the original, but
> it could do with more (e.g. the looong examples). Please hack away.
>
>
> - 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
>

David,

Thank you for this work.

It certainly covers my concerns.

Regards

*Keith Old*

Keith Old


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

>On 12/20/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
>
>>Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Finally, I'd just like to let everyone remember where Wikipedia started.
>>>The factor that's distinguished Wikipedia from basically every other
>>>reference work on Earth has been its *absolutely* open nature.
>>>Anyone can edit it! That's what's worked so well in ensuring such
>>>a dynamic, comprehensive, deep and updated encyclopedia.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>And with stable versions, that would change how?
>>(Yes, it's a trick question: it wouldn't.)
>>
>>Magnus
>>
>>
>
>
>Oh, it would change very significantly. Under the first model, if stable
>versions are to be locked, then obviously no-one could edit them, thus going
>against the principle of Wikipedia. If the second proposal is to be adopted,
>which involves creating a new namespace/subpage for stable versions, it
>would still reduce the freedom of editors. Wikipedia was founded on the
>principle that *anyone* could edit the encyclopedia, and that their edits
>would be immediately seen. If the stable versions proposal becomes policy,
>there will be two versions of each article. Of course, the stable version
>would become the most respected version, while the "open" version would
>become sort of a draft. Therefore, when someone makes an edit to the
>editable version, his edit won't be immediately reflected in the stored
>version, even if it's an update. And when there's two versions of an
>article, readers will always choose the stable version, and thus, any edits
>to the editable version basically become unnecessary until they become
>incorporated into a new stable version, which according to the proposal,
>takes a large amount of consensus. Thus, Wikipedia's open, immediate nature
>becomes very cumbersome and it would become sort of like a Nupedia - a
>peer-reviewed encyclopedia instead of a true open encyclopedia.
>
>I think the proponents of these policies hide behind the fact that they are
>only "minor changes", but I think that all of the new proposals - from
>banning anons from creating articles, to semi-protection to stable versions,
>are all slippery-slope attempts to somehow make Wikipedia more restricted to
>combat vandalism. Combating vandalism is a worthy cause, but freedom comes
>first. We're the free encyclopedia, after all.
>
>
I think you have misunderstood the concept of stable versions entirely.

Currently, new versions of an article can be added through editing an
existing version of it. This *does not* change the existing version, it
merely produces a new one, which is shown as default when you request a
page for reading without specifying the version number. Noone can, and
noone ever could, edit any *version* of an article. Just *the* article,
by creating a new version. That point seems to have escaped your attention.

A stable version merely changes the *default view* from the latest
version to another that has been declared stable by someone trustworthy.
You can still see the latest version if you want, and you can still
create new ones based on any old version.

So, the only thing that will changes is that for anons (and logged-in
users depending on their settings) reading articles, the *initial* view
will be the stable version. This features a text like "this is a stable
version, the latest version is [[here]]" in the header.

So, despite your rather polemic claims, there is *no* (as in *0*,
*zero*, *nada*) freedom taken away from anyone. Everyone can still edit
every article.

On the contrary, setting a stable version will again allow the editing
of perpetually protected pages! So, more freedom to anyone.

I don't think I can explain this any clearer without reverting to drawn
images, so if you don't get it now, I can't help you ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
This assumption is not terribly logical. You need to do some thinking
on your own about why people are getting pissed off.

Fred

On Dec 21, 2005, at 8:24 AM, Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:

> Yes, I have been blocked twice before for the same behavior.  I
> resumed it
> because, both times, after giving the involved admins plenty of
> time to
> explain why my behavior was wrong, I got no answer; thus, I made the
> conclusion that they had conceded defeat.


from_name: George Jenkins

subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>Hi,
>  It works for me in firefox 1.0.7 and IE 6.0, so you might be having
>some browser related issue?
>
>Steve
>
>
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
>>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of George Jenkins
>>Sent: Monday, 19th December 2005 11:43 PM
>>To: English Wikipedia
>>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page
>>
>>
>>Sorry in advance if this is posted to the wrong place.
>>
>>It appears to me that the page in which to sign up to Wikipedia is
>>broken
>>(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&t
>>
>>
>ype=signup).
>(As I have never used this page before its hard to say) It appears that
>the fields to enter a username and password are missing.
>
>Could someone redirect me or this message to someone who may know about
>this.
>
Hmmm, when I sent my previous email I was at work. However, last night
when I went home I had no problems registering. This morning when I
tried again at work the page still has username and password fields missing.

At home I use Firefox 1.0.7 on Gentoo Linux, and at work Firefox 1.5 on
Windows 2000.

One other piece of information that may or may not be relevant is that
my companies internet address has been blocked by User:Curps as he/she
believes that the address belongs to an anoymous proxy (Half the reason
I wanted to sign up is so I could attempt to have this rectified).

Cheers, George.

=======================================================================
This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended
addressee.  It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be
the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or
lost by reason of this transmission.
If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our
apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no
other act on the email.
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from_name: Guillaume Paumier

subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page

body:
It seemed to me that when an ip was blocked, all registered users sharing
this ip were blocked too. If this is right, maybe the creation of new
accounts from people using this ip is disabled.

Anyone to confirm ?

2005/12/20, George Jenkins <gvj11 at student.canterbury.ac.nz>:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >  It works for me in firefox 1.0.7 and IE 6.0, so you might be having
> >some browser related issue?
> >
> >Steve
> >
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> >>[mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of George Jenkins
> >>Sent: Monday, 19th December 2005 11:43 PM
> >>To: English Wikipedia
> >>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page
> >>
> >>
> >>Sorry in advance if this is posted to the wrong place.
> >>
> >>It appears to me that the page in which to sign up to Wikipedia is
> >>broken
> >>(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&t
> >>
> >>
> >ype=signup).
> >(As I have never used this page before its hard to say) It appears that
> >the fields to enter a username and password are missing.
> >
> >Could someone redirect me or this message to someone who may know about
> >this.
> >
> Hmmm, when I sent my previous email I was at work. However, last night
> when I went home I had no problems registering. This morning when I
> tried again at work the page still has username and password fields
> missing.
>
> At home I use Firefox 1.0.7 on Gentoo Linux, and at work Firefox 1.5 on
> Windows 2000.
>
> One other piece of information that may or may not be relevant is that
> my companies internet address has been blocked by User:Curps as he/she
> believes that the address belongs to an anoymous proxy (Half the reason
> I wanted to sign up is so I could attempt to have this rectified).
>
> Cheers, George.
>
> =======================================================================
> This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended
> addressee.  It is subject to copyright, is confidential and may be
> the subject of legal or other privilege, none of which is waived or
> lost by reason of this transmission.
> If the receiver is not the intended addressee, please accept our
> apologies, notify us by return, delete all copies and perform no
> other act on the email.
> Unfortunately, we cannot warrant that the email has not been
> altered or corrupted during transmission.
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>
> _______________________________________________
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>

--
Guillom
"Je sers la science et c'est ma joie" - Basile le Disciple


from_name: Maru Dubshinki

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/21/05, Magnus Manske <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote:
>
> I think you have misunderstood the concept of stable versions entirely.
>
> Currently, new versions of an article can be added through editing an
> existing version of it. This *does not* change the existing version, it
> merely produces a new one, which is shown as default when you request a
> page for reading without specifying the version number. Noone can, and
> noone ever could, edit any *version* of an article. Just *the* article,
> by creating a new version. That point seems to have escaped your
> attention.
>
> A stable version merely changes the *default view* from the latest
> version to another that has been declared stable by someone trustworthy.
> You can still see the latest version if you want, and you can still
> create new ones based on any old version.
>
> So, the only thing that will changes is that for anons (and logged-in
> users depending on their settings) reading articles, the *initial* view
> will be the stable version. This features a text like "this is a stable
> version, the latest version is [[here]]" in the header.
>
> So, despite your rather polemic claims, there is *no* (as in *0*,
> *zero*, *nada*) freedom taken away from anyone. Everyone can still edit
> every article.
>
>
> On the contrary, setting a stable version will again allow the editing
> of perpetually protected pages! So, more freedom to anyone.
>
> I don't think I can explain this any clearer without reverting to drawn
> images, so if you don't get it now, I can't help you ;-)
>
> Magnus

And you don't seem to realize how adversarial and prejudicial the idea of
stable versions is -
"Oh, we have an up to date version, but we don't dare show it as the default
displayed article
 because our up to date articles are apparently so crappy that they need to
be specially cleared
by our editors."
Not to mention the simple effect of making the current revision even harder
to find- the more work
a reader has to do to get to something, the less they will read it!
For an example: the New York times
is only, I would estimate, about half again as hard to read as USA Today
(for an equivalent amount of text);
yet the NY Times has 1,136,433 (
http://www.nytco.com/investors-nyt-circulation.html) readers, as opposed  to

more than 2.25 million readers for USA Today. One is easier, and the other
is not.

~Maru


from_name: Leon Planken

body:
On Wed 21 Dec 2005 09:21:55 +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> * "stable" = a few selected people can call a version on an article
> "stable" if they deem it good enough for the unprepared reader.

Imagine the following sequence of events:
- an article is marked stable
- the article 'development' version is heavily edited for a while, not
  necessarily for the better
- a critical error that needs to be fixed immediately is discovered in
  the version marked as stable (this is possible, the review feature
  being a process involving humans)

I see three possibilities:
- the stable flag is removed, the mistake is corrected in the
  'development' version, which could then be nominated as 'stable' again
- the critical error is corrected in the stable version, making a
  separate branch in the article history
  (this would mean a rather big addition to the MediaWiki software to
  allow for history branches, right?)
- the stable article, with the error corrected, is saved as the latest
  'development' version which is then marked stable; the previously
  latest 'development' version is still available through article
  history
  (poor man's version branching, rather horrible I think)

The second solution above (branching) could also be implemented by
allowing just two branches: a 'development' branch and a 'stable'
branch.  Or just a separate namespace (if you will) for stable articles,
editable only by users with the appropriate rights.

Leon (aka Oliphaunt)

--
I really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did
the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much, of
course - the computer industry didn't even foresee that the
century was going to end.   --  Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Esquire article has been published

body:
Delirium wrote:

> Michael Snow wrote:
>
>> Dealing with the recent Nature study, for example, is it more neutral
>> to throw in out of the blue that "Wikipedia is almost as accurate as
>> Britannica" or would something along the lines of "Britannica remains
>> more accurate than Wikipedia" be better?
>
> Well, to stick to sourceable claims in the form of direct quotes, we
> could say:
> -- According to the journal _Nature_, "Wikipedia comes close to
> Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries"
> [http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html].

That's probably much better because it leaves it to a neutral third
party to make the comparison.  But does any such comparison need to be
in an article about EB?  There is no doubt that writing about Wikipedia
is encyclopedic, but it's too easy to fall into the trap that people
writing their own biographies fall into.

When it comes to the article about Wikipedia maybe we should ask several
outside editors to write it, ensuring that a variety of POVs are
represented.  The resulting set of articles could be relatively uneditable.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia makes Google's 2005 Zeitgeist

body:
Folks,

We have made Google's 2005 end-of-year Zeitgeist list under phenomena see (
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2005/phenomena.html).

Regards

*Keith Old*

Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Alfio Puglisi wrote:

>There are some independent issues there have been mixed up, confusing
>the discussion:
>
>
Indeed, this is the usual pattern when stable versions are discussed. :)

>1) Using the review process to somehow decide that a certain revision
>of an article is the good one. That's the stable revision.
>
>
No problem here, always nice to add more tools to the toolbox. I've been
wanting this sort of development since forever.

>2) What to present readers. The latest revision? The last stable
>revision? Some combination of the two?
>
>
This is where I'm differing from Magnus. I think the "default" view
should be the latest version, not the stable version, because that's the
version that we need editors to actually _work_ on. Wikipedia is a work
in progress, our goal is to _produce_ an encyclopedia rather than merely
_displaying_ one. Displaying or otherwise making use of the encyclopedia
we're writing can be done by our many mirrors, or whoever else wants to
- the "stable" tag will presumably be in the database for them to base
decisions on. When someone comes to a Wikipedia page we should be saying
"here's what we're working on, can you do anything to help us improve
it?" I suspect by instead saying "here's our best effort so far, we'll
let you know if we come up with anything better" we're going to lose a
lot of impulse editors that may subsequently metamorphose into
Wikipediholics.

By all means, have a prominent "click here to see the stable version of
the article" up in the banner and on the sidebar and in the footer and
wherever else it can be spammed. Maybe flashing warning signs telling of
how the current revision is a work in progress (handy even if there's no
stable version to see). But IMO making it the default is ungood.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
Michael Snow wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> The difference is that "parascience" assumes good faith;
>> "pseudoscioence" does not.
>
> Assume good faith is a policy about interaction between contributors,
> not content. A neutral point of view assumes neither good faith nor bad.

Choice of words is about interaction between contributors.  If a word
contains implicit bad faith its use transfers that bad faith to its user.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Magnus Manske wrote:

>Well, if there's a page that is updated regularly, and you want people
>to always see the latest, probably vandalized, version, then *don't set
>any version of it as stable*!
>
>
Doesn't this defeat one of the main purposes of stable versions, marking
a version of frequently-vandalized articles so that our readers and
mirrors can have some reassurance that what they're looking at isn't a
pack of blatant lies?

I love the idea of stable versions and such, but I really don't think
it's a good idea to have these new features change the default behavior
of Wikipedia significantly. Maybe later after we get some solid data and
experience with how stable versions are turning out we could consider
making them the default view, but for now I think it should be just an
option that can be ignored by those who don't want to deal with it.

>The difference between the current state of wikipedia and wikipedia with
>stable versions is this: With the former, readers get a wiki to see;
>with the latter, they get an encyclopedia.
>
>
But our goal isn't to _show_ an encyclopedia to people, it's to get
people to help us _write_ one. Let Answers.com worry about showing our
material to people.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Defamatory Biographies - another problem looming
	forWikipedia?

body:
Geoff Burling wrote:

>Until reducing multiple stubs becomes a bannible offence, I will
>continue to do it, based on my editorial discression. you have been warned.
>
>
I've also been doing this for probably more than a year now and have
never had anyone complain about it, so it doesn't seem to be causing any
obvious problems. I always try to leave the "most relevant" stub notice
for those who actually use such things to find articles to work on.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Defamatory Biographies - another problem
	loomingforWikipedia?

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>IMHO, stubs are vulnerable because they have so few links to them or
>from them, and are so likely to get "lost". More links increases the
>chances that some kind person will stumble upon it and fix it. I never
>actively seek out stubs to work on - but if I hit one, I occasionally
>flesh it out a bit.
>
>
Every type of stub I've seen so far has some sort of corresponding
non-stub category that the article can be placed in, so whenever I
remove extra stub templates I make sure the article's properly
categorized. They don't get "lost" that way.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Proposed policy on biographies: input sought

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>And how would the subject feel from the time the article reads "X is
>alleged to have molested children [1]" with a footnote to the newspaper
>article until the time sometime after the retraction in the paper that
>the entry is amended to read as above?
>
>In any case, we need some very clear definitions of libel and
>defamation, with reference to jurisdictions etc, to know exactly what we
>can and can't say and in what circumstances.  I suspect our assumptions
>of good faith and commonsense being sufficient are unfounded.
>
That may be the only thing we can rely on.  How we react when something
is brought to our attention is important; having a fact checking
mechanism of some sort in place will be important.  It's impossible to
please all the jurisdictions.  Do we take the risk of being charged with
insulting the Turkish state for talking about the Armenian genocide of
the 1910s?

Ec


body:
geni wrote:

> NPOV is hard policy.

In both senses.  As difficult and as hard-wired.

Ec


from_name: Federico Paparoni

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Export pages

body:
Thanks :)

"Brion Vibber" <brion at pobox.com> ha scritto
nel messaggio news:43A86A95.6060308 at pobox.com...
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Kurt Maxwell Weber stated for the record:

> Yes, I have been blocked twice before for the same behavior.  I resumed it
> because, both times, after giving the involved admins plenty of time to
> explain why my behavior was wrong, I got no answer; thus, I made the
> conclusion that they had conceded defeat.

This statement alone convinces me that your blocks were correct and too
short.

- --
 Sean Barrett     | And it's great for tearing up
 sean at epoptic.org | fragile ecosystems -- watch!
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFDqaSJMAt1wyd9d+URAvA8AJ4jGJWqZs24MDm2VsPJiDXPgyHzgACcCaui
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from_name: Durumeric, Zakir B

subject: [Wikitech-l] Using Wiki with MS SQL Server

body:
Hi,

We are starting to look into using Wikimedia as a type of knowledge base
for our organization. We currently use MS Server and SQL Server 2000. We
have setup PHP on IIS, but I was wondering if it is possible to have
Wikimedia work off of MS SQL Server instead of MySQL. If not, it's not a
huge problem to install MySQL server on a linux or win machine, but we
would like to be able to link articles from other database interfaces we
have designed in the past using MS SQL server.

Thank you,

Zakir Durumeric

The WiderNet Project

http://www.widernet.org


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [WikiEN-l] Checkuser for all admins

body:
Sam Fentress (Asbestos) wrote:

> Why not make the checkuser function available to all admins?

Privacy concerns - IPs are hot information. The Foundation is
understandably *really touchy* about this stuff. Anyone who has
checkuser now is known directly to the stewards and/or the ACs as
someone who takes this stuff seriously; adding anyone else will be a
slow process.

This is not a strike on anyone who hasn't been picked - it's just
justifiable paranoia :-)

The other matters are finding people with enough technical knowledge
of the funny little ways of the Internet (though that's easy because
we have lots of those) *and* enough about the funny little ways of
good and bad editors on the wikis (a little harder, but we have lots
of those too).

I think we have enough checkers on en: right now. Kelly Martin's been
doing a lot of it of late, taking a great deal of the load off me, so
I'm coping better with the requests I've got!

(I'm considering going active on the AC again for the last two weeks
of the year to help clean up, but don't know WHERE I'm going to get
the time ... the holiday season has been absolutely batshit crazy so
far.)

I trust all our admins to a large extent - you don't get through RFA
without having some sense and judgement - but not *that* much.

- d.


list: foundation-l

from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses

body:
On 12/21/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
> >On 12/20/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I think that the key thing that would distinguish Wikiversity from the
> >>other projects is that it is about process while the others are about
> >>product.
> >>
> >>In considering your suggested three foci I think that as long as we
> >>can't get past the first one Wikiversity is just as well in Wikibooks.
> >>The third is very far ahead of where we are.  It would be absolutely
> >>forbidden in Wikipedia under the No Original Research  rule.  Making
> >>that a part of Wikiversity before Wikiversity is ready for it could be
> >>an invitation to all kinds of nutcase research that defies peer review.
> >>Peer reviewers would need to be in place before original research could
> >>take place.
> >>
> >>
> >Well, I think peer review would grow out of having research hosted on
> >Wikiversity. But until the research is peer reviewed, it shouldn't be
> >considered an appropriate source for Wikipedia/books. I personally
> >think the Wikimedia community is hampered by not having recourse to
> >publishing research somewhere within Wikimedia (even though we all do
> >- in Wikibooks!)
> >
> To make myself perfectly clear, I have never believed that "No Original
> Research" should be a rule in an ideal wiki.  It became a real issue
> when one individual sought to publish his offbeat theories in physics.
> The issue is really a matter of when, not whether.
>
> >>Your second focus is key to Wikiversity.but I would leave it simply at
> >>"growing learning communities" without reference to specific tasks.
> >>Getting tangled up in specific tasks and courses  leaves too much room
> >>for Wikiversity to repeat the educational model established by
> >>traditional universities.  The top down development of a course by a
> >>"teacher" imposes a range of requirements on what's being done.  It does
> >>nothing about revolutionizing the entire learning process.  "Courses"
> >>are about the teacher rather than the learner.
> >>
> >>
> >I agree that top-down course development shouldn't be where we're
> >going, but I just meant that learning communities generally have to
> >have some sort of goal (ie writing a good article, exploring the pros
> >and cons of advertising, etc.) - that's all.
> >
> Yes, content will eventually escape from the process, but it must not
> drive the process.  To quote McLuhan, "The medium is the message."
>
> >>The name "Wikiversity" is just fine *because* it is about all learners
> >>at all levels and all ages.  That's what universality is all about.
> >>It's about life-long learning from kindergarten to post-graduate.  It's
> >>about those who know a little bit more helping (not teaching) those who
> >>know a little bit less.  I think that it's very encouraging that kids
> >>can go into seniors' homes to teach about computers.  A book that I
> >>recently acquired "What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and
> >>Literacy" by James Paul Gee.  He analyzes video game playing in terms of
> >>36 "Learning principles".  The first of these is the "Active, Critical
> >>Learning Principle" - "All aspects of the learning environment
> >>(including the ways in which the semiotic domain is designed and
> >>presented) are set up to encourage active and critical, not passive,
> >>learning."
> >>
> >>
> >Absolutely - the wiki-format is entirely geared towards active,
> >critical learning. Learning by doing - experiential learning. That's
> >the kind of learning that I'm personally talking about when I talk
> >about wikiversity - not the acquisition and repetition of facts.
> >
> Great!  I think that we need to keep that ruthlessly in mind as this
> thing develops.
>
> >>Perhaps the first "course" to be offered in the Wikiversity should be
> >>about learning, and how it happens.  If it is to have any such thing as
> >>a core curriculum maybe that should be on it.
> >>
> >>
> >Sounds good (I had already thought of this). Would you be willing to
> >help out? (I am..)
> >
> Gingerly, yes.  I must however remain modest about what I can do.
> What, currently is the best place to develop this idea?
>
> Ec

Even though I prefer to work on Meta these days, I've started a stub
at wikiboooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Learning -
it's just bullet points, and more along the "about experiential
learning", rather than learning through it, but I hope it will grow
into something really useful. I agree that this should be core to the
project. Agree with everything above, actually - thanks.

Cormac


list: wikimedia-l

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses


body:
Durumeric, Zakir B wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We are starting to look into using Wikimedia as a type of knowledge base
> for our organization. We currently use MS Server and SQL Server 2000. We
> have setup PHP on IIS, but I was wondering if it is possible to have
> Wikimedia work off of MS SQL Server instead of MySQL. If not, it's not a
> huge problem to install MySQL server on a linux or win machine, but we
> would like to be able to link articles from other database interfaces we
> have designed in the past using MS SQL server.
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:How_to_become_a_MediaWiki_hacker#Support_for_MS-SQL_Server


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
slimvirgin at gmail.com wrote:

>But I'd like to add that it may be misleading to say that NPOV is the
>number one policy on the site. And please don't everyone throw up your
>hands in horror. The NPOV and NOR policies work together, but if one
>of them has to be prioritized, I would argue that it's NOR. For
>example, supposing a well-known nun and aid worker dies. All she had
>ever done was help people in developing countries and we have
>countless newspaper articles about that. Let's suppose we can't find a
>single word of criticism about her, and let's further suppose she
>worked independently and not for any of the usual aid agencies that
>are often criticized.
>
>Because lots of editors focus on the centrality of NPOV, they feel
>they have to include a criticism from somewhere, anywhere, and you end
>up with an article that reads like this: "Jane Doe (born 1938) was a
>Roman Catholic nun and aid worker, described by the New York Times as
>'the embodiment of Christ on earth.' The Roman Catholic church has
>been heavily criticized for the willingness of its followers to
>interfere in the affairs of the developing world, according to
>Militant Magazine."
>
>It may be a form of NPOV, but it's poor writing and a violation of
>NOR, because it's putting together a synthesis of published material
>in a novel way in order to build a case.
>
>Based on examples like this, I argue that, although NPOV and NOR are
>inseparable, when push comes to shove, NOR is actually prioritized. Or
>perhaps more accurately, NPOV is interpreted in a way that prioritizes
>NOR. We publish only what other reputable/credible publications have
>published (NOR) and we try to reflect the same mix of positive and
>negative published material (NPOV), but in so doing, we must be
>careful to stick closely to the parameters of the subject matter (NOR)
>and not attempt to build a case of our own (NOR).
>
If I were to priorize these two policies I would come to the opposite
conclusion.  Trying to find material to offset what you consider to be
an article that is not neutral enough may be in violation of NOR.  If
Sister Jane is busy humbly doing her own good works in a developing
community why should we put on her back the burden of justifying the
efforts of a global organization in which women have negligible policy
making power?  Why would we need to open up the entire debate on the
significance and value of "Opus Dei"?  The article is about Sister Jane,
not the whole damn Catholic Church.

There is nothing in NPOV saying that you *must* find critical material.
Feeling that abligation would itself be a violation of NPOV.  NPOV
synthesizes a position between existing POVs.  At the moment that it is
written every article is NPOV no matter what it says.  This momentary
situation will change very rapidly when the first person to see it says
that it's bullshit.  If every article that we find about Sister Jane is
favorable then it follows that the NPOV is favorable.

Ec


from_name: Wikipedia Romania (Ronline)

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/21/05, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Articles are continuously edited over time. As time goes on, ever-newer
> versions
> will be marked as the stable version which is first shown to the public.

Yes, but only after lengthened amounts of consensus...

If that means "no-one could edit them", then we already have that model! You
> can't change a given revision on Wikipedia; you can only make a new
> revision
> based on it.
>
> But even worse, today when we freeze an article to show a stable revision,
> *nobody* can edit it except an elite cabal of sysops. Is that "open"? Is
> that
> "free"?

I haven't yet heard of anyone freezing an article to create a stable
version. The concept of a stable version doesn't yet exist. Sure, FAs are
semi-stable, and all edits to them are generally perused and checked, but
that doesn't mean they're not full open. So that argument doesn't work - we
*never* freeze an article today to show a stable version!


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
> Writing an encyclopedia is the goal, but we must be careful not to kill
> the golden goose that gave us what we have so far.
>
> I would like prefilled new article templates (presumably an option
> logged-in editors could switch off) as I outlined on wikien-l:
>
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/034414.html
>
> - and to switch article creation back on for anons on en:.
>
> 1. The editors of good will can see from the prefill what an article
> should be shaped like and write better new articles.
>    1a. Those it annoys can switch it off.
> 2. The editors of bad will are just creating login names anyway.
>
>
> - d.

Exactly. I support article templates, and tools that make Wikipedia more
consistent, but all forms of restricting access are anti-wiki. For us
liberal Wikipedians, they basically kill off the project from the start.

Ronline


body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>Ah, good example - I tried to think of counterexamples, but didn't think
>of that one. Is it possible to slander a product?
>
Like a McDonald's hamburger? :-)

>Hmm...perhaps also if
>you had a page claiming Elvis Presley to be gay or something you would
>have his estate on your back claiming you were depriving them of
>livelihood by denigrating his name. Or something.
>
IIRC dead people are unable to maintain an action for defamation.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
> 1) Delayed editing: Something that has been talked about and wanted for
> years. This would give
> admins to the ability to soft-protect pages that are frequent targets of
> vandalism (such as
> [[George W. Bush]] on the English Wikipedia). Ideally this feature would
> automatically delay edits
> by anons and new users and post them, again automatically, after an amount
> of time that was set by
> an admin for that page (similar to setting IP/user name block time
> periods). This would give RC
> patrolers time to cancel vandalistic edits before they are posted for all
> to see. But last I heard
> this feature (so far) would require a great deal of manual effort by
> admins; one would need to set
> versions manually and I do not think the feature distinguishes between
> anons, new users or old
> users. I personally think that this feature should not go live until it is
> fully functional (esp
> since it is way too similar, as is, to the below feature). The point of
> this feature is to help
> avoid displaying vandalism.

Mmm, yes.  This is exactly like the new Encarta proposal. Do people not
realise how anti-Wiki delayed editing is? The *core* values, the ones that
are constantly advertised for Wikipedia, is that "anyone can edit it" and
"edits are displayed immediately".

Neil also mentioned that the policy can always be changed back, and that
there is always the chance of forking the project. Forking would be the
destruction of Wikipedia, since it would basically form two competing
communities. As Neil said:

The virtue of the multi-version approach is that it allows both the
> "pure-Wiki" and the "sifter" approaches at once, but without forking the
> project.

Exactly. That is, pure-Wiki would be compromised. People would view the
stable versions *first* and then maybe look over the draft editable
versions. That automatically changes Wikipedia's nature by a huge margin.

Ronline


body:
Mark Gallagher wrote:

>> But if there is no published criticism of the nun, it certainly would
>> not be POV to exclude the (obviously unsourced) criticism, no? NPOV
>> is about representing all the different POVs about a subject without
>> favouring any of them. If it so happens that there is only one
>> (published) POV of a subject, then representing only that POV would
>> be neutral, no? :-{
>
> I disagree with your characterisation of NPOV.  What you've described
> is not neutrality, but "journalistic balance" --- represent all points
> of view, no matter how batshit, equally, favouring none.  Balance is
> the friend of liars and frauds everywhere.

But there are at least two lies to every story.

Ec


from_name: Kurt Maxwell Weber

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improper block redux

body:
On Wednesday 21 December 2005 08:47, Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
> Anyway, karmafist has now placed another indef block on me (because he
> "didn't see it on the logs".  This is getting ridiculous.

And again just now, about an hour after David Gerard unblocked me.

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>
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from_name: sydney poore

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Original research vs. Fact-checking
 (Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons)

body:
The intent of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons is noble. But it
ignores the real problem. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No
original research, and Wikipedia:Verifiability have morphed into a
dreadful guiding principle that sanctions inaccurate facts and avoids
accountability. The Contacting the subjects of biographies section of
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons is bad policy because it
sanctions erroneous data, stunts intellectual curiosity, and rewards
laziness.

Contacting the subjects of biographies
There is no obligation to contact the subject of a biography to ask
permission to write it, or to inform the subject that one is being written.
(100% agreement)

If contact with a subject is made, care must be taken not to reproduce
details offered by the subject if these details have not been published
elsewhere.
(100% agreement if primary sources are included.)

For example, if the New York Times says that John Doe was born in 1955,
but John Doe himself tells you this was a mistake and that his year of
birth is in fact 1965, the Wikipedia article must reflect the published
record, and not what John Doe has told you privately.
(Complete disagreement).

To add unpublished details to a biography is an example of original
research.
(100% disagreement. A person?s date of birth is not original research.
DOB is a basic fact of society. It is verified daily by a wide spectrum
of organizations.)

If the subject wants to correct the public record, he should do so by
writing to the newspaper that made the mistake or to another credible
publication. The Wikipedia article should then be changed to reflect any
published correction or published letter to the editor.
(100% disagreement. Filtering out accurate information is totally
unacceptable. Wikipedia policy [NPOV, Original research, Verifiability]
should never be interpreted in a way that makes Wikipedia 100% depend on
another media outlet being ethical or perfect.)

There are also legal concerns about adding details that have come
directly from the subject. How can you be completely sure who you are
talking to? What if he maliciously tells you something false and
defamatory in order to cause trouble for Wikipedia? Could you afterwards
prove that you had spoken to him, and that he had been the source of the
claims you added to his article?
(100% disagreement. This is intellectually dishonest. Wikipedia is
shifting accountability to other media outlets. This is a POV that
Wikipedia has created from thin air. It ignores the fact that most other
organizations collect information over the Internet. Banking,
college/university applications, bookstores, retail shopping/swapping?
are done on line everyday.)

Newspapers know how to deal with this kind of situation, but Wikipedia
is not a newspaper. We do not have the resources to conduct this kind of
original research, and if mishandled, it could lead to serious
consequences for Wikipedia and for the subject of the biography.
(100% disagree. Maybe this was true in the beginning, but is not true
now. Wikipedia has many editors that know how to deal with these
situations. They are told NOT to address the problem.)

Honest discussion. Fact-checking. Mandatory quality improvement
practices. These are the solutions.

Regards,
Sydney Poore


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page

body:
I guess this is a safeguard to avoid people signing up from blocked
adresses and finding they still can't edit.

Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>>2. The quesiton is about how we decide who falls under it or not. In
>>practice this is difficult, because many forms of things which are
>>considered "legitimate" science do not meet all of the "requirements",
>>and many things which are not considered legitimate science do meet
>>some of them.
>>
>>
>I'm not sure I see a wide variety of "requirements" here.  I'm not
>suggesting any complicated philosophy-of-science laundry list of what
>makes Good Science, or Normal Science, or whatever.  I'm just saying
>that we're safe calling it "pseudoscience" when someone parades around
>under the banner of "SCIENCE" but isn't actually doing anything
>resembling it.
>
But if you ignore the principles of the philosophy of science, then what
you do is no longer science.  There's nothing safe at all in calling it
"pseudoscience".  When "someone" is parading around there is no reason
to generalize that to everyone who happens to support the practice in
question.  Accepted science has innumerable supporters who aren't doing
anything resembling it.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] A newbie on article prefill templating

body:
On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something
> > to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
>
> Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template.
> Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
>
> Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature
> from "references" and "external links"  to "sources" and "further
> reading".  I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work
> a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps
> academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood
> "sources", etc.  If a template is being created, it's probably a good
> opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing
> it there.
>
> Steve
>
I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some
external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it
also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought
about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being
confused on where to put external links.

And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.

Mgm


body:
On 12/21/05, John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com> wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>
> >On 12/21/05, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something
> >>>to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template.
> >>Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
> >>
> >>Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature
> >>from "references" and "external links"  to "sources" and "further
> >>reading".  I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work
> >>a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps
> >>academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood
> >>"sources", etc.  If a template is being created, it's probably a good
> >>opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing
> >>it there.
> >>
> >>Steve
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >I'm not really happy about "Further reading". Not only do some
> >external links show films, or images (which don't require reading), it
> >also fails to take into account that further reading is much thought
> >about with regard to print sources and may lead to people being
> >confused on where to put external links.
> >
> >And that's without mentioning the 800,000 articles that'd need changing.
> >
> >Mgm
> >
> >
> Ditto Mgm. I'm not worried about the 800k articles we'd have to change -
> we got through categorising fine, didn't we? What I'm concerned about is
> that, as he said, external links != further reading. Maybe we could
> change "further reading" to "other resources"?
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])

Why not keep "External links" and add "Further reading" to separate
print and online publications.


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
On 12/21/05, Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) <rowikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is something that you don't seem to understand. By making the stable
> version default to the majority of readers, then Wikipedia's instant
> editability becomes compromised. I'll give you an example - say a stable
> version has been created for an article about the Romanian economy. Monthly,
> stats change, and I'd also like update some prose about the role of ICT in
> the Romanian economy. So, as an editor, I go to the editable version and
> change it, and - bang - as you said, it's instantly there.

There are some independent issues there have been mixed up, confusing
the discussion:

1) Using the review process to somehow decide that a certain revision
of an article is the good one. That's the stable revision.

2) What to present readers. The latest revision? The last stable
revision? Some combination of the two?

3) What to do if some flaw is found in the stable revision, and there
are 827 other revisions after that, so that it's not possible to just
fix a spelling error. A special editing of the stable revision would
effectively "fork" the article.

I trust that point 3) is not a big problem - if an article goes
downhill after a stable revision, it's more important to fix the new
revisions than fix minor errors in the stable one.

Discussions about point 2) should not obfuscate the point that a way
for selecting good revision is needed. What we'll precisely do with
them can be argued separately.

Alfio


from_name: Rowan Collins

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: which html constructs are evil

references:
<87ek49j5y6.fsf@mat.ucm.es> <43A701CC.2020809@web.de>
	<do8i3i$i3q$1@sea.gmane.org> <87lkyf3kp6.fsf@mat.ucm.es>
	<43A827CE.8020706@web.de> <873bkmsky3.fsf@mat.ucm.es>

body:
On 21/12/05, Uwe Brauer <oub at mat.ucm.es> wrote:
> What is the *problem* in using HTML constructs? Speed in parsing?

I think the main problem is *consistency* - if you're trying to let as
many people edit as possible, having multiple variants of markup for
doing [nearly] the same thing just makes everything that much harder
to learn, and gives people that much more chance to be baffled when
looking at the source.

Of course, you could consistently use a subset of HTML, and some would
argue that that's at least as easy to learn as the arcane "punctuation
soup" wiki-markups. But in a wiki that did that I would then disagree
with someone who said "why don't we use the wiki-markup for italics,
they're so much easier to type".

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: geni

subject: [WikiEN-l] Broken 'Create Account' Page

body:
On 12/21/05, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seemed to me that when an ip was blocked, all registered users sharing
> this ip were blocked too. If this is right, maybe the creation of new
> accounts from people using this ip is disabled.
>
> Anyone to confirm ?
>

This is the case. The message you get if your IP is blocked halfway
through createing an account doesn't make a lot of sense given the
context.

--
geni


subject: [Wikitech-l] Namespace changes ready for code review

body:
On 19/12/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> I'm through my to-do list for the namespace changes. They reside in the
> WIKIDATA branch.

I haven't looked at or run the code yet, but this sounds like a very
useful feature.

> == Future features ==

One thing that I was pondering when you posted about this before is
whether the "special behaviour" of namespaces like "Image:",
"Category:", etc could be built into some kind of hooks mechanism. I
know it seems silly, but I rather like the idea of modularising the
code so that existing features can be treated as extensions, because
it means extensions can be written that mimic or replace those
features.

In this case, people sometimes say they want to develop new namespaces
for references, or category-like namespaces for blogging, etc; I guess
some such things could be done through wikidata, but then again,
wikidata could be attached to namespaces via those same hooks. Maybe.

Like most of my ideas, this is complete head-in-the-clouds stuff, but
I thought I'd put it out to the general conciousness anyway...

--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]


from_name: Phil Boswell

body:
"Magnus Manske" <magnus.manske at web.de> wrote in
message news:43A94ABB.7080901 at web.de...
> I've partially rewritten the StableVersion extension. It now can
> * store multiple stable versions (someone wanted this; I can turn that
> off)
> * store multiple types (not actually supported yet, but the potential is
> included), e.g.:
> ** stable
> ** stable candidate (someone wanted this)
> ** "soft-protected"
> ** other "levels of stability" like "thoroughly reviewed"

All of this looks great.

> And most important:
> When you click on the "declare this stable" link, it now caches the
> source *with replaced templates*, meaning the stable page will look the
> same even if the templates it uses were changed or deleted.

Just one question: if a given template is updated, and it is decided that
the changes should be propagated, is it possible to do this automagically,
or does some poor sod have to go around "re-stabilising" a bunch of
articles?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
"Rowan Collins" <rowan.collins at gmail.com>
wrote in message news:9f02ca4c0512210450o9647c30s at mail.gmail.com...
On 19/12/05, Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
[snip]
> One thing that I was pondering when you posted about this before is
> whether the "special behaviour" of namespaces like "Image:",
> "Category:", etc could be built into some kind of hooks mechanism. I
> know it seems silly, but I rather like the idea of modularising the
> code so that existing features can be treated as extensions, because
> it means extensions can be written that mimic or replace those
> features.

This would also likely provide for possible optimisation: modules could
simply be replaced in one swell foop.

I imagine that progression towards PHP 5 would make this desirable too,
since ISTR there's much more object-oriented facilities in that.

> In this case, people sometimes say they want to develop new namespaces
> for references, or category-like namespaces for blogging, etc; I guess
> some such things could be done through wikidata, but then again,
> wikidata could be attached to namespaces via those same hooks. Maybe.

ObAOL: me, too!!!

This would make it possible, maybe, to have separate "category" namespaces
for self-referential project-related stuff, to placate the purists who say
we're cluttering up the airwaves.

> Like most of my ideas, this is complete head-in-the-clouds stuff, but
> I thought I'd put it out to the general conciousness anyway...

I'm conscious? I suppose that would explain all the pretty colours :-)
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: Erdal Ronahi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocking of Kurdish WP in Iran

body:
Hi,

I had raised this issue before on this list. We can now confirm that
several major ISPs in Iran have blocked the Kurdish Wikipedia
(ku.wikipedia.org).

We are once again asking for advice on this issue. Are there any
experiences in how to deal with such an issue?

Thanks in advance,
Erdal


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Broken 'Create Account' Page

body:
"MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
wrote in message
news:fb7fdd9c0512210303hdfe4571h1d42f285b59f5ade at mail.gmail.com...
> I guess this is a safeguard to avoid people signing up from blocked
> adresses and finding they still can't edit.

Maybe the mechanism which detects the block and inhibits those fields should
also display some message stating the reason for their non-appearance and
directing the user to somewhere useful...
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: vikram solia

subject: [Wikitech-l] How to enable maths / formula support on shared server

body:
Hi techies!

Am new here.  Was wondering if editing support for maths / formula can be
activated at a shared server.  What is required to be done.

--
Vikram Solia
doeacc.vidyaweb.com
groups.yahoo.com/taatparya
in.geocities.com/taatparya


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Leon Planken wrote:

>On Wed 21 Dec 2005 09:21:55 +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>>* "stable" = a few selected people can call a version on an article
>>"stable" if they deem it good enough for the unprepared reader.
>>
>>
>
>Imagine the following sequence of events:
>- an article is marked stable
>- the article 'development' version is heavily edited for a while, not
>  necessarily for the better
>- a critical error that needs to be fixed immediately is discovered in
>  the version marked as stable (this is possible, the review feature
>  being a process involving humans)
>
>I see three possibilities:
>- the stable flag is removed, the mistake is corrected in the
>  'development' version, which could then be nominated as 'stable' again
>- the critical error is corrected in the stable version, making a
>  separate branch in the article history
>  (this would mean a rather big addition to the MediaWiki software to
>  allow for history branches, right?)
>- the stable article, with the error corrected, is saved as the latest
>  'development' version which is then marked stable; the previously
>  latest 'development' version is still available through article
>  history
>  (poor man's version branching, rather horrible I think)
>
>The second solution above (branching) could also be implemented by
>allowing just two branches: a 'development' branch and a 'stable'
>branch.  Or just a separate namespace (if you will) for stable articles,
>editable only by users with the appropriate rights.
>
>
First, there's almost nothing that doesn't happen in the current setup
already upon error discovery. The only difference is that a supposedly
good version is now known to have an error.

Second, no branching. Never. Ever. Branching in wikis is evil. Evil (tm)!

So, the solution I see is rather obvious:
* Remove the "stable" mark
* Leave it at that. Obvoiusly, there's only the crappy current version
and the buggy (formerly) stable one.
* Optionally: Use my "Tasks" feature to mark the article appropriately
for fixing/rewriting :-)
* Wait until a new, improved version emerges which can be marked "stable"

If there's no version worthy of "stable", none should be marked as such!

Magnus


from_name: Uwe Brauer

body:
>>>>> "Magnus" == Magnus Manske

   Magnus> IMHO blockquote is OK, as we do not have an equivalent in
   Magnus> wiki markup.

   Magnus> We do, however, have wiki markup for lists, in which case
   Magnus> wiki markup is always preferred. Same goes for tables (yes,
   Magnus> the syntax is weird), <hr>, bold/italics, dd/dt.

The wiki syntax has, as I said some inconvenience with respect to line
breaks, so seriously now:

What is the *problem* in using HTML constructs? Speed in parsing?

Uwe Brauer


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I'm coming across as much more strident in this thread than I mean to
>>>be. But the point is that pseudoscience is in fact *bullshit*, not
>>>science, and there's going to be no label that doesn't puff up the
>>>subjects with false respectability that won't soon carry the same
>>>connotations. Because it is in fact bullshit.
>>>
>>>
>>Pseudoscience can very well be characterized as bullshit.  However, the
>>process whereby certain studies and practices are classified as
>>pseudoscience is also bullshit.
>>
>>
>And what's that process, as you understand it?
>
A "scientist" _believes_ that some topic is pseudoscientific, and simply
puts it on the list without question.  It is trite to say that
astronomers do not believe in astrology, but how many of them would have
the time to investigate the matter further.  Although astrologers will
largely draw upon astronomical calculations as a part of their work,
most of astrology has nothing to do wioth what astronomers do.  For that
alone it is of no real interest to them.

Ec


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Namespace changes ready for code review

body:
?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason wrote:

>On 12/20/05, Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>?var Arnfj?r? Bjarmason <avarab at ...> writes:
>>
>>
>>>Magnus's Rewiew extension is just that, and it doesn't make sense to
>>>make special considerations for extension in the main code by
>>>definition. If extensions want something from the main codebase their
>>>authors can add hooks to the main code and modify things with those
>>>hooks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>But this "extension" already has its own table in the data model!  Granted the
>>review/validate feature can be coded to capture different data than it does now,
>>but the presence of a VALIDATE table in the data model firmly entrenches the
>>notion that pages are validateable within the Mediawiki "ontology".  It thus
>>shouldn't be bad design to recognize and control this notion elsewhere in the
>>datamodel.
>>
>>
>
>The only reason why there's a validate table in the main distribution
>is because Review used to be in the main code, the database definition
>will presumably be moved to the extensions module along with the rest
>in time, Magnus?
>
>

I thought about it, but then I realized that removing a table definition
from the main distribution just to make people insert *the very same
definition* from the extension manually (AFAIK, there's no way to do
this automatically?) seems like ... well, insanity ;-)

Clean code is one thing, but what harm does that table do in the main
distribution?

Magnus


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Stable version now with cache (Tim,
	this one's for you!:-)

body:
I've partially rewritten the StableVersion extension. It now can
* store multiple stable versions (someone wanted this; I can turn that off)
* store multiple types (not actually supported yet, but the potential is
included), e.g.:
** stable
** stable candidate (someone wanted this)
** "soft-protected"
** other "levels of stability" like "thoroughly reviewed"

And most important:
When you click on the "declare this stable" link, it now caches the
source *with replaced templates*, meaning the stable page will look the
same even if the templates it uses were changed or deleted.

With some help *ahem* the feature could go live this year, IMHO.

Magnus


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Stable version now with cache (Tim,
	this one's for you!:-)


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 02:42:12AM -0800, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>
>>David Gerard wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Where's the science?" is a reasonable question that pseudoscience fails.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>That's an empty generality.
>>
>>
>
>No, it isn't, because ...
>
>
>
>
>>Science is in the process, not the results.
>>
>>
>
>... science *is* in the process, not the results.  Exactly right!
>
>Calling something "pseudoscience" is not an indictment of the results.
>It is a statement about the process:  that the "results" were not come
>by using a process which resembles science, despite the proponent's own
>claims to the mantle of "science".
>
>When someone presents "scientific astrology" -- Google it; it's a real
>expression! -- we are correct to ask, "Where's the science?"  That is to
>say, "By what process did you come up with this astrology?  Where are
>your data, or observations, or clinical trials, or case studies?  What
>is your method?  When did you test your hypotheses?  Which ones did you
>reject as false, and why?  Where is your peer review?  How can someone
>else replicate your results to test their accuracy?  How would your
>results differ if the conditions were different -- say, if Mars were in
>trine to Venus instead of Jupiter?"
>
Yes the term exists, but just a string of Google hits says nothing about
how it's used on any given site.  I have no problem with asking "Where's
the science?"  but I also don't jump to conclusions when the answer is
not satisfactory.  I think that there are astrologers who do go through
this kind of analysis.  Unfortunately the results have been inconclusive
at best.  So they revise their hypothesis and try again; what more can
we ask of the "scientific astrologer"?  This does not mean that the
neighborhood practitioner who casts charts for a fee is doing anything
scientific at all.  She is probably just following the instructions that
she got from a book somewhere, and has no clue what science is about.
But this kind of practitioner can also exist purporting in perfectly
good faith to apply recognized science to his or her own purpose.  Is
that person a scientist?

>If the answer to "Where's the science?" is an evasion -- be it "Oh, have
>faith!" or "But it's the wisdom of the ancients!" or "The spirits of
>lost Atlantis revealed it to me!" or "Astrology is more powerful than
>rational thought" or "We don't have to show you no steeenking science"
>or "Doesn't it *feel* true?" -- then what we have is indeed fake science
>-- or, in a word, pseudoscience.
>
So now you are indicting a whole area of study because you got this kind
of answers from a supporter of astrology who had no idea WTF he was
talking about.  If you are getting this kind of answer, cite your sources.


from_name: Taco Deposit

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Original research vs. Fact-checking
	(Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons)

body:
On 12/21/05, sydney poore <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> To add unpublished details to a biography is an example of original
> research.
> (100% disagreement. A person's date of birth is not original research.
> DOB is a basic fact of society. It is verified daily by a wide spectrum
> of organizations.)

Weren't we just celebrating, a few months ago, how we were able to "scoop"
all the traditional news outlets on the news of Susan Sontag's death? That
was unpublished information (at the time).

TD


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Stable versions policy

body:
Wikipedia Romania (Ronline) wrote:

>>There is something that you don't seem to understand. By making the stable
>>version default to the majority of readers, then Wikipedia's instant
>>editability becomes compromised. I'll give you an example - say a stable
>>version has been created for an article about the Romanian economy. Monthly,
>>stats change, and I'd also like update some prose about the role of ICT in
>>the Romanian economy. So, as an editor, I go to the editable version and
>>change it, and - bang - as you said, it's instantly there.
>>
>>BUT, and this is the big but, my edits would not be instantly displayed on
>>the default version. People coming into the Romanian economy article would
>>see the old stable version, and only *if* they choose to see the updated
>>version, which people won't do for lack of verifiability, would they see the
>>new data. Now, you're going to say to me - aah, but the stable version can
>>always be updated. Yes, I concede that, but the proposal states that for a
>>stable version to be approved, it must go through a lot of consensus
>>(otherwise, what's the point?).
>>
>>
Well, if there's a page that is updated regularly, and you want people
to always see the latest, probably vandalized, version, then *don't set
any version of it as stable*!
Or, you could ask someone who has "the power" to check your latest
version for becoming stable. This could be easily done though my Tasks
feature :-)
Finally, on the stable version, /there's a text with link at the very
top of it/, pointing you to the current, latest version.

The difference between the current state of wikipedia and wikipedia with
stable versions is this: With the former, readers get a wiki to see;
with the latter, they get an encyclopedia.

>
>
>What perpetually protected pages?
>
Picking one example, I think [[en:Geroge W. Bush]] has been protected
since before the last election, which was a year ago. This is due to
repeated vandalism. There are several more, though. This could be fixed
through stable versions.

Magnus


from_name: Stephen Bain

subject: [WikiEN-l] Checkuser for all admins

body:
On 12/21/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/12/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Here is the full list of admins:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Listusers&group=sysop&limit=800&offset=0
> >
> > How much do you really know about these people?
>
> 743! Goodness, admin growth is fast - I remember noticing the
> milestone of 500 back in July...

It's gone up to 744 since you posted!

--
Stephen Bain
stephen.bain at gmail.com


body:
On 12/21/05, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "MacGyverMagic/Mgm" <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
> wrote in message
> news:fb7fdd9c0512210303hdfe4571h1d42f285b59f5ade at mail.gmail.com...
> > I guess this is a safeguard to avoid people signing up from blocked
> > adresses and finding they still can't edit.
>
> Maybe the mechanism which detects the block and inhibits those fields should
> also display some message stating the reason for their non-appearance and
> directing the user to somewhere useful...
> --
> Phil
> [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
>
It should indeed.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Sam Korn wrote:

>On 12/17/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>
>
>>Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Sam Korn wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On 12/16/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>[[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>But not at the expense of [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]].
>>>>
>>>>
>>>And using "pseudoscience" alone would be at the expense of NPOV
>>>
>>>
>>You still appear to be trying to "prove" this by assertion.
>>
>>
>
>The problem is that "pseudoscience" is a subjective term.  Whether a
>topic is pseudoscience is not a black-and-white thing.  Who determines
>whether the scientific method has been followed?  Not us!  That would
>be original research, and asserting a point of view.  Yes, sometimes
>it will be obvious.  However, most of the time it will not be.  The
>proponents of these theories will never be of the opinion that they
>are pseudoscience, and that they fail to conform to the scientific
>method!
>
>Wikipedia often has the problem of falling into pushing a relativist
>point of view.  This is one of those occasions.
>
>
This is the whole point.  Many of the topics that are typically put into
the pseudoscience category are deeply suspect.  I could choose any one
of them and spend an entire lifetime trying to determine whether it is
science or pseudoscience, and the results would still be inconclusive.
So I would prefer to find some relatively neutral term, put a caveat at
the top of the list, and go on with life.

I have no particular sympathy for Creation Science, but I find it odd
that I should be in a position where I need to defend their right to be
referred to in a relatively respectful manner.

Ec


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Stable version now with cache (Tim,	this one's for
	you!:-)

body:
Magnus, are you working with Tim on this or are you just writing code that's
going to be thrown away next week?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 11:55:29AM +0000, Sam Korn wrote:
>
>
>>The problem is that "pseudoscience" is a subjective term.  Whether a
>>topic is pseudoscience is not a black-and-white thing.
>>
>>
>When someone says "it's not a black-and-white thing", they are usually
>correct that there exist *some* "gray" or undecided cases ... but there
>usually are also many cases that are definitely "black" or "white".
>
>The existence of vague boundaries doesn't rule out that some things are
>definitely on one side and others definitely on the other.
>
True it doesn't, but we still need structured criteria before deciding
whether something is black or white. Things that cannot meet the
criteria stay in the vague middle.

>>Who determines whether the scientific method has been followed?  Not
>>us!
>>
>>
>Who's talking about "the scientific method" here?  There isn't *one*
>scientific method, and nobody here is claiming that there is.
>
So now there are at least two scientific methods, maybe more.  Please
describe the difference between what you see as the two prinipal ones.
What happens when they come in conflict with each other.

>What's at
>issue are fields that don't do anything even remotely resembling
>scientific work, yet the practitioners call their ideas "scientific".
>
>We're not talking about string theory or cold fusion.  We're not even
>talking about zero-point energy or acupuncture or orgonomy.
>
>We're talking about "scientific astrology", "creation science", and
>other fields that do nothing resembling scientific work, and yet call
>themselves "science".
>
That's a very wide range of topics indeed.  Most have some believers who
try very hard to be scientific.

>>The proponents of these theories will never be of the opinion that
>>they are pseudoscience, and that they fail to conform to the
>>scientific method!
>>
>>
>Of course not.  But many people likewise reject unflattering facts
>about them.  Scientologists would prefer we don't talk about Xenu.  That
>a person who falsely claims "science" doesn't like it talked about that
>they have not done any experiments or observations, simply doesn't enter
>into the issue.  There exists a fact of the matter, and we are bound to
>report it as such.
>
>If someone comes up with a new conjecture -- call it the Moo Principle
>-- and claims that it is "scientific", then we are correct to seek out
>the citations for scientific research on the subject.  If there actually
>is not any research -- they simply chose to call it "scientific" because
>"religious" wouldn't get their Moo Principle into the public schools --
>then calling their work "para-science" or "alternate science" would be
>simply false.  "Pseudoscience" is simply the correct term.
>
A more likely result on Wikipedia would be to call it "original research".

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Fastfission wrote:

>If there is any doubt -- for example, on the classification
>of a platypus -- we refer to the experts and happily defer any
>responsibility for getting it wrong ("If you disagree, take it up with
>THEM, not us. We don't make such decisiions"). Which is what we should
>do here as well.
>
Agreed.

>But unfortunately I seem to be the only one who sees
>it this way.
>
Huh???
Ec


body:
On 12/21/05, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 21/12/05, Taco Deposit <tacodeposit at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 12/21/05, sydney poore <poore5 at adelphia.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > To add unpublished details to a biography is an example of original
> > > research.
> > > (100% disagreement. A person's date of birth is not original research.
> > > DOB is a basic fact of society. It is verified daily by a wide
> spectrum
> > > of organizations.)
> >
> > Weren't we just celebrating, a few months ago, how we were able to
> "scoop"
> > all the traditional news outlets on the news of Susan Sontag's death?
> That
> > was unpublished information (at the time).
>
> It may be of some interest:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Andrea_Dworkin/Archive1 is the brief
> debate we had over whether or not to go with unconfirmed reports of
> her death. We predated the Guardian, the first major media to pick it
> up, by at least 24 hours and probably more.
>
> (I still think we should have waited until after the Guardian published,
> though)

Yeah, I was thinking of Dworkin, not Sontag. Thanks. And I agree we should
have waited.

TD