subject: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: wiki upset

body:
The below cmplaint by an unfairly banned and wiped
user -- as first reported by Jt is exactly why the
notion of jumping to revert someones edits merely
based on a whirly notion of a slight resemblance to
someone banned -- is a bad idea, was a bad idea, and
will forever be a bad idea.

In light of this basic fact, that any edits can only
can judged on its own merits,  that only true
vandalism is truly identifiable, and that more tactful
approaches are always necessary for dealing with
anyone outside of the category of "vandal. To do
otherwise would be to continue asserting a
misconception that would lead to the loss of  more
good (but misguided) editors. ( This is not to say
that we shouldnt trail someone if we're suspicious of
them -- thats half the fun of the 'Pedia.)

--S---

--- Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia at math.ucr.edu> wrote:
> I received this recently in my personal email
> (I have further comments below):
>
> ----- Forwarded message -----
> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
> From: _KhlER3L <_khl at heh.ca>
> X-X-Sender: _khl at tornado.he.net
> To: toby at math.ucr.edu
> Subject: wiki upset
>
> Hello toby,
>
> I'm sorry to email this to you since it has nothing
> to do with you, but
> finding contact information for the person I
> actually want to talk to
> seems to be impossible.
>
> This evening, I fell upon Wikipedia for the first
> time in maybe a year,
> and began to make some edits I thought useful.  The
> first of which was to
> add to the [[gay]] definition a note that gay could
> only be used to
> describe androphiles, and not pederasts.  I admit
> this was a smarmy
> entry, but it was not offensive, and it contained
> links to additional
> information.
>
> My next entry was
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILGA_Purges
> which attempted to outline, via a chronology, the
> events which lead upto
> the purges of minority groups from the International
> Gay and Lesbian
> Association.  Admittedly, it ended on a bitter note.
>  However, the bulk of
> the entry, some 10 or 15 paragraphs, were neutral
> and informative.
>
> I then added a page on 'pederast', which said 'A man
> who is sexually
> attracted to boys aged 12-18.'
>
> I then edited the NAMBLA page to remove the name of
> an individual, as well
> as make the wording more neutral.  I went on to read
> and respond to a
> 'discuss this page' entry which described NAMBLA as
> a COINTELPRO operation
> of the government in order to discredit the gay
> movement.
>
> I finally went to edit a user page, _KhlER3L.  When
> I went to save it, I
> found out I was IP banned:
>
> User is blocked
>
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>
> Your user name or IP address has been blocked by
> Jtdirl. The reason given
> is this:
> This user is almost certainly DW again. He is
> revisiting paedophile and
> pederast links he added or edited again before his
> last banning and is
> from the same IP as he once used before.
>
> You may contact Jtdirl or one of the other
> administrators to discuss the
> block.
>
> Return to Main Page.
>
> Well, for his/her information, I am not 'DW'
> and I do not appreciate being IP banned simply for
> 'revisting paedophile
> and pederast links' (as if it were a crime).  I
> think that if I feel that
> the Wikipedia does not offer the right balance of
> information on these
> topics, then I should be free to add my information.
>  Apparently Jtdirl
> does not appreciate anyone espousing a believe
> contrary to his/her own
> about NAMBLA, pederasty and pedophlia, even though
> he/she is in no way an
> expert on such matters, having a PhD in Irish
> History.
>
> Maybe in his/her
> expert opinion, the NAMBLA information page should
> be used to attack a
> particular individual by name?  I didn't think so,
> and edited the
> name out.  And I also felt that encyclopedic entries
> should not
> contain a totality of anti- views, but also attempt
> to be somewhat
> neutral.
>
> And the Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for
> pederast, but instead forwards
> pederasty to pedophilia, a totally wrong
> attribution.  My pederast entry
> has been removed, probably by Jtdirl.  Why is a
> truthful, and
> to-the-point, no-bullshit entry being deleted?  I
> think I know the answer.
>
> As well, my ILGA Purges entry, which contained about
> 15 paragraphs
> detailing the build up and aftermath of the ILGA
> Purges, was deleted
> entirely.  Again, I think I know the reason why.
>
> Anyway, this ban goes against the rule of IP
> blocking which states:
>
> <i>This is meant solely to discourage persistent
> junk edits. IP banning is
> not meant to be used against unpopular opinions.</i>
>
> My contributions were not junk edits, or attempts to
> disrupt the Wikipedia
> service.  They were attempts at rectifying what I
> view as biased entries
> which serve mainly to attack minority groups and
> organizations without
> giving another perspective.
>
> I ask that my IP be unbanned at the earliest
> possible moment, and that
> Jtdirl be reprimanded for unfairly banning a
> contributer based soley on
> the topic of the content he was offering.  Maybe
> Jtdirl should stop being
> the pedophile-content cop and keep to topics he/she
> has something to
> contribute to.
>
> Thank you, Toby, for looking over this.  Please get
> back to me on whether
> or not Wikipedia will be reinstating my access.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jason Garrison
>
> _KhlER3L at heh.ca
> (514) 495-1421
> Montreal, Quebec
> http://heh.ca/
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> Note that both <heh.ca> and <tornado.he.net> (also
> in Received: headers)
> are in the 64.62.xxx.xxx IP range, the same range as
> the blocked IP.
> This IP edited a few articles, some with prior POV
> problems;
> and some of his edits introduced further POV
> problems.
> But this is understandable if the user is new, and
> correctable.
> Thus the question is whether Jtdirl's identification
> of him as DW is fair.
> I'm not very familiar with DW, so I'm not a good
> judge of this;
> I ask other users that are familiar with DW to
> review the case.
>
> I sent _KhlER3L a reply briefly explaining the
> situation with DW,
> and assuring him that Jtdirl's actions were
> motivated by those problems,
> not by any desire to be "the pedophile-content cop".
> I can post this email and _KhlER3L's further replies
> if you like.
>
>
> -- Toby
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: steve vertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Israeli-Palestinian neutrality

body:
Well, good luck.  As far asproportion of massacre
articles -- get used to it. We live in an age now
where even minor massacres of 40 people or less -- (
hardly newsworthy )-- will be recorded for posterity.
Its likely that the only thing that should be done
with these is to organize them -- challenges to their
validity will no doubt come about -- and we need to
have some sort of borroboration.  But as far as
factual entries -- If my neighbors cats were massacred
last night , as a matter of fact -- by what right
could one argue to scrub this fact?  The challenger
tends to use a lack of "verifiable substantiation" as
a fact -- but frankly there are things in this world
that are very real -- and the facts written about
these cases sometimes do not reflect the reality.

Its a tough call.  The important thing is to treat the
issue reasonably -- ascertain, certify and maintain a
level of reasonability of the parties -- and keep it
civil.  With issues not personally of attachment,
there is a danger of taking a stand too quickly --
picking one "side" over the other will moreoften
excacerbate things.
Acrimony or bias, or spite, disingenuousness,
disinterest, and misinformation -- are all easily
picked up on, and defeat the purpose of moderating a
debate.

-S-

> >It strikes me as increasingly obvious that some
> concerted effort to be as
> >NPOV as possible on the Israeli-Palestinian issue
> is necessary, as it's
> >starting to be one of the more frequent edit wars,
> and distributed
> >throughout the wiki, even in places you might not
> expect.
> >
> >Two issues in particular that have come up lately,
> one from each side:
> >
> >1. [[User:BL]] is mass-adding the contents of
> palestineremembered.com --
> >massive lists with hundreds of subpages comprising
> every village (defined
> >as 10 or more people) destroyed in the 1948 war,
> every "massacre" (defined
> >as 10 or more people) committed or purportedly
> committed during that war
> >(little effort is made to distinguish), and a whole
> host of other
> >information that's difficult if not impossible to
> verify.
> >
> >Even if it weren't for the difficulty in verifying
> this information, it
> >strikes me as somewhat odd that we'd have 300 pages
> dedicated to Arabs
> >killed in 1948, and only a single page dedicated to
> the Armenian genocide,
> >or the Pontian Genocide, or the Hutu-Tutsi
> genocide, and so on.  I don't
> >think it'd be a good idea to add 10,000 pages or
> so, one for each village
> >("village" defined as 10 people or more) destroyed
> in each of those
> >conflicts.  And if we're going to have a separate
> page for every instance
> >of civilian deaths during a war, WW2 alone would be
> another 10,000 pages or
> >so.
> >
> >2. [[User:RK]] is, as is probably obvious, somewhat
> of a pro-Israeli
> >activist, and is becoming difficult to clean up.
> The latest thing I've
> >noticed is him adding 2-paragraph-long attacks on
> Arab anti-Semitism to
> >articles such as [[George Washington]] and
> [[Benjamin Franklin]], in the
> >guise of "defending" their "tarnished" reputations
> against charges of
> >anti-Semitism stemming from little-known fabricated
> quotes.
> >
> >Not to single out these two users in particular;
> they're the two that come
> >to mind at first.  And these two issues in
> particular are also being dealt
> >with on talk pages.  But it's becoming clear that
> it will be very difficult
> >to catch all of these, so perhaps some more
> concerted effort is needed.
> >I'm not sure exactly what to propose, but it seems
> as a minimum we need a
> >group of several people who are not particularly
> partial to either side --
> >but who are knowledgeable about the issues -- to
> essentially police
> >(hopefully in as unconfrontational a way as
> possible) this sort of stuff.
> >The problem is that those most knowledgeable and
> interested in spending a
> >great deal of time writing articles on these topics
> are often those who are
> >most partisan to one side or the other.
> >
> >Suggestions?
> >
> >-Mark
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >WikiEN-l mailing list
> >WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> >http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months
> FREE*.
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list: wikitech-l

from_name: Lee Daniel Crocker

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikipedia down

references:
<bf3dgd$kls$1@main.gmane.org>
	 <1058326992.3747.1.camel@penguin.piclab.com>  <bf3hcg$9e8$1@main.gmane.org>

body:
On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 05:44, Tim Starling wrote:

> I was testing some PHP code at the time, with an ssh connection open and
> MySQL manual at hand, but there was nothing I could do. Do you know what
> happened? I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault.

No idea.  I just did the flush and all seems well.


list: wikipedia-l

subject: Correction! Re: [Wikipedia-l] Vacation

body:
On Mon, 2003-07-14 at 09:11, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Uh, I see that Brion is away, too.  So I empower Magnus to do whatever
> is necessary in case of an emergency to restore the peace, etc., etc.
>
> --Jimbo

I'm still lurking too, BTW, even though I haven't done much lately.


from_name: Jason Richey

subject: [Wikitech-l] Languages [was: Database design and interwiki links]

in_reply_to: <20030713191019.GA3465@tavaiah>; from taw@users.sourceforge.net on Sun, Jul 13, 2003 at 09:10:19PM +0200

body:
To this end, we might as well spawn a new project...  A project that
takes the en wikipedia data dump and passes it through Babelfish or
the like.

Or, we could have an option on the edit page. "import from: ", where
you could specify the wiki that you want to import from, the source
language, the destination language (or no translation whatsoever).  It
could load the machine-translated text into the edit window.

Just a thought...

Jason

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> Just wondering - how much would it cost to hire translators
> that would translate all contents of English Wikipedia to
> some 20 or so languages ? Common sense suggests that translating
> is much easier than developing anew, yet we keep doing it the hard way.
>
> I'm not saying that translated English Wikipedia should replace
> other 'pedias, but these translations could be used as sources
> for them.
>
> Any estimates in manhours or cash ?
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr at bomis.com>


from_name: Robert

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delirum's unfair criticisms

body:
Delirium writes:
> [[User:RK]] is, as is probably obvious, somewhat of a
> pro-Israeli activist, and is becoming difficult to clean
> up.  The latest thing I've noticed is him adding
> 2-paragraph-long attacks on Arab anti-Semitism to
> articles such as [[George Washington]] and [[Benjamin
> Franklin]], in the guise of "defending" their "tarnished"
> reputations against charges of anti-Semitism stemming
> from little-known fabricated quotes.

I find your attack on me unwarrented, and your ignorance of
the topic very problematic.

These particular quotes are most certainly not "little
known". Wikipedia was the subject of repeated anti-Semitic
vandalism by people putting in fake quotes into the
articles of well-known (and highly respected) historical
figures.

These "little known" quotes, as you call them, in fact are
very widely distributed in hundreds of print sources,
books, journals, and now exist on thousands of virulently
anti-Semitic, pro-KKK, pro-Nazi websites, and some
pro-Islamist websites.  If you imagine that these
extremel;y well-known and widely used anti-Semitic
fabrications are little known, then this just means you are
totally ignorant of this particular subject.  They are just
as predominant and widely used as "The Protocols of the
Eldars of zion".

Wikipedia should not be vandalized by agitators who use
recognized and proven forgeries to put anti-Semitic
diatribes in the mouths of well-respected historical
figures. What about this do you find problematic?  In fact,
noticing this problem and identifying it to prevent future
abuse is precisely the kind of work we need to encourage in
all Wikipedia articles.

How can you can connect this to the Arab-Israeli dispute is
beyond me. That connection only exists in your mind. How
you can twist this necessary clarification into "pro
Israeli" propaganda is beyond me, and frankly, quite
disturbing.

Is exposing fraud and proven forgeries now pro-Israeli?  Is
creating and promoting fraud now pro-Arab?  Come on.

With concern,

Robert (RK)

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from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Michael again

body:
Geoff-

> It's past time that we contact AOL about Michael. I'd do
> it, but I doubt signing myself ``Geoff Burling, Wikipedia
> contributor" would provide much clout: if one of the
> sysops or developers could tackle this, I'd be much
> obligied.

Well, the sysop status problem is easy to solve. Just add your name to
[[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]].

> And if they forward all complaints about Michael to
> /dev/null (for the non-techies, that means, roughly, that
> they delete our email before reading)

Techie-talk! So the developer status problem is easy to solve as well.
Just sign up to the wikitech-l mailing list and start sending in patches
;-)

> unless AOL is truly interested in
> confirming their reputation as the toilet of the Internet,

It's all a question of marketing.
"AOL. Because everyone needs to pee."

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Delirum's unfair criticisms

body:
Robert wrote:

>These "little known" quotes, as you call them, in fact are
>very widely distributed in hundreds of print sources,
>books, journals, and now exist on thousands of virulently
>anti-Semitic, pro-KKK, pro-Nazi websites, and some
>pro-Islamist websites.  If you imagine that these
>extremel;y well-known and widely used anti-Semitic
>fabrications are little known, then this just means you are
>totally ignorant of this particular subject.  They are just
>as predominant and widely used as "The Protocols of the
>Eldars of zion".
>
>Is exposing fraud and proven forgeries now pro-Israeli?  Is
>creating and promoting fraud now pro-Arab?  Come on.
>
>
Certainly I have no problem with removing forged quotes -- I was
advocating that the entire issue should be absent from the article,
since the two people in question have no connection with anti-Semitism.

If you do think it rises to the level of "wide-spread myth in need of
debunking" though, I wouldn't object to a simple one-sentence note that
they were not anti-Semitic, and some recent quotes insinuating so are
forgeries.  What I object to is a 2-paragraph-long expose with links to
various sites that have these forged quotes and so on -- I'd think
something like "Some anti-Semitic quotes attributed to Benjamin Franklin
in recent years are forgeries" would suffice.  If there does need to be
a lengthy explanation of the phenomenon of attributing forged
anti-Semitic quotes to 18th-century Americans (or other historical
figures), it should be a separate page, with "see [[Anti-Semitic
forgeries]] for more information" or something along those lines.

Anyway, I brought this up on the list more because I was looking for one
example each of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli biases, and these were
the first two that came to mind (for the record, BL doesn't think his
additions are biased either).

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] WikiWomen (was Partial deletion)

body:
sannse wrote:

>I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia who have presumed I'm
>male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem worth the typing.  But since
>seeing you comment on this I've realised you are right - we have a tendency
>to presume anyone without an obviously female name is male.  And I do it
>myself all the time.  I can't think of a single contributor with a
>gender-neutral name that I picture as female (unless they have identified
>themselves as such).
>
>
Well, on this issue it's usually a reasonable assumption -- at least in
most places where online discussion takes place, the participants are
invariably 90-95% male (and sometimes it's more lopsided than that --
take a look at [[Slashdot]]'s demographics...).  In fact, often you're
better off presuming even (or perhaps especially!) people with
obviously-female names are male.  Wikipedia may be somewhat more
diverse, though I doubt it'd be possible to get good statistics.  But in
any case once we "assume everyone is male" people start noticing a few
times we're wrong about it, we start getting more wary about assuming in
the future (or so's the hope anyway).  It's in places that every time
you assume someone's male it turns out they actually *are* male that
it's hard to change to become less presumptuous. :-P

-Mark


from_name: Anthere

body:
--- sannse <sannse at delphiforums.com> wrote:
> Anthere asked:
>
> > You a woman Sannse ?
> >
>
> Yep.  Despite the number of kind e-mails I get
> offering to enlarge my penis
> ;)

oh ! You too ? :-)

> I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia who
> have presumed I'm
> male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem worth
> the typing.  But since
> seeing you comment on this I've realised you are
> right - we have a tendency
> to presume anyone without an obviously female name
> is male.

Anth?re is a feminin word :-) How many times did I
have  to insist I was female before people remembered
it :-)

And I do it
> myself all the time.  I can't think of a single
> contributor with a
> gender-neutral name that I picture as female (unless
> they have identified
> themselves as such).
>
> See Stevertigo's comment on [[Talk:clitoris]] for a
> classic presumption of
> the male gender of all contributors (not to single
> you out Steve - it was
> just the timing that really made me notice this)
>
> Regards
>
> sannse

Noticed it also. But I counted only 3 (Deb said she
was a woman). Who is the fourth one ?

(I exclude MaryMary from the count - of course - she
can't be a woman right ?)

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body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> sannse-
> > Anthere asked:
>
> >> You a woman Sannse ?
> >>
>
> > Yep.  Despite the number of kind e-mails I get
> offering to enlarge my penis
> > ;)
>
> > I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia
> who have presumed I'm
> > male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem
> worth the typing.  But since
> > seeing you comment on this I've realised you are
> right - we have a tendency
> > to presume anyone without an obviously female name
> is male.  And I do it
> > myself all the time.  I can't think of a single
> contributor with a
> > gender-neutral name that I picture as female
> (unless they have identified
> > themselves as such).
>
> Well, I've been thought to be a woman several times.
> Since my username is
> "Eloquence", perhaps that's a good sign. ;-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Erik

The picture accessible from your user page is not
particularly feminine Erik.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Compromise on Franklin and Washington articles

body:
In response to Delirum's latest post, I can say this:

I am sensitive to the issue of proportions: How much a
subject is discussed in an article is of great concern,
because it may overly push one point of view over another.
(I don't think that this is the case here, but it is a
general and valid concern!)  In other cases, two paragraphs
of digression are not lengthy, when they are part of a long
article. But when they are part of a shorter article, this
too can cause imbalance. Not a POV problem, but a topic
specificity problem.

Maybe you are correct that there is too much information on
this topic in the George Washington and Benjamin Franklin
articles. (I don't think so, but whatever.)

We could do two things simultaneously (a) Increase the
overall length of these articles by discussuing more
topics, and providing more historical perspective. (b)
Re-evaluate what is in the there already, especially as
regards this issue. Shorten this particular section, remove
the weblinks, and link to a new page on forgeries.

Robert (RK)

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body:
Sounds good to me; we can continue this discussion on their talk pages
if necessary.  I didn't mean to come across as confrontational as I
likely did; you certainly seem like a reasonable person, and probably
more knowledgeable on these subjects than I. =]

-Mark


from_name: james duffy

body:
>From: Delirium <delirium at rufus.d2g.com>
>Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] Israeli-Palestinian neutrality
>Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 20:56:20 -0700
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><http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>,<mailto:wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Archive: <http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/>
>Return-Path: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Jul 2003 04:02:20.0368 (UTC)
>FILETIME=[0DDE5500:01C34B4F]
>
>It strikes me as increasingly obvious that some concerted effort to be as
>NPOV as possible on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is necessary, as it's
>starting to be one of the more frequent edit wars, and distributed
>throughout the wiki, even in places you might not expect.
>
>Two issues in particular that have come up lately, one from each side:
>
>1. [[User:BL]] is mass-adding the contents of palestineremembered.com --
>massive lists with hundreds of subpages comprising every village (defined
>as 10 or more people) destroyed in the 1948 war, every "massacre" (defined
>as 10 or more people) committed or purportedly committed during that war
>(little effort is made to distinguish), and a whole host of other
>information that's difficult if not impossible to verify.
>
>Even if it weren't for the difficulty in verifying this information, it
>strikes me as somewhat odd that we'd have 300 pages dedicated to Arabs
>killed in 1948, and only a single page dedicated to the Armenian genocide,
>or the Pontian Genocide, or the Hutu-Tutsi genocide, and so on.  I don't
>think it'd be a good idea to add 10,000 pages or so, one for each village
>("village" defined as 10 people or more) destroyed in each of those
>conflicts.  And if we're going to have a separate page for every instance
>of civilian deaths during a war, WW2 alone would be another 10,000 pages or
>so.
>
>2. [[User:RK]] is, as is probably obvious, somewhat of a pro-Israeli
>activist, and is becoming difficult to clean up.  The latest thing I've
>noticed is him adding 2-paragraph-long attacks on Arab anti-Semitism to
>articles such as [[George Washington]] and [[Benjamin Franklin]], in the
>guise of "defending" their "tarnished" reputations against charges of
>anti-Semitism stemming from little-known fabricated quotes.
>
>Not to single out these two users in particular; they're the two that come
>to mind at first.  And these two issues in particular are also being dealt
>with on talk pages.  But it's becoming clear that it will be very difficult
>to catch all of these, so perhaps some more concerted effort is needed.
>I'm not sure exactly what to propose, but it seems as a minimum we need a
>group of several people who are not particularly partial to either side --
>but who are knowledgeable about the issues -- to essentially police
>(hopefully in as unconfrontational a way as possible) this sort of stuff.
>The problem is that those most knowledgeable and interested in spending a
>great deal of time writing articles on these topics are often those who are
>most partisan to one side or the other.
>
>Suggestions?
>
>-Mark
>
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_________________________________________________________________
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from_name: webmaster

body:
Based on standard english practice, I address someone who's gender I do not know, using masculine gender.  I assume others do the same.  There is a page, http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen, which can be utiliZed if you wish to be identified as female.  It doesn't appear that most women care though.

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: erik_moeller at gmx.de (Erik Moeller)
Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Date:  16 Jul 2003 21:13:00 +0200

>sannse-
>> Anthere asked:
>
>>> You a woman Sannse ?
>>>
>
>> Yep.  Despite the number of kind e-mails I get offering to enlarge my penis
>> ;)
>
>> I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia who have presumed I'm
>> male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem worth the typing.  But since
>> seeing you comment on this I've realised you are right - we have a tendency
>> to presume anyone without an obviously female name is male.  And I do it
>> myself all the time.  I can't think of a single contributor with a
>> gender-neutral name that I picture as female (unless they have identified
>> themselves as such).
>
>Well, I've been thought to be a woman several times. Since my username is
>"Eloquence", perhaps that's a good sign. ;-)
>
>Regards,
>
>Erik
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
Alright, alright... I got the point.  Would the people
with clitorises stop making fun of the people with
penises, please?  It's no picnic to carry on of *these
around -- as evidenced by constant presumptiveness,
bountiful typographical errors, and an early risk of
alzheimers.

-S-
:)

> >> See Stevertigo's comment on [[Talk:clitoris]] for
> a
> >> classic presumption of
> >> the male gender of all contributors (not to
> single
> >> you out Steve - it was
> >> just the timing that really made me notice this)
>
> >Noticed it also. But I counted only 3 (Deb said she
> >was a woman). Who is the fourth one ?
>
> >(I exclude MaryMary from the count - of course -
> she
> >can't be a woman right ?)
>
> No, I didn't count JohnQ/MaryMary.  I only looked at
> the most recent
> discussion.
>
> The four I counted were you, me, Deb and Vicki
> Rosenzweig.  But maybe I'm
> erring in the other direction with Vicki, I don't
> actually recall hir saying
> either way.
>
> Regards,
>
> sannse
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
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SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
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from_name: Kurt Jansson

subject: [Wikitech-l] changes listed in RecentChanges, but not in history

body:
At 14:44 CEST Benutzer:Zenogantner and I (Benutzer:Kurt Jansson) both
made changes at the German Mainpage (de:Hauptseite). Both were listet on
RecentChanges, but only mine is listed in the article history.

I hope this bug doesn't occur often. Could someone please fix it?

Kurt


subject: [WikiEN-l] Two things

body:
Firstly, this news article has copied most of a wikipedia article, without linking to the GFDL:
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1049

Secondly, I found this page, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_NEWS, which seems to be useful, but hasn't been used since 2 Dec 2002.  Anyone interested in resurrecting it?

----
Michael Becker
a.k.a. Mbecker
a.k.a. MB


from_name: Timwi

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: update LanguageHe.php on Hebrew wiki

body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> OK, someone will have to upload it to CVS now ;)

Someone appears to have already uploaded some LanguageHe.php file to
CVS; however, the file in CVS differs significantly from what's at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHe.php. What's up?

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: From the Japanese list -- I think this qualifies as spam

body:
steve vertigo wrote:

> --- DO NOT REPLY
[etc.]

Maybe I'm missing something, but why exactly are you forwarding Spam to
wikitech-l?

Timwi


subject: [Wikitech-l] Problems with Cologne Blue and Opera

body:
Someone on the German mailing list reported a problem with Cologne Blue
and Opera. I was able to fix the problem by making the following changes:

- in cologneblue.css, change the line
     #content { position: absolute; top: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0; }
   by removing the "position: absolute;", and
- in the actual page HTML, change the line beginning with

<table width='98%' border=0 cellspacing=0
   by replacing 98% with 100%.

and the page still sppears to display fine in Mozilla. Could someone
else please test these changes on a wider range of browsers?

Should I commit these changes to CVS then?

Thanks,
Timwi


from_name: Tomasz Wegrzanowski

body:
On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 06:14:28PM +0200, Timwi wrote:
> Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>
> >OK, someone will have to upload it to CVS now ;)
>
> Someone appears to have already uploaded some LanguageHe.php file to
> CVS; however, the file in CVS differs significantly from what's at
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHe.php. What's up?

http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHe.php is the new version,
old version was already in CVS and he.wikipedia.org. I upgraded
he.wikipedia.org to new version.


body:
Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 16, 2003 at 06:14:28PM +0200, Timwi wrote:
>
>>Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
>>
>>
>>>OK, someone will have to upload it to CVS now ;)
>>
>>Someone appears to have already uploaded some LanguageHe.php file to
>>CVS; however, the file in CVS differs significantly from what's at
>>http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHe.php. What's up?
>
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguageHe.php is the new version,
> old version was already in CVS and he.wikipedia.org. I upgraded
> he.wikipedia.org to new version.

Okay then. I've committed that new version to CVS.


from_name: sannse

body:
Anthere asked:

> You a woman Sannse ?
>

Yep.  Despite the number of kind e-mails I get offering to enlarge my penis
;)

I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia who have presumed I'm
male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem worth the typing.  But since
seeing you comment on this I've realised you are right - we have a tendency
to presume anyone without an obviously female name is male.  And I do it
myself all the time.  I can't think of a single contributor with a
gender-neutral name that I picture as female (unless they have identified
themselves as such).

See Stevertigo's comment on [[Talk:clitoris]] for a classic presumption of
the male gender of all contributors (not to single you out Steve - it was
just the timing that really made me notice this)

Regards

sannse


body:
sannse-
> Anthere asked:

>> You a woman Sannse ?
>>

> Yep.  Despite the number of kind e-mails I get offering to enlarge my penis
> ;)

> I haven't bothered to correct those on Wikipedia who have presumed I'm
> male - it hasn't bothered me and doesn't seem worth the typing.  But since
> seeing you comment on this I've realised you are right - we have a tendency
> to presume anyone without an obviously female name is male.  And I do it
> myself all the time.  I can't think of a single contributor with a
> gender-neutral name that I picture as female (unless they have identified
> themselves as such).

Well, I've been thought to be a woman several times. Since my username is
"Eloquence", perhaps that's a good sign. ;-)

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Tim Starling

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia down

body:
Wikipedia is down, returning

Could not connect to DB on 130.94.122.197
Host 'larousse.wikipedia.org' is blocked because of many connection errors.
Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'


body:
Anthere wrote:

>> See Stevertigo's comment on [[Talk:clitoris]] for a
>> classic presumption of
>> the male gender of all contributors (not to single
>> you out Steve - it was
>> just the timing that really made me notice this)

>Noticed it also. But I counted only 3 (Deb said she
>was a woman). Who is the fourth one ?

>(I exclude MaryMary from the count - of course - she
>can't be a woman right ?)

No, I didn't count JohnQ/MaryMary.  I only looked at the most recent
discussion.

The four I counted were you, me, Deb and Vicki Rosenzweig.  But maybe I'm
erring in the other direction with Vicki, I don't actually recall hir saying
either way.

Regards,

sannse


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

body:
At 10:27 PM 7/16/03 +0100, Sannse wrote:
>Anthere wrote:
>
> >> See Stevertigo's comment on [[Talk:clitoris]] for a
> >> classic presumption of
> >> the male gender of all contributors (not to single
> >> you out Steve - it was
> >> just the timing that really made me notice this)
>
> >Noticed it also. But I counted only 3 (Deb said she
> >was a woman). Who is the fourth one ?
>
> >(I exclude MaryMary from the count - of course - she
> >can't be a woman right ?)
>
>No, I didn't count JohnQ/MaryMary.  I only looked at the most recent
>discussion.
>
>The four I counted were you, me, Deb and Vicki Rosenzweig.  But maybe I'm
>erring in the other direction with Vicki, I don't actually recall hir saying
>either way.

Since you're asking, yes I'm a woman.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Wikipedia down

body:
"Lee Daniel Crocker" <lee at piclab.com> wrote in
message news:1058326992.3747.1.camel at penguin.piclab.com...
> On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 04:39, Tim Starling wrote:
> > Wikipedia is down, returning
> >
> > Could not connect to DB on 130.94.122.197
> > Host 'larousse.wikipedia.org' is blocked because of many connection
errors.
> > Unblock with 'mysqladmin flush-hosts'
>
> Should be back up now (I've been a bit inactive lately, but the wikidown
> address is still attached to my pager).

I was testing some PHP code at the time, with an ssh connection open and
MySQL manual at hand, but there was nothing I could do. Do you know what
happened? I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault.

-- Tim Starling.


from_name: tarquin

subject: [Wikitech-l] Languages

body:
Jason Richey wrote:

>To this end, we might as well spawn a new project...  A project that
>takes the en wikipedia data dump and passes it through Babelfish or
>the like.
>
>
>
Could we please return to the real world?
Machine translations are sometimes vaguely useful for getting the gist
of something. but by and large, they are pure crud.
dealing with such a machine translation would be WORSE for the writer
than starting with a blank page.


subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php

references: <bf3dgd$kls$1@main.gmane.org> <1058326992.3747.1.camel@penguin.piclab.com>  <bf3hcg$9e8$1@main.gmane.org> <1058367278.4282.0.camel@penguin.piclab.com> <001201c34c39$8559fd60$d100a8c0@arcsy.co.jp>

body:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:

>Bonjour !
>Here is the new version of "LanguageFr.php".
>
>List of changes :
>--------------------
>
>- Add & translate text to automatic comment added when deleting a stub
>- Correct link to hindi Wikipedia
>
>Please someone add it on the server.
>
I'll add it to CVS now, but I don't know how to do the next step.


body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

> What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people
> whose gender
> you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and
> will annoy
> quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and
> workarounds
> like "that person", is probably a better idea.

I think if you put a dozen grammarians in a room and ask them about
this, you're going to end up with a fight. =]  I do think it was
standard to use "he" at one time -- you'd hardly find anything else in
19th-century writing -- but it's not any longer. Many people also
dislike "they", because it's using plural forms (both the plural
pronoun, and to be consistent, plural verbs) to refer to a single
person.  Those people seem to be losing that particular battle though.

As of late I've noticed in much academic writing a preferred solution
has been to simply use "she".  It's not really any better than using
"he" as far as correctness goes, but people are less likely to complain
about it being sexist, so it has taken off especially in fields that
have traditionally been criticized for excluding women, such as
philosophy and computer science.  I do find it somewhat jarring when I
read it though, as I'm used to "she" being used to refer to people who
are actually female, so it takes me a minute to realize from context
that it's being used as a generic pronoun.  Sort of along the same
lines, but not particularly jarring, is using female examples when
making up fictional people to explain a point.  I've also noticed
somewhat humorously that it's become common when making up fictional
dialogues in philosophy to make the "reasonable" side be female, and
make the "wrong" side be male.  I suppose doing it in the reverse would
lead to charges of sexism.

In any case that was a bit of rambling, but I find this all very
interesting.

-Mark


from_name: Arwel Parry

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Languages

body:
In message <3F1662E7.1020701 at planetunreal.com>, tarquin
<tarquin=ivGM6J5ThX418oCzpIvf9w at public.gmane.org> writes
>
>
>Jason Richey wrote:
>
>>To this end, we might as well spawn a new project...  A project that
>>takes the en wikipedia data dump and passes it through Babelfish or
>>the like.
>>
>>
>Could we please return to the real world?
>Machine translations are sometimes vaguely useful for getting the gist
>of something. but by and large, they are pure crud.
>dealing with such a machine translation would be WORSE for the writer
>than starting with a blank page.

I quite agree, apart from the fact that I can't envisage Babelfish "or
the like" ever being set up to translate many of the lesser-used
languages we have wikipedias set up for.

--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/


body:
--- Vicki Rosenzweig <vr at redbird.org> wrote:
> At 03:38 PM 7/16/03 -0400, Erik wrote:
> >Based on standard english practice, I address
> someone who's gender I do
> >not know, using masculine gender.  I assume others
> do the same.  There is
> >a page, http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen,
> which can be utiliZed if
> >you wish to be identified as female.  It doesn't
> appear that most women
> >care though.
>
> Standard English practice is to address
> people--whether I know their gender
> or not--using the second person singular, which is
> ungendered.
>
> What I think you're actually saying is that you
> *refer to* people whose gender
> you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely
> standard, and will annoy
> quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names,
> "they", and workarounds
> like "that person", is probably a better idea.
>
> --
> Vicki Rosenzweig
> vr at redbird.org
> http://www.redbird.org

Tactic that some wikipedians don't use AT ALL.
Unfortunately.
I don't like it when someone repeatedly talk about me
saying "he claims this". Imho, this is not neutral.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: steve vertigo

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Languages

body:
Im glad to see ther are two of you -- there is
certainly an open debate about this. Your opinions are
noted.

But the statement...

"dealing with such a machine translation would be
WORSE for the writer  than starting with a blank
page."

...is a bit loosy-goosy.. It seems almost
technophobic, and it misses some points, namely !. the
general thrust of the wikipedia as collaborative, and
interactive  -- 2. that something on the page is most
often better than *nothing on the page -- 3. that
machine translation is  improving at an extremely
rapid pace.  4. this is the general consensus --that
the WP take upon itself a more international scope .

I dont agree with "running everthing through
Babelfish" -- this is not the best option, even if it
were feasible -- (I think that was an
oversimplification - not a well-crafted sentence.)
The better options are a subject weve already
mentioned -- namely a platform dedicated to
cross-langa articles , and a means to make it more
efficient to use our own personal translation ware...
I suggested the use of the simple wiki for this  --
there are some issues with that as well.

Ultimately, there is no generalized view of machine
translation -- Systran (google) is  rather good for
one-way conversion between one European language and
another.  Even Jim Breen's kanji translator is good
for at mass-converting Kanji to their meanings, in a
list.  That it would be too hard for a "writer" to
connect the dots with some grammar, is also a rather
fishy statement.  Wikipedians are writers, anyway --
were *editors.

-S-

--- Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> In message <3F1662E7.1020701 at planetunreal.com>,
> tarquin
> <tarquin=ivGM6J5ThX418oCzpIvf9w at public.gmane.org>
> writes
> >
> >
> >Jason Richey wrote:
> >
> >>To this end, we might as well spawn a new
> project...  A project that
> >>takes the en wikipedia data dump and passes it
> through Babelfish or
> >>the like.
> >>
> >>
> >Could we please return to the real world?
> >Machine translations are sometimes vaguely useful
> for getting the gist
> >of something. but by and large, they are pure crud.
> >dealing with such a machine translation would be
> WORSE for the writer
> >than starting with a blank page.
>
> I quite agree, apart from the fact that I can't
> envisage Babelfish "or
> the like" ever being set up to translate many of the
> lesser-used
> languages we have wikipedias set up for.
>
> --
> Arwel Parry
> http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Languages (correction)

body:
Im glad to see ther are two of you -- there is
certainly an open debate about this. Your opinions are
noted.

But the statement...

"dealing with such a machine translation would be
WORSE for the writer  than starting with a blank
page."

...is a bit loosy-goosy.. It seems almost
technophobic, and it misses some points, namely !. the
general thrust of the wikipedia as collaborative, and
interactive  -- 2. that something on the page is most
often better than *nothing on the page -- 3. that
machine translation is  improving at an extremely
rapid pace.  4. this is the general consensus --that
the WP take upon itself a more international scope .

I dont agree with "running everthing through
Babelfish" -- this is not the best option, even if it
were feasible -- (I think that was an
oversimplification - not a well-crafted sentence.)
The better options are a subject weve already
mentioned -- namely a platform dedicated to
cross-langa articles , and a means to make it more
efficient to use our own personal translation ware...
I suggested the use of the simple wiki for this  --
there are some issues with that as well.

Ultimately, there is no generalized view of machine
translation -- Systran (google) is  rather good for
one-way conversion between one European language and
another.  Even Jim Breen's kanji translator is good
for at mass-converting Kanji to their meanings, in a
list.  That it would be too hard for a "writer" to
connect the dots with some grammar, is also a rather
fishy statement.  Wikipedians are NOT  writers, anyway
-- were *editors.

-S-

--- Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> In message <3F1662E7.1020701 at planetunreal.com>,
> tarquin
> <tarquin=ivGM6J5ThX418oCzpIvf9w at public.gmane.org>
> writes
> >
> >
> >Jason Richey wrote:
> >
> >>To this end, we might as well spawn a new
> project...  A project that
> >>takes the en wikipedia data dump and passes it
> through Babelfish or
> >>the like.
> >>
> >>
> >Could we please return to the real world?
> >Machine translations are sometimes vaguely useful
> for getting the gist
> >of something. but by and large, they are pure crud.
> >dealing with such a machine translation would be
> WORSE for the writer
> >than starting with a blank page.
>
> I quite agree, apart from the fact that I can't
> envisage Babelfish "or
> the like" ever being set up to translate many of the
> lesser-used
> languages we have wikipedias set up for.
>
> --
> Arwel Parry
> http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


body:
At 03:38 PM 7/16/03 -0400, Erik wrote:
>Based on standard english practice, I address someone who's gender I do
>not know, using masculine gender.  I assume others do the same.  There is
>a page, http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen, which can be utiliZed if
>you wish to be identified as female.  It doesn't appear that most women
>care though.

Standard English practice is to address people--whether I know their gender
or not--using the second person singular, which is ungendered.

What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people whose gender
you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and will annoy
quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and workarounds
like "that person", is probably a better idea.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


from_name: Guillaume Blanchard

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php

references: <bf3dgd$kls$1@main.gmane.org> <1058326992.3747.1.camel@penguin.piclab.com>  <bf3hcg$9e8$1@main.gmane.org> <1058367278.4282.0.camel@penguin.piclab.com>

body:
Bonjour !
Here is the new version of "LanguageFr.php".

List of changes :
--------------------

- Add & translate text to automatic comment added when deleting a stub
- Correct link to hindi Wikipedia

Please someone add it on the server.

Aoineko (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Aoineko)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageFr.php

body:
Bonjour !
Here is the new version of "LanguageFr.php".

List of changes :
--------------------

- Add & translate text to automatic comment added when deleting a stub
- Correct link to hindi Wikipedia

Please someone add it on the server.

Aoineko (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Aoineko)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] machine translation - once and for all

body:
Theres a fundamental rule in journalism That youre
missing Tarq -- (and Wikipedians ARE journalists -- in
the best sense, perhaps)  The rule is:

"Get Something On the Page -- Period."

Imagine a big burly fat guy with a cigar yelling that
in your ear as your typing it up against your
deadline. Im not saying that I can go around
recommending machtransware as a cure for cancer -- I
am saying it is fast arriving -- and can be useful to
some people -- those talented at turning crap into
custard. If one is not so talented -- and does not
wish to be bothered with using it -- this should not
translate into them being bothered that its by others
being used. Is regular and assisted use can solve the
issue of perhaps seeding a modest degree of interest
in some of the other WP's -- which remain as they are,
stillborn. Translate that.

Respectfully,
-V-

--- tarquin <tarquin at planetunreal.com> wrote:
> tarquin wrote:
>
> > I'll believe it when I see it.
> > HUMANS have difficulty translating. It's a very
> imprecise art. A
> > computer would need to understand meaning to
> effectively translate
> > anything beyond very basic sentences. I HOPE
> Wikipedia articles are
> > written with a little more style than that!
>
> Systrans, which you recommended, gives this in
> French:
>
> Les HUMAINS ont la traduction de difficult?. C'est
> un art tr?s
> impr?cis. Un ordinateur devrait comprendre la
> signification pour
> traduire efficacement n'importe quoi au del? des
> phrases tr?s de
> base. J'esp?re que des articles de Wikipedia sont
> ?crits avec peu
> plus de mod?le que cela !
>
> Now that is junk. A french wikipedian wanting to
> clean this up might not
> have a clue for some of the incorrect words.
>
> They would need to refer back to the english version
> to see what was
> meant in the first place -- in other words, they
> would have to be
> bilingual. And a bilingual user might as well write
> from scratch.
>
> If you want concrete examples -- they would have no
> way of knowing
> "style" was meant by "modele" without translating
> back into English and
> doing some guesswork. They would probably think it
> mean "I hope that
> wikipedia articles are written with a better
> template".
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
>
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

__________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Please stop abuse and trolling

body:
I am asking Wikipedia Sysops to talk to PizzaPuzzle and
Jtdirl, and ask them to stop harassing me by altering my
personal user page. They keep adding univited comments
about Israel and Palestine, that have *nothing* to do with
any articles we are currently working on.

They know that I am Jewish, and they follow me from article
to article, constantly baiting me. This is a very lcear
case in point: I have been working with others on the
Creationism, Evolution, and Gaia articles. Yet their
response?  Trolling me with comments about the Palestinians
and "arabophobia".

Huh?

This abusive behaviour is clearly not aimed at improving
our articles. It is a clear and obvious case of abuse of me
for my Mosaic faith and beliefs.  I am just getting tired
of the constant Jew-baiting. There is no way an honest
person can say that these recent comments have any logical
connection to our work on Evolution, Creationism, Gaia,
etc. If this behaviour isn't Jew-baiting, then
anti-Semitism simply doesn't exist.

When I asked PizzaPuzzle to stop putting irrelevant
comments on my Talk page, I got this baiting response:

So comments that question Israel aren't welcome on your
talk page? Is there no limit to your arabophobia?
[[User:Jtdirl|Fear?IREANN]] 01:39 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

This is a real problem. I am asking others to become a part
of the solution. I am not shoving remarks onto your
personal pages, aimed at irritating you based on my
knowledge of your religious or ethnic backgrounds. This
should not be allowed to happen to me, then, or to anyon
else.

Robert (RK)

__________________________________
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body:
Delirium wrote:

> Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>
>> What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people
>> whose gender
>> you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and
>> will annoy
>> quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and
>> workarounds
>> like "that person", is probably a better idea.
>
>
> Many people also dislike "they", because it's using plural forms (both
> the plural pronoun, and to be consistent, plural verbs) to refer to a
> single person.  Those people seem to be losing that particular battle
> though.

well "you" is singular and plural. So why not another pronoun?

>
> As of late I've noticed in much academic writing a preferred solution
> has been to simply use "she".  It's not really any better than using
> "he" as far as correctness goes, but people are less likely to
> complain about it being sexist,

well the trick with using "she" is to use "she" AND "he" approximately
equally. Just pick one at random!

> I do find it somewhat jarring when I read it though, as I'm used to
> "she" being used to refer to people who are actually female, so it
> takes me a minute to realize from context that it's being used as a
> generic pronoun.

now you know how female readers feel.... ;-)


from_name: Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz

subject: [WikiEN-l] Two things

body:
On 16-07-2003, webmaster wrote thusly :
> Firstly, this news article has copied most of a wikipedia article, without linking to the GFDL:
> http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1049
Please be careful this might be the other way round ;-) Though I
really doubt it.

> Secondly, I found this page, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_NEWS, which seems to be useful, but hasn't been used since 2 Dec 2002.  Anyone interested in resurrecting it?

Several people are. Please see http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_News

Regards,
Kpjas


from_name: Michael Becker

subject: [WikiEN-l] Two things

body:
Sorry, the first part of that last message wasn't clear enough.  The
news article says the information is from wikipedia, but they failed to
release that part of the article under the GFDL.  So I was wondering if
I should contact them asking them to release it under the GFDL since
they copied all but a few sentences from the wikipedia article.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 3.07
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Two things

On 16-07-2003, webmaster wrote thusly :
> Firstly, this news article has copied most of a wikipedia article,
> without linking to the GFDL:
> http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1049
Please be careful this might be the other way round ;-) Though I
really doubt it.

> Secondly, I found this page,
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_NEWS, which seems to be
> useful, but hasn't been used since 2 Dec 2002.  Anyone interested in
> resurrecting it?

Several people are. Please see
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_News

Regards,
Kpjas
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Languages (correction)

body:
steve vertigo wrote:

>
>...is a bit loosy-goosy.. It seems almost
>technophobic,
>
I am hardly technophobic!

>and it misses some points, namely !. the
>general thrust of the wikipedia as collaborative, and
>interactive
>
I don't see how this is related

> -- 2. that something on the page is most
>often better than *nothing on the page
>
A bad translation would make readers think the rest is of the same quality

>-- 3. that
>machine translation is  improving at an extremely
>rapid pace.
>
I'l believe it when I see it.
HUMANS have difficulty translating. It's a very imprecise art. A
computer would need to understand *meaning* to effectively translate
anything beyond very basic sentences. I HOPE Wikipedia articles are
written with a little more style than that!

> 4. this is the general consensus --that
>the WP take upon itself a more international scope .
>
How do you get that from my point? I staunchly support WP's
international scope! Eg, I have been arguing for MONTHS we must move the
english pedia from www. to en. URL

Please can we drop this line of debate -- it's pointless.
Bring it back up when machine translation is viable.


body:
tarquin wrote:

> I'll believe it when I see it.
> HUMANS have difficulty translating. It's a very imprecise art. A
> computer would need to understand meaning to effectively translate
> anything beyond very basic sentences. I HOPE Wikipedia articles are
> written with a little more style than that!

Systrans, which you recommended, gives this in French:

Les HUMAINS ont la traduction de difficult?. C'est un art tr?s
impr?cis. Un ordinateur devrait comprendre la signification pour
traduire efficacement n'importe quoi au del? des phrases tr?s de
base. J'esp?re que des articles de Wikipedia sont ?crits avec peu
plus de mod?le que cela !

Now that is junk. A french wikipedian wanting to clean this up might not
have a clue for some of the incorrect words.

They would need to refer back to the english version to see what was
meant in the first place -- in other words, they would have to be
bilingual. And a bilingual user might as well write from scratch.

If you want concrete examples -- they would have no way of knowing
"style" was meant by "modele" without translating back into English and
doing some guesswork. They would probably think it mean "I hope that
wikipedia articles are written with a better template".


body:
This may be taking it over the edge, but my female English teacher in
high school taught me this:
The correct grammatical way to refer to someone of unknown sex as he.
When asked if this bothered her, she said "no, it is just proper
English."  While I personally agree with this philosophy, it is quite
evident that some people in the pedia think it is sexist, and are
bothered by it.  I will make every effort to address someone by their
true sex, or use their name, but when it come down to it, I will use the
grammar I was taught, since there will never be a consensus on this,
since any  method is non-NPOV.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of james duffy
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 5.10
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiWomen (was Partial deletion)

>Delirium wrote:
>
>>Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>>
>>>What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people
>>>whose
>>>gender
>>>you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and
will
>>>annoy
>>>quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and
>>>workarounds
>>>like "that person", is probably a better idea.
>>
>>
>>Many people also dislike "they", because it's using plural forms (both

>>the
>>plural pronoun, and to be consistent, plural verbs) to refer to a
single
>>person.  Those people seem to be losing that particular battle though.
>
>well "you" is singular and plural. So why not another pronoun?
>
>>
>>As of late I've noticed in much academic writing a preferred solution
>>has
>>been to simply use "she".  It's not really any better than using "he"
as
>>far as correctness goes, but people are less likely to complain about
it
>>being sexist,
>
>well the trick with using "she" is to use "she" AND "he" approximately
>equally. Just pick one at random!
>
>>I do find it somewhat jarring when I read it though, as I'm used to
>>"she"
>>being used to refer to people who are actually female, so it takes me
a
>>minute to realize from context that it's being used as a generic
pronoun.
>
>now you know how female readers feel.... ;-)

Personally, where workable I use s/he. In articles, I use the gender
used in
primary documents if there is a primary document, and the gender of the
office-holder when talking specifically. On when writing about the
President
of Ireland, as the Irish contitution uses 'he' I use it when talking
theoretically about the office, she/her etc when writing in practice
about
the office as the current president is female. And a small note or
footnote
to explain usage so no-one reads any gender agenda between using either
form
and to avoid confusion. I have found in writing newspaper articles books
etc
that it works well once people know why things are in that form.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
This may be taking it over the edge, but my female English teacher in
high school taught me this: The correct grammatical way to refer to
someone of unknown sex as he.  When asked if this bothered her, she said
"no, it is just proper English."  While I personally agree with this
philosophy, it is quite evident that some people in the pedia think it
is sexist, and are bothered by it.  I will make every effort to address
someone by their true sex, or use their name, but when it come down to
it, I will use the grammar I was taught, since there will never be a
consensus on this, since any  method is non-NPOV.

--
Michael Becker

-----Original Message-----
From: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org]
On Behalf Of Vicki Rosenzweig
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 2.30
To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiWomen (was Partial deletion)

At 03:38 PM 7/16/03 -0400, Erik wrote:
>Based on standard english practice, I address someone who's gender I do
>not know, using masculine gender.  I assume others do the same.  There
is
>a page, http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen, which can be utiliZed
if
>you wish to be identified as female.  It doesn't appear that most women

>care though.

Standard English practice is to address people--whether I know their
gender or not--using the second person singular, which is ungendered.

What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people whose
gender you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard,
and will annoy quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names,
"they", and workarounds like "that person", is probably a better idea.

--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org

_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Julie Kemp

subject: [WikiEN-l] Crying Wolf

body:
I looked at the last comments that RK said he removed from his talk
page.  Although the one from E of T was a bit inflammatory, it seemed to
be a response to one of Roberts own "attacks" -- I infer a typically
one-sided and less than tactful comment he made about someone else's
work.  If my inference or characterization are incorrect, I apologise.
The comment made by Pizza Puzzle may have been *personally* offensive to
Robert, but it is simply a statement of PP's own opinion on the
situation.  I may not be popular, but he is entitled to it.  Presumably
user talk pages are meant to be places where we communicate with each
other in public -- so I don't see why there is a problem.  If RK doesn't
like a comment, he can erase it -- as he did -- but it's a pain in the
arse to have to look it up in the history.  I have to disagree with
Jtdirl on his comment, which was, to say the least, pointed.  But my
disagreement is less that RK is phobic of Arabs, but instead is overly
sensitive, perhaps even paranoid, about anything that isn't vehemently
pro-Israeli/pro-Zionist.  I am sorry if this causes anyone pain, but
over the past couple of years, I can't even begin to count the occasions
where the accusation of Anti-Semitiem has been put forth when someone
sees any relevant situation in anything but black and white.

I'm just not sure I understand the need to accuse people of trolling or
otherwise whenever there is a disagreement.  It is getting very old and
tired, and frankly, it pisses me off.  One of the reasons I stoppped
contributing and only occasionally maintain the odd article is because a
couple of *real* trolls began to attack me and to attack my work and my
reputation by dropping truly nasty comments about me on pages all over
the 'pedia.  Not much was done, although many people left me supportive
comments.  Zoe was also trolled out, and others have been, too.  RK's
most recent accusations of trolling are just not in the same league.

Jules
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body:
>Delirium wrote:
>
>>Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
>>
>>>What I think you're actually saying is that you *refer to* people whose
>>>gender
>>>you don't know as "he". This has never been entirely standard, and will
>>>annoy
>>>quite a few people at this epoch. Using full names, "they", and
>>>workarounds
>>>like "that person", is probably a better idea.
>>
>>
>>Many people also dislike "they", because it's using plural forms (both the
>>plural pronoun, and to be consistent, plural verbs) to refer to a single
>>person.  Those people seem to be losing that particular battle though.
>
>well "you" is singular and plural. So why not another pronoun?
>
>>
>>As of late I've noticed in much academic writing a preferred solution has
>>been to simply use "she".  It's not really any better than using "he" as
>>far as correctness goes, but people are less likely to complain about it
>>being sexist,
>
>well the trick with using "she" is to use "she" AND "he" approximately
>equally. Just pick one at random!
>
>>I do find it somewhat jarring when I read it though, as I'm used to "she"
>>being used to refer to people who are actually female, so it takes me a
>>minute to realize from context that it's being used as a generic pronoun.
>
>now you know how female readers feel.... ;-)

Personally, where workable I use s/he. In articles, I use the gender used in
primary documents if there is a primary document, and the gender of the
office-holder when talking specifically. On when writing about the President
of Ireland, as the Irish contitution uses 'he' I use it when talking
theoretically about the office, she/her etc when writing in practice about
the office as the current president is female. And a small note or footnote
to explain usage so no-one reads any gender agenda between using either form
and to avoid confusion. I have found in writing newspaper articles books etc
that it works well once people know why things are in that form.

JT

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] An Off-Topic Comment

body:
While this isn't one of the usual topics we discuss on this
mailling list -- trolls, server problems, concerns of copyright
infringements -- I'd like to share something I stumbled across while
doing research for a Wikipedia article.  Because this helps explain
the real reason I keep reading & keep contributing articles when
sometimes I'm doubtful that anyone reads, let alone notices my contributions.

Theophanes was a Byzantine chronicler who compiled from earlier sources,
sometimes not entirely competently, a history of the world to his
time. Many of the events he recorded were of tyrannical emperors
determined to force their religious point of view upon a restive
populace by any means necessary -- including deportation, impoverishment,
& bloodshed. Other events were described the clumsy, violent manner
warfare is always carried out between hostile populations: on one
side Moslem troops attempting to subdue the world for Allah, on the
other the Imperial troops of the One True Roman Emperor (who happened
to speak Greek as his native language), with the chronic repetition
of various groups engaged in revolt against one or the other overlord.

Amidst the record of this continued darkness, suffering and death,
Theophanes includes the tale of the time (February, 764 to be exact)
when the frozen Black Sea broke up & sent forth icebergs thru the
Sea of Marmora. And as he describes this wondrous phenomena, Theophanes
inserts the remark that this is true because he had witnessed this, & with
about 30 playmates climbed onto one of the icebergs to explore and play.
And while he & his childhood friends are preoccupied in this, he remarks
how the adults watched how these mountains of ice, taller than the walls
of the greatest city in Europe, drifted past, occasionally banging into
the seawalls of Constantinople, returning home to fret over this unusual event.

I can't quite explain how, but in the paragraph that Theophanes' translator
describes this event (sorry, I don't read Greek, either Ancient or Medieval),
I found myself suddenly drawn back to a time over 1200 years ago in a
place I have never been, which became more real for me than any television
or movie recreation of history could ever be. All because a writer,
otherwise devoid of personality, happened to share with posterity a vibrant
childhood memory.

And so I will keep on reading, ostensively because I want to correct
mistakes & fill in omissions in Wikipedia, but in the actual hope I will
encounter another surpise like this from a time & place far away.

Geoff


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Please stop... (was...)

body:
> This is a real problem. I am asking others to become
> a part
> of the solution. I am not shoving remarks onto your
> personal pages, aimed at irritating you based on my
> knowledge of your religious or ethnic backgrounds.
> This
> should not be allowed to happen to me, then, or to
> anyon
> else.
>
> Robert (RK)

I *entirely* agree with you RK. This is *so* right.
May I try rephrase your sentence to make it even more
universal

"We should not shove remarks onto talk and personal
pages, aimed at irritating others based on our
knowledge of their religious, ethnic, linguistic and
political backgrounds."

Such a beautiful world, sigh. Oh, I *must* add that to
the french wikipedia !

__________________________________
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SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com


from_name: Dante Alighieri

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns (was: WikiWomen)

body:
Why are people so unwilling to use "they" to mean "he/she"?

-----

Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Benjamin Esham

body:
On Thursday, July 17, 2003, at 09:58  PM, Michael Becker wrote:

> This may be taking it over the edge, but my female English teacher in
> high school taught me this: The correct grammatical way to refer to
> someone of unknown sex as he.  When asked if this bothered her, she
> said
> "no, it is just proper English."  While I personally agree with this
> philosophy, it is quite evident that some people in the pedia think it
> is sexist, and are bothered by it.  I will make every effort to address
> someone by their true sex, or use their name, but when it come down to
> it, I will use the grammar I was taught, since there will never be a
> consensus on this, since any  method is non-NPOV.

Well, I suppose there's always this...

   http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sie_and_hir

I'm not sure that I've seen this in actual use more than twice, though
:-)

--
Benjamin D. Esham      {      http://bdesham.net
bdesham at iname.com      }      AIM: bdesham 1 2 8


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
Dante Alighieri wrote:

> Why are people so unwilling to use "they" to mean "he/she"?

Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been
used as a singular pronoun until very recently, so you end up with the
"wrong" verb tenses.  So when you say something like "They fall asleep
as they watch TV," it sounds very much like you're talking about
multiple people.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
At 12:09 AM 7/18/2003, you wrote:
>Dante Alighieri wrote:
>
>>Why are people so unwilling to use "they" to mean "he/she"?
>
>Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been used
>as a singular pronoun until very recently, so you end up with the "wrong"
>verb tenses.  So when you say something like "They fall asleep as they
>watch TV," it sounds very much like you're talking about multiple people.
>
>-Mark

Well, the OED disagrees with them. The OED not only lists this as a
definition for "they":

Often used in reference to a singular noun made universal by every, any,
no, etc., or applicable to one of either sex (= 'he or she')

but also gives the first recorded usage of the above sense as 1526.
Personally, I think that gives the  usage sufficient grammatical "correctness".

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321


from_name: Lightning

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Requests for the Hebrew 'pedia

references: <bf8gub$2b3$1@main.gmane.org> <bf8jre$i0s$1@main.gmane.org> <bf8mom$120$1@main.gmane.org> <bf8pf0$fh9$1@main.gmane.org>

body:
hey kids.

Ok, you know what, i know we've talked about this before, and nobody seemed
to care, but what about templates? Why don't we just straight up abstract
the code from the layout stuff? It needs to be done. I am a big fan of
templates and use them often, and you know what? It makes code a lot cleaner
and less clutered and makes different skins and i8n a lot easier. Plus its
no more less efficient than having include files with like 400 localized
strings. The slowdown would be minimal. As we have noticed, localization
consists of more than just translating simple strings, because different
languages have different needs and so should have different layouts (while
still trying to keep things similar and consistent)  This would also would
allow us to have different skins, and maybe in the future do a bit of
browser sniffing so we could have decent skins for decent browsers andold
skins for old browsers....

my suggestion: smarty
http://smarty.php.net
a big plus is its built in advanced features and caching (which is extremely
flexible)

Lightning


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
At 12:09 AM 7/18/03 -0700, Delirium wrote:
>Dante Alighieri wrote:
>
>>Why are people so unwilling to use "they" to mean "he/she"?
>
>Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been used
>as a singular pronoun until very recently,

Your definition of "very recently" must include the early 19th century,
then: Jane
Austen used "they" as a singular pronoun. In fact, singular they is older than
"generic he".

>so you end up with the "wrong" verb tenses.  So when you say something
>like "They fall asleep as they watch TV," it sounds very much like you're
>talking about multiple people.

And when you say "Ask your doctor what he thinks" it sounds entirely as
though you're talking about a man, whereas it's entirely likely that you're
talking
about a woman.

Neither is perfect.
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org


body:
It is unacceptible that anyone be harrassed because of
their views. If you are in fact being harrassed at
all, I don't think its because of your belief -- there
are plenty of other Mosaic-faithed people here and
they manage quite well to engender respect, unwavering
courtesy, and a spirit of collegiality and
improvement.

All that said -- I know *nothing about your current
conflicts -- I simply wish you the best at meeting
with others on respectful terms.  I *do notice that
you only used the term "Jew-baiting" twice -- which is
a substantial improvement over before, indicating a
toning- down of the "boy who cried wolf" rhetoric.
(Remember Godwin's Law) It is unquestionable that your
contributions are valid, valuable, and respected by
many.  You should continue to keep up the good work in
terms of your human relations.

Respectfully,
-S-

--- Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am asking Wikipedia Sysops to talk to PizzaPuzzle
> and
> Jtdirl, and ask them to stop harassing me by
> altering my
> personal user page. They keep adding univited
> comments
> about Israel and Palestine, that have *nothing* to
> do with
> any articles we are currently working on.
>
> They know that I am Jewish, and they follow me from
> article
> to article, constantly baiting me. This is a very
> lcear
> case in point: I have been working with others on
> the
> Creationism, Evolution, and Gaia articles. Yet their
> response?  Trolling me with comments about the
> Palestinians
> and "arabophobia".
>
> Huh?
>
> This abusive behaviour is clearly not aimed at
> improving
> our articles. It is a clear and obvious case of
> abuse of me
> for my Mosaic faith and beliefs.  I am just getting
> tired
> of the constant Jew-baiting. There is no way an
> honest
> person can say that these recent comments have any
> logical
> connection to our work on Evolution, Creationism,
> Gaia,
> etc. If this behaviour isn't Jew-baiting, then
> anti-Semitism simply doesn't exist.
>
> When I asked PizzaPuzzle to stop putting irrelevant
> comments on my Talk page, I got this baiting
> response:
>
> So comments that question Israel aren't welcome on
> your
> talk page? Is there no limit to your arabophobia?
> [[User:Jtdirl|Fear?IREANN]] 01:39 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
>
> This is a real problem. I am asking others to become
> a part
> of the solution. I am not shoving remarks onto your
> personal pages, aimed at irritating you based on my
> knowledge of your religious or ethnic backgrounds.
> This
> should not be allowed to happen to me, then, or to
> anyon
> else.
>
> Robert (RK)
>
>
> __________________________________
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Crying Wolf

body:
Ditto.
-S-

--- Julie Kemp <juleskemp at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I looked at the last comments that RK said he
> removed from his talk
> page.  Although the one from E of T was a bit
> inflammatory, it seemed to
> be a response to one of Roberts own "attacks" -- I
> infer a typically
> one-sided and less than tactful comment he made
> about someone else's
> work.  If my inference or characterization are
> incorrect, I apologise.
> The comment made by Pizza Puzzle may have been
> *personally* offensive to
> Robert, but it is simply a statement of PP's own
> opinion on the
> situation.  I may not be popular, but he is entitled
> to it.  Presumably
> user talk pages are meant to be places where we
> communicate with each
> other in public -- so I don't see why there is a
> problem.  If RK doesn't
> like a comment, he can erase it -- as he did -- but
> it's a pain in the
> arse to have to look it up in the history.  I have
> to disagree with
> Jtdirl on his comment, which was, to say the least,
> pointed.  But my
> disagreement is less that RK is phobic of Arabs, but
> instead is overly
> sensitive, perhaps even paranoid, about anything
> that isn't vehemently
> pro-Israeli/pro-Zionist.  I am sorry if this causes
> anyone pain, but
> over the past couple of years, I can't even begin to
> count the occasions
> where the accusation of Anti-Semitiem has been put
> forth when someone
> sees any relevant situation in anything but black
> and white.
>
> I'm just not sure I understand the need to accuse
> people of trolling or
> otherwise whenever there is a disagreement.  It is
> getting very old and
> tired, and frankly, it pisses me off.  One of the
> reasons I stoppped
> contributing and only occasionally maintain the odd
> article is because a
> couple of *real* trolls began to attack me and to
> attack my work and my
> reputation by dropping truly nasty comments about me
> on pages all over
> the 'pedia.  Not much was done, although many people
> left me supportive
> comments.  Zoe was also trolled out, and others have
> been, too.  RK's
> most recent accusations of trolling are just not in
> the same league.
>
> Jules
>

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from_name: james duffy

body:
>RK wrote

>I am asking Wikipedia Sysops to talk to PizzaPuzzle and
>Jtdirl, and ask them to stop harassing me

em . . . 1 two line message in 9 months. Some harrassment. No. Maybe
sometime in the last 9 months I sent one or two others. A clear case of
harrasment, then!

>by altering my
>personal user page.

em . . . altering you user page?Would that mean leaving messages by any
chance? You mean I'm not supposed to leave messages for people? Why didn't
someone tell me? I've been altering personal user pages all over wiki for 9
months!

>They keep adding univited comments

You mean your user page is invite only? White tie? black tie? morning suit?
Do you post or email the invites? Do I post or email the RSVP?

>about Israel and Palestine, that have *nothing* to do with
>any articles we are currently working on.
>
>They know that I am Jewish,

Only because you tell the entire community an average of every 7.2 seconds.
Anyway, maybe I am too for all you know.

>and they follow me from article
>to article,

RK's comment on another user's page - (uninvited?)
'For whatever reason, EofT follows me around from topic to topic, refusing
to actually contribute to the article, but always making personal attacks on
me. Whatever his personal problems, I advise people to try to
distinguish between contributors who add to science articles, and trolls out
merely incite flame wars.'

Spot a pattern?

And RK's warm and friendly tone: - 'Work productively on the encyclopedia,
or please leave'.

I made a minor factual addition to one page about how many states do not
accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital. (100+ don't. 3 do)  I did not say it
wasn't, just added in a factual footnote about the diplomatic complexities
and a careful NPOV description: 'Israel's designated capital'. Mav wrote

JT's wording seemed to be far more professional and at least a bit more
NPOV.

RK responded.

Huh? It is grossly anti-Zionist and pro-Arab. How is lying about Israel's
capital, and stating falsehoods, "professional"?

>constantly baiting me. This is a very lcear
>case in point: I have been working with others on the
>Creationism, Evolution, and Gaia articles. Yet their
>response?  Trolling me with comments about the Palestinians
>and "arabophobia".
>
>Huh?
>
>This abusive behaviour is clearly not aimed at improving
>our articles. It is a clear and obvious case of abuse of me
>for my Mosaic faith and beliefs.

>I am just getting tired
>of the constant Jew-baiting.

In Annie Hall, Woody Allen's character is so paranoid that he is convinced
everyone around him is anti-jewish. When they say 'do you?' fast, he
imagines they are saying 'jew' in a derogatory manner. But it is all a
figment of an over excited imagination. Same here, RK.

BTW, you seem to see 'jew-baiting' all around you from the most unlikely
sources, eg

# 15:38 3 Jul 2003 Talk:Anti-Semitism MArtin (MyRedDice) is censoring and
deleting other user's Talk discussion. I am concerned about his attempt to
hide his repeated acts of Jew-baiting

>There is no way an honest
>person can say that these recent comments have any logical
>connection to our work on Evolution, Creationism, Gaia,
>etc. If this behaviour isn't Jew-baiting, then
>anti-Semitism simply doesn't exist.

The rest of us can cope with somene on our talk pages touching on a
different topic to the one we are working on without seeing it as some sort
of personalised attack.

In contrast, for RK:

# 01:31 14 Jun 2003 Propositional knowledge (Martin, stop making changes to
topics you nothing about, merely to spite me. That is vandalism, and
childish.

>When I asked PizzaPuzzle to stop putting irrelevant
>comments on my Talk page

you actually said: # Removing more personal attacks by Entmoots of trools,
and univited anti-Israel ramblings by PizzaPuzzle (I mean, Lir))

which flowed when PP wrote originally

My apologises, I just thought that your naming of the link to: "Deir Yassin
Remembered; This pro-Palestinian site claims that there was little military
conflict, and that 100 Arabs were flat-out murdered." was a little...
inflammatory.

I support palestine because they have no real governmental organization or
infrastructure. Thus, I see their violent acts as excusable since one cannot
expect peace to originate from poverty stricken people in wartorn refugee
camps. I oppose Israel because they most certainly do have a modern
governmental organization (with modern and even advanced technology) and, as
such, I expect them to hold to a much higher level of civility.

>I got this baiting response:
>
>So comments that question Israel aren't welcome on your
>talk page? Is there no limit to your arabophobia?
>[[User:Jtdirl|Fear?IREANN]] 01:39 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
>

All because, having attacked me, Anthere, Martin and most of wiki it seems,
even a polite observation from PP, which opened with an apology, was still
too 'anti-Israel' for you, hence my comment. I stand by it. And no it is not
anti-semitic, an attack on your religious beliefs, following you around,
abusing you or anything else. It is questioning why you cannot even tolerate
a little criticism of Israel without deleting it, not merely in articles but
even on your talk page.

>This is a real problem. I am asking others to become a part
>of the solution.

OK Some advice.

1. Please do not censor and delete other people's comments.
2. Please, don't push personal religious beliefs into the editing process.
3. You really have a serious problem, and you need to confront it.
4. Sadly, many religious fundamentalists get filled with anger when they are
confronted with points of view that differ from from their own.

The person who wrote all these as advice to others is RK.

JT

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:

>> Well, to some people it seems ungrammatical, since "they" hasn't been
>> used as a singular pronoun until very recently,
>
>
> Your definition of "very recently" must include the early 19th
> century, then: Jane
> Austen used "they" as a singular pronoun. In fact, singular they is
> older than
> "generic he".

Yes, I was aware of Jane Austen, but she was very much an exception --
the vast majority of writers used "generic he" throughout the 18th and
19th centuries, and through most of the 20th.  I think Samuel Taylor
Coleridge may be the one other notable exception.

It is also true, as Dante Alighieri pointed out, that "singular they"
was used in the 16th century and through some of the 17th.  But medieval
English usage is hardly a good guide for modern English usage.

>> so you end up with the "wrong" verb tenses.  So when you say
>> something like "They fall asleep as they watch TV," it sounds very
>> much like you're talking about multiple people.
>
>
> And when you say "Ask your doctor what he thinks" it sounds entirely as
> though you're talking about a man, whereas it's entirely likely that
> you're talking
> about a woman.
>
> Neither is perfect.

That's certainly true.

I personally try to avoid using either construction, rewording sentences
when possible, because "generic he" strikes me as old-fashioned, while
"singular they" strikes me as overly colloquial.

-Mark


from_name: webmaster

subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
Vicki Rosenzweig wrote in part:
>Neither is perfect.

Hence why I said we will never come to consensus, so it makes most sense for people to write in a manner that they feel most comfortable, and to just make a note somewhere saying it is wikipedia's policy not to have a policy on this issue.

--
Michael Becker
a.k.a. Mbecker
a.k.a. MB


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
Im surprised nobody has mentioned Sie, Hir, It, not to
mention the awesome Spivak pronouns:

Spivak :
E laughed 	I hit em 	Eir face bled 	I am eirs 	E
shaves emself

Spivak (alternative):
Ey laughed 	I hit Em 	Eir face bled 	I am Eirs 	Ey
shaves Eirself

Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sie_and_hir
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/It (pronoun)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
--- steve vertigo <utilitymuffinresearch at yahoo.com>
wrote:
> Im surprised nobody has mentioned Sie, Hir, It, not
> to
> mention the awesome Spivak pronouns:
>
> Spivak :
> E laughed 	I hit em 	Eir face bled 	I am eirs 	E
> shaves emself
>
> Spivak (alternative):
> Ey laughed 	I hit Em 	Eir face bled 	I am Eirs 	Ey
> shaves Eirself
>
> Sources:
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sie_and_hir
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/It (pronoun)

okokokokok

please, call me "he" rather than using a language I
can not understand :)

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Two things

body:
Dagummit, Mike -- the fact that people copy material
and attribute it directly to us is a GOOD thing.  In
small bits like even a full article, GNU is
practically irrelevant. Id like to see you find where
WP is being ripped off from -- without attribution --
then it can be worth mentioning.  (Unless, your intent
was to show off where WP is quoted - in that case,
theres an *article dedicated just to that.)

--- webmaster <webmaster at jumpingjackweb.com> wrote:
> Firstly, this news article has copied most of a
> wikipedia article, without linking to the GFDL:
> http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1049
>
> Secondly, I found this page,
> http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_NEWS, which
> seems to be useful, but hasn't been used since 2 Dec
> 2002.  Anyone interested in resurrecting it?
>
> ----
> Michael Becker
> a.k.a. Mbecker
> a.k.a. MB
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
--- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> okokokokok [translation: nyuk, nyuk..]
>
> please, call me "he" rather than using a language I
> can not understand :)

YES SIR!

-S- :)

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from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Sexist pronouns

body:
Delirium wrote:
>
> So when you say something like "They fall asleep as they watch TV,"
> it sounds very much like you're talking about multiple people.

Not really, because you wouldn't use it without establishing a context
first. Thus something like:
	The student fell asleep as they were watching TV.
or:
	As for the student, they fell asleep as they were watching TV.
which is unambiguous.

I really don't know why I said this, because after all that happened
with RK and stuff, the least I want on this list now is a "singular they
yes or no" debate, but ...

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
--- steve vertigo <utilitymuffinresearch at yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
> --- Anthere <anthere6 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > okokokokok [translation: nyuk, nyuk..]
> >
> > please, call me "he" rather than using a language
> I
> > can not understand :)
>
> YES SIR!
>
> -S- :)

I may read that yes "soeur", which would be fine sv
;-)

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body:
--- Rotem Dan <rotem_dan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think that reagardless of geographical, national
> etc. differences on
> wiki users demographies (that I think has nothing to
> do with anything
> here anyway). he.wikipedia.org is a complete,
> (almost) independent site,
> that has its users and readers, they should be the
> ones who vote for
> decisions related to their site, including policy,
> wiki code, layout,
> licensing and logo. Just because the english wiki
> has 15,000 registered
> users, and the hebrew wiki has 30 should not matter
> because those 30 or
> so *are* the ones who work on it and they know what
> they like or don't
> like on their site.
>
> --Rotem

sigh

yes

But there are some things that should be common, such
as licensing
and things that should not be, such as policies
and things we are supposed to be involved in, such as
red links
(now, from what I understood, you are willing to
remove a lot of things from the pedia. In particular
for anonymous)

ant

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Sexist pronouns

body:
At 10:06 AM 7/18/2003, you wrote:
>Yes, I was aware of Jane Austen, but she was very much an exception -- the
>vast majority of writers used "generic he" throughout the 18th and 19th
>centuries, and through most of the 20th.  I think Samuel Taylor Coleridge
>may be the one other notable exception.
>
>It is also true, as Dante Alighieri pointed out, that "singular they" was
>used in the 16th century and through some of the 17th.  But medieval
>English usage is hardly a good guide for modern English usage.

Calling the "singular they" a medieval English usage hardly seems
appropriate given that Jane Austen wasn't around during the medieval
period, and contemporary authors use it as well. :)

-----
Dante Alighieri
dalighieri at digitalgrapefruit.com

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of great moral crisis."
    -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321