from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>> SJ wrote:
>>
>>> And I suppose Wikimania 2011 will end up being at McMurdo Station.  It
>>> will take some working up to.  [Then 2012 : in orbit?  There was
>>> something about a sub-orbital bid.  And depending on what the next
>>> World Age brings -- Revelation...  Apokemon... Xists -- 2013 may be
>>> something completely different.]
>>>
>>> -- sj
>>
>>
>> What on earth did I deserve such an answer for.
>
>
> Shouldn't you mean "What NOT on earth ..." :-)
>
> Ec

No in response to a suggestion by you to make Africa the predestined
continent I already put up a bid for bangkok. I treated you with respect
I like to be treated back with respect it could be my lack of sleep but
I am pretty pissed at SJ's answer especially in the light of him being
at the current wikimania organising committee I find him ridiculing
someone else's idea totally inappropriate and uncalled for.

Waerth/Walter


list: wikimedia-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


list: wikien-l

from_name: JAY JG

subject: [WikiEN-l] My complaint about being blocked.

body:
>From: "l'Omnivore Sobriquet" <omnivore.sobriquet at wanadoo.fr>
>My complaint about being blocked.
>
>Friday, 16 December 05
>
>                 Messieurs,
>
>I would like to register here my full disagreement about being blocked from
>Wikipedia. This is unfair, and as I appreciate it, unjustified.
>
>My IP address is 83.205.136.21.
>
>My user name is "L'Omnivore Sobriquet", and on Wednesday 14th of Dec I got
>blocked at 22:03 (Wiki time), with the message :
>
>  "Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Jayjg.
>The reason given is:
>revert sockpuppet"
>
>Moderator Jayjg replied to my call for justifications with the single line
>:
>
>  "You appear to be a userid created solely for the purpose of reverting
>articles; that is what your edits consist of.
>
>Jay. "

The userid made exactly two edits, both of them reverts of the same page,
Israel Shamir.  It made no contributions elsewhere, even to the Talk: page
of the article in question, and certainly appeared to be a revert
sockpuppet.  Moreover, the subject of this article (Israel Shamir) has been
consistently vandalizing it, in ways with which we have become all too
familiar.  He also appealed for friends of his to come and revert the
article for him on a Yahoo group called Shamir readers:

From: Israel Shamir <ishamir at ...>
Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:12 pm
Subject: Wiki ish314

Dear friend, if you have time, you may help to fight a small internet war
over Wikipedia, a popular website with many links. Obviously it is as
dominated by philosemites as any other media, and they consistently demonise
me in the entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shamir When I, or some
friends correct their most blatant lies, they change it back in no time at
all. Afterwards, they refer to their own lies as if it is an objective
source. Everybody can add, remove and edit any entry in the Wiki. I call
those who has available time to make an effort and to re-conquer the site
from philosemites. Shamir

Even if this editor is not a sockpuppet, I'm quite skeptical that this
userid was created with Wikipedia's goals and policies in mind.

Jay.


list: foundation-l

from_name: SJ

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
On 12/16/05, Delphine M?nard <notafishz at gmail.com> wrote:

> And Sj, for any lunar interventions, remember that
> some of us live on this earth and speak another tongue ;-)

Ahh, this could be a problem.  But in a few years, perhaps the
Googlefish translation engine will handle even alien languages...
didn't they start a moon base recently?

> PS. This said. Bangkok? WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!! :DDDD

Some sentiments need no translation.  (-:

++SJ


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Gerrit Holl

subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

body:
> Here's some background data on the problem. I checked
> 50 new articles tonight, all created between 22:46 and
> 23:03. I graded them into five categories as follows:

> * No obvious problems
> - 19 articles (38% of the total)

Wow! In 17 minutes there are 19 articles without obvious problems.
That is more than 1 per minute. If this doesn't proof the wiki model
really *is* working, I don't know what does.

Gerrit.


from_name: Steve Bennett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Hi,
> If you're not changing any facts, then there's nothing to
> worry about, go have fun. But how sure are you about that
> snippet of general information you want to add? There have

Exactly. Often I'm "fairly sure".  Sometimes it's "on the balance of
probabilities".  Sometimes there's text already there that seems
doubtful, and I'm inclined to add a hedge word like "possibly".

> I actually enjoy tracking down the sources of facts, and many
> of my edits are simply to add a reference or two. So if you
> do the wordsmithing (which I tend to find tedious), and flag
> anything that seems true but is unsourced, I'll come along
> later and see if I can come up with something to cite.

It's a deal. What's your proposed mechanism for "flagging" unsourced
material?

Steve


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] The a7 speedy

body:
On 12/16/05, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> > But just because a band fails to meet the "notability guidelines" doesn't mean we
> > should delete it.  It's not a bad argument for doing so, admittedly.
>
> I believe such guidelines are effectively a good guide for keeping,
> not deletion.  If we could have a speedy keep criterion for the topic,
> and so forth.
>
> In other words, if the WP:MUSIC guidelines spit out 'Yes, is notable',
> we should pretty much always keep the article.  However, if the
> article fails WP:MUSIC, it is not an automatic delete, since other
> factors might make the article worthwhile.
>
> -Matt

Yep, my point exactly. Although I'm fairly sure the current guidelines
are fairly thourough when it comes to including the stuff that needs
inclusion.

Mgm


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Hi,
>
> Er...are you suggesting that it's too much to ask for you to
> even just cite a website that can verify the information?
> (Presuming you know the information from experience and not
> from another source.) After all, websites are acceptable
> sources - better something than nothing. If you
> add something from memory, just Google it a bit and cite the most
> reliable-looking website as the source. Better than nothing,
> as I said.

Yeah, for me it's "too much".  Mostly because, as I said, I'm frequently
working on very low quality articles just attempting to improve their
coverage a bit by adding a sentence or two. Or just wordsmithing
existing unreferenced material. Obviously going the extra mile and
referencing is even better, but it's sort of a "don't look a gift horse
in the mouth" kind of situation, isn't it?

Incidentally, googling is getting harder with the number of wikipedia
clones out there. Even adding "-wikipedia" isn't foolproof. I wouldn't
mind a solution to that particular problem.

Steve


from_name: Stan Shebs

body:
Rob wrote:

>I'm sorry, but if you don't think that the assertion
>that someone was involved in both the JFK and the RFK
>assassination is not some sort of lunatic fringe claim
>that at least deserves some sort of cursory
>verification, then I don't think the suggestion that
>you should not be editing an encyclopedia is all that
>outrageous.
>
Heh, I guarantee you that I could create a ichthyological whopper,
pun intended, with pictures and citations from some of the rarer
books in my personal library, and it will slip right by you, plus
everyone else who doesn't happen to have those books to check. I bet
I could even get it into the day's DYK!

But if you don't know enough to evaluate, say, the plausibility of
an article about the popular home aquarium fish Melanocetus, I'm
not going to take that as evidence you should not be editing the
encyclopedia; it just means that no one person can know enough to
be able to make accurate quick judgments on each new article. We
need better teamwork, not just individual prowess.

Come to think of it, why didn't *you* personally catch the bogus
Seigenthaler article? Seems like it should be right in one of
your areas of special knowledge, right? And don't you RC patrol?

Stan


from_name: Delirium

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>>I also read the USA Today article, and the paragraphs that were quoted
>>were not obvious mistakes.  "John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant
>>to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief
>>time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy
>>assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever
>>proven."  "John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in 1971, and
>>returned to the United States in 1984," Wikipedia said. "He started
>>one of the country's largest public relations firms shortly
>>thereafter."
>>
>>None of those mistakes are obvious.
>>
>>
>
>Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But frankly, if
>you don't find those errors to be blindingly obvious, you need to find
>another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.
>
>
This was not (except in retrospect) obvious to me either, because I am
not an expert in the Kennedy assassination.  I have a vague recollection
that it took a long time to come up with the official determination of
what happened, so for all I know there may have been hundreds of
suspects in the earlier stages of the investigation, and I do not know
offhand all their names, or whether Mr. Seigenthaler was one of them.

Quite frankly, if you have nothing better to do than insult Wikipedians
and tell us we are not fit to participate in your project, I should
think we need new leadership.

-Mark


list: wikitech-l

from_name: edward molasses

subject: [Wikitech-l] chinese language install of mediawiki

body:
Hello,

I tried installing MediaWiki using Chinese (zh) as the language during
the install process. But when i try to load the site after the install,
i only get a "The page cannot be displayed" error page. I was wondering
if i need to somehow enable support in apache or mysql or download some
other language support package for chinese characters in order for it to
work? I'm using Fedora Core 4 as an operating system.

Andrew.


from_name: stevertigo

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
> On 12/16/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> wrote:
> Parascience is often used...

Thats it:
  'Parascience' shall be the NPOV term that replaces
the SPOV
  term 'pseudoscience' in most cases.

Stevertigo

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Neil Harris

body:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>
> As an aside, would the user who clicks the "publish" button find
> herself legally liable for the content of that article?  I certainly
> could see an argument for that being the case.  Whether or not that'd
> be a good thing or a bad thing is another unanswered question.
>
> Anthony
>
>
This problem could probably be avoided by _not_ providing a "publish"
button at all, but instead only a "deprecate/delete" voting button, and
automatically moving articles from the new-article queue to the main
article space after, say, an hour after creation if they are not shot
down first. An hour is probably plenty of time, given a queue system to
ensure that articles do not fall through the cracks, and the current
number of people doing RC patrol.

I like the idea that new articles could be made visible to logged-on
users only, until they are moved to the main article space -- the
introduction of logged-on-user-only article creation now removes any
need to make the article visible to IP-only users creating their own
articles. Not making queued articles visible to IP-only readers would
also have the effect of making them invisible to web crawlers and
real-time proxy-leeching sites, and hence less likely to appear in
Wikipedia mirrors.

Similarly, it would be a good idea to avoid backing up new articles on
the queue to article database dumps, which would further reduce the
possibility of their being picked up by syndicators.

An RSS feed of the new article queue would be useful, too.

-- Neil


subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new
	articles


from_name: Brian

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> If you really want to keep the vandals and pranksters from getting
> through, you either need more volunteers on patrol (Shinseki says
> 300,000 at least :-) ), or use them more efficiently, or cut down
> on the inflow somehow.

I think a few more levels of catchers will do the job fine.

e.g. [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol]] appears to be a workable idea
- rather than hassle the Newpages patrollers to be perfect, we just let
some admins check the deletion logs and restore articles clearly deleted
in error - which will be a much smaller subset.
- d.
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list

[[Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol]]

That's a great idea, I'd personally like to see an undeletion accompanied by
a little cleanup. There's plenty of out-of-process speedy deletion but a lot
of them were in pretty sad shape (which is probably partly what got them
speedied in the first place). I know some admins don't like when someone
restores something they speedied but if it was also cleaned up a bit I doubt
if anyone would object...

I'd still like to see tag and bag though.....


from_name: Magnus Manske

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>
>>>Yes, it won't necessarily lower the workload, but it would certainly
>>>improve the quality of our articles.
>>>
>>>Mgm
>>>
>>>
>>How?  The quality of the articles is exactly equal if someone puts
>>them into a queue and you delete it or someone creates it and you
>>delete it.
>>
>>
>
>Without making any comment on the merits of the specific proposal at
>hand (it sounds great to me, but then again I haven't thought it through
>enough yet), I can answer this question...
>
>The question is what happens in the case of an overlooked article?  What
>happens when the New Pages Patrollers get behind or there is a gap in
>coverage?
>
>The default failure mode of the patrolling process today says "Anything
>we don't look at, we assume is good enough to go on the site" ->
>Seigenthaler.  The proposed failure mode of the patrolling process says
>"Anything we don't look at, we leave it in the queue until someone gets
>around to it."  If the queue of new articles by newbies is time-stamp
>sorted, then we will often be only a few minutes behind, sometimes maybe
>an hour.
>
>Now, this need not necessarily be done with a queue or a gateway model.
> Another idea in the same general area is the long-desired 'check off'
>model for collaborative RC/new pages patrolling.
>
>
As I already offered somewhere else, I could modify my "Tasks" extension to
* automatically flag every new article with a "checkme" task
* automatically flag edits that delete a huge amount of text with a
"check for vandalism" task
These are just examples, I could add lots more here (low "[[" to bytes
ratio = unwikified :-)

If I add this, some assurance that the extension would be used some day
would be nice, though. I'll probably end up rewriting the validation
feature, and the stable version feature seems to be obsolete due to
parallel development. Please, not again.

Magnus


list: commons-l

from_name: Kieran Doherty

subject: [Commons-l] "Wikipad" idea

body:
Hey guys,

I was just struck by an idea here, and thought it would be just the
kind of thing the people involved in the wikicommons could make a
reality.

I am frequently involved in working on various web projects,
specifically human and civil rights sites, and am always struck by
how hard it can be to find like-minded people who can hep you with
specific tasks.

So, how about a site that allows members to sign up and create a
profile containing their interests and their skills in relation to
web design or expertise etc., and then post project proposals to the
community. Then, members whose profiles suggest they may be
interested whose skills are required would receive a little
notification in their members area so that if they wish, they can
join the project and get involved. Each project could be assigned a
page by the site with a simple chat room and bulletin board so that
the members can communicate and there could be a "rate this member"
system to reward those who contribute the most.

It seems like a brilliant way to proliferate the philosophy of
cooperation and open source throughout the net, and be a launch pad
for thousands or new creative websites.

What do you think?

Regards,

-Kieran


from_name: George Machitidze

subject: [Wikitech-l] Wikipedia Mirror in Georgia & Mediawiki Translation

body:
Hello

I?m contacting you from Georgia (Europe), i?m presenting myself as
member of Georgian Internet Alliance. We have some plans around one
project about Open Source Software, Community Portal, support and open
documentation & etc. Maybe we can help wikipedia/wikimedia to make
it?s mirror on our future server in Georgia to help local visitors
view wikipedia much faster, effective. We need to know, how is
possible to make only ka.wikipedia.org-s mirror for first step and
then whole your database.

We are officialy working under translation of KDE, mozilla, opera, &
other free software. Currently we are now little busy to work under
translations, while we are organizing several projects and portals but
i think it will be done with mediawiki translation in a week. Main
programming-specific part is already done, but i have not uploaded it
on sourceforge yet.

Also we want to help wikipedia editors to communicate - we will create
special section and we also plan to add mediawiki engine for local
tests, to help users.

Sorry for my broken english.

Please contact us (me or Mr. Gia Shervashidze) in the forum on
http://www.gia.ge , at right top corner u may switch language an then
goto forum?s section (it may be under construction/beta-test stage).

or within online chat:

ICQ: 278791298

MSN: giomac at rambler.ru

Yahoo: george_machitidze

e-mail: giomac at gmail.com

Thank You.

BR, George Machitidze, Georgian Internet Alliance, http://www.gia.ge


subject: [WikiEN-l] more Kennedy assassination fun

body:
After reading a couple on this thread, I went to the
'Kennedy assassination theories' article and found
that Fred had just AFD it, claiming it was a nest for
"vandals and kooks."

Here is my response:

Hardly a good reason to delete a page. Both JFK and
his assassination are reasonably encyclopedic topics
about one of the more prominent politicians in the
last century and how he died. Stemming from that are
the various theories about how it came about, and its
not original research to point out what the various
points of view.

Because the 'official version' does not have very
broad support, NPOV requires that the various other
theories be explained, albeit in a general and
condensed way. Are these theories "conspiratorial"
theories? Of course, and this should be explained,
albeit in a way which does not rely on a pejorative
interpretation of the term "conspiracy."

I do agree however that 'vandals and kooks' would feel
more at home on some Wikipedia fork. ;)

-Ste|vertigo

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com


body:
> I never understood the purpose of having a queue.  It takes
> just as much time to delete something from the queue as it
> does to delete an article.  Move the articles with problems
> (that aren't speedy deletes)
> *into* the queue(s).  Keep the ones that don't have problems
> right where they are.

The difference is that the article will never appear in public, hence
reducing the payoff for vandals, spammers, self aggrandizers etc.

Steve


body:
> You left out 'and they make wild generalisations'.

:)  Generalisations, sure. But fortunately supported by the research.

Steve


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Quoting from my favourite encyclopaedia:
Fringe science is a phrase used to describe scientific inquiry in an
established field that departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox
theories. Fringe science can be a field of inquiry which is not yet
considered a real "science" (known as a protoscience), but which
nevertheless bears some resemblance to the norms of the scientific
method. Fringe science is, by definition, at the fringes of an already
accepted discipline. Based upon the merits of the hypothesis and methods
of the inquiry, specific instances of fringe science may or may not come
to be included in the canon of actual science.

Fringe science can be distinguished from some similar sounding, but
pejorative in nature, categories as follows:

    * Pseudoscience - Pseudoscience is notoriously lax in rigorous
application of the scientific method. Reproducibility is typically a
problem. This is not so in fringe science.
    * Junk science - Junk science is used to describe agenda-driven
research that ignores certain standard methodologies and practices in an
attempt to secure a given result from an experiment. Fringe science, as
in standard methodology, proceeds from theory to conclusion with no
attempt to direct or coax the result.
    * Bad science - Bad science might more properly be labeled "poor
science" in that it is typically characterized by substandard or
"sloppy" methodology. Fringe science maintains the normal standards of
methodology.

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Fastfission
> Sent: Friday, 16th December 2005 4:54 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV
>
>
> On 12/15/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> > This resembles a circular argument.
> >
> > Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we
> can't coin a
> > Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by
> > "pseudoscience"?
>
> "Not considered science by the mainstream scientific
> community though it presents itself in scientific terms." I
> don't know if any simple way to do it, though.
>
> FF
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wik> ien-l
>


from_name: Sam Fentress (Asbestos)

body:
While I think it's quite likely that this user was recruited by Shamir, and
also that he has edited before, I don't think one can say for sure whether
he is a sock puppet -- you're better off having a developer check that.

But as for blocking because he came to Wikipedia with an aim in mind... if
we blocked every user who arrived at Wikipedia because of a bone to pick or
a view to push, we'd be down the vast majority of our contributors. The only
applicable policy is WP:NPOV, and you don't get blocked for a first offence
under that. I wouldn't ever unblock without knowing the whole story, but I
don't think I agree with this block's reasoning.

Sam

On 12/16/05, JAY JG <jayjg at hotmail.com> wrote:

--
Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asbestos

>
>
> >From: "l'Omnivore Sobriquet" <omnivore.sobriquet at wanadoo.fr>
> >My complaint about being blocked.
> >
> >Friday, 16 December 05
> >
> >                 Messieurs,
> >
> >I would like to register here my full disagreement about being blocked
> from
> >Wikipedia. This is unfair, and as I appreciate it, unjustified.
> >
> >My IP address is 83.205.136.21.
> >
> >My user name is "L'Omnivore Sobriquet", and on Wednesday 14th of Dec I
> got
> >blocked at 22:03 (Wiki time), with the message :
> >
> >  "Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Jayjg.
> >The reason given is:
> >revert sockpuppet"
> >
> >Moderator Jayjg replied to my call for justifications with the single
> line
> >:
> >
> >  "You appear to be a userid created solely for the purpose of reverting
> >articles; that is what your edits consist of.
> >
> >Jay. "
>
> The userid made exactly two edits, both of them reverts of the same page,
> Israel Shamir.  It made no contributions elsewhere, even to the Talk: page
> of the article in question, and certainly appeared to be a revert
> sockpuppet.  Moreover, the subject of this article (Israel Shamir) has
> been
> consistently vandalizing it, in ways with which we have become all too
> familiar.  He also appealed for friends of his to come and revert the
> article for him on a Yahoo group called Shamir readers:
>
> From: Israel Shamir <ishamir at ...>
> Date: Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:12 pm
> Subject: Wiki ish314
>
> Dear friend, if you have time, you may help to fight a small internet war
> over Wikipedia, a popular website with many links. Obviously it is as
> dominated by philosemites as any other media, and they consistently
> demonise
> me in the entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Shamir When I, or
> some
> friends correct their most blatant lies, they change it back in no time at
> all. Afterwards, they refer to their own lies as if it is an objective
> source. Everybody can add, remove and edit any entry in the Wiki. I call
> those who has available time to make an effort and to re-conquer the site
> from philosemites. Shamir
>
> Even if this editor is not a sockpuppet, I'm quite skeptical that this
> userid was created with Wikipedia's goals and policies in mind.
>
> Jay.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] verifiability

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:
>
> Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>> t would be good to have some kind of understood process for how claims
>> are first described as verifiable/unverifiable, then become
>> verified/unverified.  This process is extremely haphasard at the moment.
>>
>>
>> Steve
>
>
> I agree.  Do you have any concrete suggestions?  You and a number of
> other people have made some fine points; perhaps we can move this
> discussion to the Verifiability talk page and start discussing how to
> put these ideas into practice?
>
> Steve
>
Well, whatever the eventual solution is, I would expect it to involve
Magnus' workflow system in some way.

-- Neil


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Listed.

Fred

On Dec 16, 2005, at 12:45 PM, Abigail Brady wrote:

> Someone has made this article
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassin
> ation
>
> Some choice quotes from this :
>
> "The two persons at the top of the list of suspects have always been
> Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and "There are even a
> few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had something to do with
> it."
>
> It then gives a big list of names, including J. Edgar Hoover,
>
> I think the article should be speedily deleted, and the author banned
> for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure whether present
> policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and I'm pretty sure
> I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm bringing this to
> your attention.
>
> We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.
>
> --
> Abi
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On 12/16/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Are we prepared to enforce a strict definition of the word "science".
> Searching on Wikipedia tells me that we have 50,211 articles with the
> word "science" We have an article called [[Icelandology]] which says
> "Icelandology comprises the wide range of scientific problems and topics
> concerning this specific insular country."  And later: "Icelandology
> also covers tourism".  If we are going to be strict about using the term
> "science" what do we do about this sort of article?  What do we do about
> the broad area of social sciences where many of us would agree that
> there is very little hard science involved

We should enforce a methodological/strict definition of the term when
it is being used to define methodological/strict issues, which it is
in this case.

> I agree, and many of the mainstream scientists who are quick to attach
> the "pseudoscience" label have likely done little or no study of the
> field that they want to label.  In doing so they are themselves acting
> pseudoscientifically.  In one of my earlier go-rounds with this topic
> when it was about the [[List ...]] of such topics there were some
> editors who would strongly support the idea of the list, but would balk
> at putting cryptozo?logy, exobiology, and the SETI Project on the list.
> If someone wants to apply the term "pseudoscience" he should carry the
> burden of verifiability in a manner consistent with what that term means.

But this result is one in which Wikipedians will be arguing with each
other about the methodology and whether something like Creationism
counts as a science. However this is not a problem that even
philosophers have been able to work out to any satisfaction. Aside
from that, it ends up violating NOR. This is what inevitably happens,
anyway. Is Intelligence Design a science? Someone says, "not
falsifiable," someone else points out that there are ways in which ID
thinks it can be falsified, and start pulling out complicated
arguments on the subject, and also notes that evolution might not be
falsifiable, etc. etc. etc.

Hence, I have long argued that we should try to adopt a sociological
definition for the purposes of categorization. If we had a neat way to
say, "Considering to not actually be scientific by mainstream
science", that would be the best example of it. Because that is really
what people expect when they look at a pseudoscience category -- not
some idiosyncratic application of the term which is Wikipedia-specific
and based on who on Wikipedia is the best debater or has the most
support behind them.

FF


from_name: Cormac Lawler

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses

body:
Hello,

There was an article published today on Wikiversity in "The Chronicle":
http://chronicle.com/free/2005/12/2005121601t.htm
(I was one of the people interviewed for this, and just to
pre-emptively point out an inaccuracy - apart from the obvious "2.5
million articles in *10* languages" typo - that I didn't say that I
want Wikiversity to "focus on original research", but that I said I
see research as playing a central role in Wikiversity.) However, the
article isn't bad, and is reasonably fair.

But the real purpose of this mail is to clarify the idea of
Wikiversity and courses. According to the relevant board meeting
notes*, the recommendation is to "exclude online courses". There is
much confusion about this, and some despair (contributors saying they
will give up on the project if courses are excluded). What needs to be
clarified is whether courses are to be excluded in Wikiversity's
initial phase but included with time, or whether courses will be
excluded altogether.

* http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Meetings/November_13%2C_2005

The 'safe' proposal until now has been to make wikiversity a
repository of learning materials. This, I presume, would include
lesson plans/curricula as well as actual resources like
reading/listening comprehension exercises, flash cards, discursive
questions on particular advertisements, etc.

But, for a start, I'm not sure that this line between resources and
courses exists. I would say that if we who are creating these
resources are to be genuinely engaged (and to make them genuinely
useful), we will need to have some sort of use of these resources, or
at least some of them. The reading comprehension can be printed and
used by any language teacher anywhere; the flash cards and (possibly)
discursive questions likewise. But consider an activity like
critiquing two sources of online information in order to write a
neutral encylopedic article. This is provoking higher order thinking
in order to develop another resource, namely Wikipedia. I think this
is the idea behind what JWSchmidt is proposing in his advocacy of
"service-provider courses" - which will act as interfaces between
Wikimedia projects, and hopefully reconnecting projects where they
have diverged. I've written about this myself in numerous places,
including:
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_%28overview%29
* http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal
(which has my proposed objects of Wikiversity, namely: materials,
learning communities, research)

Personally, I think that the inclusion/exclusion of courses is more
complex that people might imagine. Some current or proposed courses
are along the didactic (ie teacher informs, students re-produce
material) model, some are along the critical model (as above) and some
are more "practical" (eg. write computer code). If the board is
nervous about the didactic model (eg. as Angela said that she was
concerned that Wikimedia would be ridiculed if Wikiversity was widely
advertised and (I presume) wasn't ready for incoming students), then
it could still allow for the remaining two models (which ironically
are at polar ends of the pedagogical spectrum), without too much fear
of backlash from the press or wider public. However, I would add that
excluding the didactic model for now would bitterly disappoint some
contributors.

Basically, the issue is that the most recent board decision wasn't
very well explained. I am aware the board itself is looking for
clarification, but it has just created more confusion than anything. I
particularly invite board members to respond both *as individuals* and
also to explain a bit more on their last decision. That's what I'm
trying to gather here, as much as getting the wider community's
perspective(s).

Thanks,

Cormac / Cormaggio


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses


from_name: John Lee

subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> <snip>
>
>I also suspect that a guideline could say somewhere that if it's
>possible to verify something on google, then that may be good enough in
>some circumstances.  As opposed to making a claim that cannot be
>verified even by someone searching the entire internet.
>
>Steve
>
>
Er...are you suggesting that it's too much to ask for you to even just
cite a website that can verify the information? (Presuming you know the
information from experience and not from another source.) After all,
websites are acceptable sources - better something than nothing. If you
add something from memory, just Google it a bit and cite the most
reliable-looking website as the source. Better than nothing, as I said.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Phil Boswell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at wikia.com> wrote in
message news:43A2D09C.4080301 at wikia.com...
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
[snip]
>> I also read the USA Today article, and the paragraphs that were quoted
>> were not obvious mistakes.  "John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant
>> to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief
>> time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy
>> assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever
>> proven."  "John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in 1971, and
>> returned to the United States in 1984," Wikipedia said. "He started
>> one of the country's largest public relations firms shortly
>> thereafter."
>> None of those mistakes are obvious.
> Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But frankly, if
> you don't find those errors to be blindingly obvious, you need to find
> another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.

Well, colour me with the same brush, then.

If I was already familiar with the life-history of "John Seigenthaler Sr." I
might well be able to tell that those particular statements were in error.
If I was an expert on the Kennedy Assassination, I might have a similar
chance. Even if I was American, I might have a better chance than I do :-)

However, coming to it cold, I would have no way of knowing which, if any, of
the various points of information in that article might have been false. If
there were external links in the article, I would have to follow each and
every one to check. If not, I would have to Google extensively.

However, and most importantly, I would have to know that I **needed to
check**.

What was the "glaring red light" that might have prompted a chance visitor
to that article to think "maybe I ought to check whether everything in this
article is completely true?"? Were there no other suspects than Oswald and
[whoever killed Bobby Kennedy], ever? Did JS never live anywhere other than
where he lives now, and is he famous for never moving home? Did he not
actually start up "one of the country's largest public relations firms"? or
did he, but not at that time?

Hindsight is 20/20. I clearly am not.

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


body:
Of course not, one of my neighbors believes the US is responsible for
9/11, explosives planted in the building etc. I trust him rather than
the media and common sense.

Fred

On Dec 16, 2005, at 4:02 PM, Delirium wrote:

> Fred Bauder wrote:
>
>
>> Listed.
>>
>
> (In reference to [[Kennedy assassination theories]].)
>
> Are you going to list [[9/11 conspiracy theories]] while you're at
> it?  If not, why should we have a page on that set of conspiracy
> theories and not on this set?
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] UK libel law and reusers

body:
Steve Block wrote:

> Anthony wrote:
>
>> Wikipedia does not and should not give legal advice.  If you'd like to
>> do research on what the laws are your contribution to the encyclopedia
>> would be greatly appreciated.  But the foundation can't and shouldn't
>> force anyone to do that research.
>
> I did quite a bit of research.  However, since Wikipedia apparently
> should not offer legal advice, I removed all such research since it
> constitutes offering legal advice.  The only people who can really
> contribute on understanding of the laws would be judges and lawyers.
> I cannot affrord to pay a lawyer for his opinion and since, as with
> all areas of information, it is best to engage an expert, it appears
> this recourse is blocked.

This is bizarre.  I know that some places have laws to prevent
non-lawyers from giving legal advice.  It is understandable that when
lawyers are deeply involved in legislation they would take steps to
protect their own interests.

Writing about law is not the same as giving legal advice.  That latter
term has normally been interpreted as giving specific advice to a person
about his own circumstances.  It does not apply to general discussions
of law.

Ec


from_name: Dariusz Siedlecki

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid

body:
> Hello
>
> Three little points here.
>
> First, I agree with Waerth that, Samuel, your comments appear quite
> offending. It may be that you did not mean them to be and that it was
> humor, but I fear it will not appear that way to many readers of the list.
>
> Second and possibly more important point. There is currently no
> organising committee per se. There is a group of interested individuals,
> more or less involved in organising Wikimania 2006. Organisation, and in
> particular leadership, will probably be clarified in a couple of days.
>
> Third point. Sj being part of the "current" most involved individuals
> will not necessarily mean he will be in 2007. Nor any of the current
> "organisers". I'd say, go your way and prepare a good bid for 2007 if
> you think it is doable.

And fourth, you forgot Poland! We also are preparing a bid, you know.
At least we plan to, since we have the facilities, and the people
interested in organizing a conference.

--
Pozdrawiam,
Datrio


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid


from_name: Conrad Dunkerson

subject: [WikiEN-l] verifiability

body:
steven l. rubenstein wrote:

> I agree.  Do you have any concrete suggestions?  You and a number of other
> people have made some fine points; perhaps we can move this discussion to
> the Verifiability talk page and start discussing how to put these ideas
> into practice?

The only method of having 'verifiability' which I can think of that
might work without extensive changes would be to have a way of marking a
particular revision of an article as a 'verified' copy. Since verifying
facts is already part of the 'Featured Article' process it would make
sense to mark articles as 'verified' when they become featured and other
articles could be 'verified' as needed. Then someone could easily
compare the current revision to the most recent 'verified' version and
see if there are any radical changes of fact.

Obviously this 'verified flag' couldn't be open to the general public or
the vandals would just mark their vandalism as 'verified'. One way to do
this without making any system changes might be to have a 'Verification'
account (accessible only to highly trusted editors) which is used only
to put 'verified as of <date>' tags on articles. That accounts'
contributions could then be viewed to quickly identify articles which
have been changed since verification... article histories could be used
to show diffs between the current version and last verification edit, et
cetera.

Of course, more robust tools for this sort of 'verification' tagging and
tracking could be developed with coding changes to the system, but with
a bit of thought/effort it could be implemented under existing code.
Putting an 'unverified' tag on every article and 'priority for
verification' on important ones would allow the creation of easy lists
for people to go through and verify... likewise lists of 'most edits
since last verification', 'requests for verification', and suchlike
could be developed.

The essential element here is a way of identifying a version of each
article as 'accurate' for later reference. Without that you'll always
have new edits coming in and no way for those unfamiliar with the
subject to tell if the old or the new is more likely to be accurate
without research.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Re: More DRV shenanigans

body:
"David Gerard" <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote
in message news:43A04BAD.70109 at thingy.apana.org.au...
[snip]
> I'm sure there's a way to say "fuck off you drooling idiot" in diplomat.

You might say that.

I couldn't possibly comment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMSTICPC

OK, so it's twisted and strange...what, you're surprised?

HTH HAND
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


from_name: charles matthews

subject: [WikiEN-l] Boston Globe editorial about Wikipedia

body:
Easier to pontificate if you don't have to be too consistent.  Insisting
that people register before they edit hardly helps with tracking down the
bad guys - use a one-off name from a public terminal and you don't even
imperil your existing WP account you use at home.

Charles


from_name: l'Omnivore Sobriquet

body:
My complaint about being blocked.

Friday, 16 December 05

                Messieurs,

I would like to register here my full disagreement about being blocked from Wikipedia. This is unfair, and as I appreciate it, unjustified.

My IP address is 83.205.136.21.

My user name is "L'Omnivore Sobriquet", and on Wednesday 14th of Dec I got blocked at 22:03 (Wiki time), with the message :

 "Your user name or IP address has been blocked by Jayjg.
The reason given is:
revert sockpuppet"

Moderator Jayjg replied to my call for justifications with the single line :

 "You appear to be a userid created solely for the purpose of reverting articles; that is what your edits consist of.

Jay. "

Today, I see to my dismay that a new 24hours blocking has been auto-generated.

I'm writing here to argue my case:

By the time of the 'block', my contributions to Wikipedia totalled to only. two. One last Sunday, one Wednesday. In no way this can be seen as a basis for a trend. Two occurrences cannot be held as statistical. I argue that my contributions, numbering to only two, simply didn't "consist of" any behavioural pattern. Mr Jayjg writes that I "appear" . "created solely for the purpose". based on a total of only two occurrences, hardly a basis for purpose guesses or appearance lectures. The line of Jayjg consists solely of his own guessings on invented trends.

More so, trends and fashions, guessed or not, shouldn't come into play when it comes to Wikipedia editions or users' accesses.

Denis Diderot boasted loud enough about it : encyclopaedias are not hair-dressers' salons. Hurt as any innocent blocked user should be, I acknowledge here challengeable Ancient R?g?me ways, p?roraisons, and short-lived privilege abuses.

However if explanations for my sole pair of independent editions may help, to erase the wrongful impression of - 'award-winning' - Jayjg, here they are:

                Both related to the file titled "Israel Shamir" (actually, early on Sunday and before creating an account and logging in, I made an edit on American WW2 aircraft production, deleting post-war F-86 Sabre from the list, making a total of 3 contributions in all from my PC, and certainly not 'revert sockpuppetting'.) Both were reverts. After a lengthy read of the controversies in the correspondent 'talk' page, I viewed the introduction paragraph of 'JohD' as already demonstrated as superior to the version seemingly endlessly reverted-to by a couple of Wikipedians. Also, the behaviour of these few Wikipedians - Jayjg and Denis Diderot (??!!!) - had been exposed as being on the verge of vandalism, according to Wiki guidelines.  My attitude has therefore been that 'the case is closed', that it's all well written and argued about in the talk page. There only remains to Wikipedia to let it show. My 'comments' just said that. A logical conclusion of the whole discussion page, as it reads. Therefore reverting was the minimal - yet justified - intervention, in order to let the hopefully virtuous Wikipedia process move on. So please do not be surprised, do not imagine hooliganism, if I simply feel very little need to invent some weak literature of mine and then to pour-in my low-key argumentation in endless talk pages, just to try to re-argue already well stated points. Hence the behaviour of those two first edits. "See talk" could have been a dryer comment for these.

Impressions, however corrected, shouldn't come into argumentation here. But humans always appreciate !

Please 'unblock' me at once.

l'Omnivore Sobriquet


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 03:31:12PM -0500, Fastfission wrote:
> But this result is one in which Wikipedians will be arguing with each
> other about the methodology and whether something like Creationism
> counts as a science. However this is not a problem that even
> philosophers have been able to work out to any satisfaction. Aside
> from that, it ends up violating NOR. This is what inevitably happens,
> anyway. Is Intelligence Design a science? Someone says, "not
> falsifiable," someone else points out that there are ways in which ID
> thinks it can be falsified, and start pulling out complicated
> arguments on the subject, and also notes that evolution might not be
> falsifiable, etc. etc. etc.

To me, falsifiability isn't really at issue here.  (If you want to be
epistemological, I'm following a more reliabilist approach rather than a
logical-positivist or -empiricist approach.)

The issue isn't what subject matter the field deals with, or what sort
of claims the practitioners make.  Science can yield all kinds of weird
and nonintuitive claims.  Many people find evolution nonintuitive --
how can natural selection, a process which is based on death, lead to
the survivors becoming better fitted to their environments?

The issue is whether the practitioners are in fact *doing science* ...
whether they're coming up with their claims by studying the world and
participating in processes such as peer review and repeating of
experiments and observations ... or whether they're just pulling their
claims out of wishful thinking or their religious text or whatever, and
just _call_ them "science" for political or economic benefit.

Pseudoscience isn't about the subject matter -- it's about the method,
and the difference between what the practitioners *say* about the
method, and what they actually *do*.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


list: wikipedia-l

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: OfficialWire: Founded On Porn,
	Wikipedia Shapes The Way You Think

body:
"Gregory Maxwell" <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote
in message
news:e692861c0512151400l33154279o6be56963332dee4c at mail.gmail.com...
On 12/15/05, David Gerard
<fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
[snip]
> > Did you spot the link at the top to [[QuakeAID]]? I'm wondering if he
> > hasn't been feeding perverted-justice.com as well.
> Perveted-justice claimed that the their smear text came from some
> other group whos existence I was unable to confirm with a quick google
> search. I would not at all be surprised if it turned out that they
> were just being used by one of the Wikipedia hate groups, however, the
> responsibility for the libel towards our editors rests squarely on the
> perverted justice folks wh refuse to remove the obviously untrue
> information.

What's sauce for the goose...

They can hardly blame us for stuff on our site, then turn around and try to
weasel out from under what they're peddling.

Can they?
--
Phil
[[en:User:Phil Boswell]]


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Steve Bennett wrote:
>
>
>>There really should be different sourcing guidelines for different
>>fields in Wikipedia - popular culture is just "different" to history,
>>science or geography.
>>
>>
>Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie synopses,
>the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious and sufficient, for
>example.
>
To some extent we can make use of "standard" references.  The Internet
Movie Data Base is a good example for movies, but that won't work for
everything.  Many subjects, however, are more controversial and the
standards there need to be more stringent .

>>I also suspect that a guideline could say somewhere that if it's
>>possible to verify something on google, then that may be good enough in
>>some circumstances.  As opposed to making a claim that cannot be
>>verified even by someone searching the entire internet.
>>
>>
>If there's nothing else, that's fine again IMO. Any usable reference is
>better than none.
>
>(Though that's not to say that really crappy references will do just
>because they're on the net somewhere. One has to use that thing called
>"editorial judgement.")
>
Editorial judgement is important.  Google is really a mixed blessing on
this.  Simply saying that something gets some number of Google hits is
not enough.  One needs to make a critical evaluation of those linked
sites.  One needs to distinguish between an academic study and
somebody's blog..  Speaking as a person for whom book collecting is an
addiction I have many references that I can use, but that is not
convenient for many people.  The first versions of material may not be
perfect, and the verifying material may not be perfect.  When material
is challenged there must be reasonable time its supporters to find
verification.

Ec


from_name: Tom Markle

subject: [Wikitech-l] POSSIBLE SECURITY FLAW IN INDEX.PHP (Cross-Scripting)

body:
Hi,
You need to take steps to prevent malicious scripting- currently various
forms of

<form id="editform" name="editform" method="post"
action="
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Sandbox&action=submit
"
enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type='hidden' value="" name="wpSection" />
<input type='hidden' value="20000101010101" name="wpStarttime" />
<input type='hidden' value="20051216225758" name="wpEdittime" />
<input type='hidden' value="" name="wpScrolltop" id="wpScrolltop" />
<input type='hidden' value="SPAM" name="wpTextbox1" id="wpTextbox1">
<input tabindex='2' type='hidden' value="" name='wpSummary' id='wpSummary'/>
<input tabindex='5' id='wpSave' type='submit' value="Save page"
name="wpSave" accesskey="s" title="Save your changes [alt-s]"/>
</form>

That runs locally and uses basic javascript to change the 'wpEdittime' var
to a few seconds before current time could be used to coordinate disruptive
attacks. I know that it is a simple matter to fix entries, but it is a
simpler matter to stick a
if(getenv("HTTP_REFERER")='207.142.131.202'){}else{//fail handler}
or similar line in the submit function.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> Jon wrote:
>
>>  Is there any reason why we don?t introduce immediately a rule that
>> says all new information added to an article must be sourced or
>> referenced or the edit will automatically be reverted? And any new
>> articles must be sourced or referenced within two hours, say, of
>> their creation, or will be speedily deleted?
>
> To some extent, that's quietly happening, both reversions of
> unsourced adds, and edits that include references. I'd just as
> soon not try to formalize beyond the warning that is now on the
> edit screen - a sudden deluge of plausible-looking but faked-up
> sources would be a major problem for RC and watchlist patrol.

That would be worse than no references at all.

Ec


from_name: Delirium

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

> Listed.

(In reference to [[Kennedy assassination theories]].)

Are you going to list [[9/11 conspiracy theories]] while you're at it?
If not, why should we have a page on that set of conspiracy theories and
not on this set?

-Mark


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Character Assassination

body:
Biography patrol?

On 12/16/05, Hemanshu Desai <hemanshu.desai at gmail.com> wrote:
> I propose that the task of ensuring that people do not use the ability to
> edit biographies in particular to launch attempts at character assassination
> should be coordinated. A taskforce of people interested could be created
> which would focus on this particular aspect.
>
> This is how we handle any problems on Wikipedia, don't we?
>
> Hemanshu
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] whats up with my block?

body:
It would be useful to know the IP address and username under which you
are trying to edit. Otherwise, it's impossible to figure out what's
going on.

Mgm

On 12/15/05, Nolan mccollum <nolanmccollumhotmail.com at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I wont to know whats up with my block it was supposed to end today but im
> still blocked so if theres some thing going on here that i need to know
> about let me know.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
> http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

>>Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie
>>synopses, the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious
>>and sufficient, for example.
>>
>>
>How far do you want to extend this?  For computer games, is unreferenced
>description of characters ok? What about of cheats and secrets? Of
>songs, is discussion of lyrics ok? What about chord changes? Etc.
>
>The big question: When is an unreferenced text better than no text?
>
All this establishes is that there is no single solution that fits all
situations.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Congratulations for a good article

body:
Great to hear! Be sure to mention it on the discussion page of the article.
I'm sure the people who worked on the article would love to hear about it.

Mgm

On 12/16/05, Hendon Chubb <garlic at aya.yale.edu> wrote:
> I want to compliment the article on the French Republican Calendar. It
> is accurate and incredibly detailed. There has since the eighteenth
> century been controversy about the way to establish the first day of the
> year. I have always said that I need to figure out exactly what the
> problem is, but I've always put it off. Now I won't have to take the
> trouble as it is fully and clearly discussed in the Wikipedia article.
> Hats off!
>
> Whoever
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Anthere

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid

body:
Dariusz Siedlecki wrote:
> And fourth, you forgot Poland! We also are preparing a bid, you know.
> At least we plan to, since we have the facilities, and the people
> interested in organizing a conference.
>
> --
> Pozdrawiam,
> Datrio

Welllll, okay :-)
I suddenly have a memory hole... is that the polish or the
serbian-montenegro chapter which has an event organiser in the board ?

Ant


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid


from_name: Steve Bennett

body:
Hi,

> Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But
> frankly, if you don't find those errors to be blindingly
> obvious, you need to find another hobby.  Writing an
> encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.

Are you perhaps discussing different meanings of "obvious"?  I, like
most people, had never heard of Seigenthaler before this issue arose.
For starters, I'm not American. Nothing in the style of writing or the
facts being claimed leaps out at me as being "this could not possibly be
true for any living journalist", although the phrase "nothing was ever
proven" is...unusual.  It's perfectly conceivable (to me) that a
journalist could have been suspected of being involved in an
assassination, but not be tried or convicted.

However, had I known anything *whatsoever* about Seigenthaler, it's
quite likely that those errors would have been "obvious". Similarly,
anyone reasonably familiar with the Kennedy family would spot the error.
I don't even know if Bobby Kennedy is dead, and if so, whether he was
murdered etc.

So is the problem here that no one should correct/verify any new article
unless they're fairly familiar with the subject?

Steve


from_name: Hemanshu Desai

subject: [WikiEN-l] Character Assassination

body:
I propose that the task of ensuring that people do not use the ability to
edit biographies in particular to launch attempts at character assassination
should be coordinated. A taskforce of people interested could be created
which would focus on this particular aspect.

This is how we handle any problems on Wikipedia, don't we?

Hemanshu


from_name: Anthony DiPierro

body:
On 12/16/05, Rob <gamaliel8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry, but if you don't think that the assertion
> that someone was involved in both the JFK and the RFK
> assassination is not some sort of lunatic fringe claim
> that at least deserves some sort of cursory
> verification, then I don't think the suggestion that
> you should not be editing an encyclopedia is all that
> outrageous.
>

To be honest, if you asked me a month ago whether or not RFK was
assassinated, I'd have told you I wasn't sure.  Now that I think about
it, I guess that fact was mentioned in Forrest Gump.

I guess I shouldn't be editing Wikipedia.  If I see a spelling error,
I'll just leave it.  If someone writes about the POOP equation in a
physics article, I'll just treat it like any other crappy article I
see on the Internet.  When I take a picture of the [[Borgata]] or
[[Philadephia]] or [[Pittsburgh]] or a [[wye appliance]], I'll keep it
to myself.  I won't bother tagging hundreds of images with their
copyright tags.  Seriously, Jimbo.  Unless you take back what you said
(or someone replaces you), I won't make any more edits in the
Wikipedia article namespace.  Can I still participate on the talk
pages, or is maybe that too much for me too?

I'm an accountant, not an historian.  My degree is in Computer
Science.  I fully admit to stupidity when it comes to historical
facts.

Anthony


from_name: Thomas Gries

subject:
[Wikitech-l] Re: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all
	new	articles

body:
Neil Harris schrieb:

> [...] Similarly, it would be a good idea to avoid backing up new
> articles on the queue to article database dumps, which would further
> reduce the possibility of their being picked up by syndicators.
> An RSS feed of the new article queue would be useful, too.

For small wikis you can use EnotifWiki ( http://www.enotifwiki.org )
which is MediaWiki 1.5.3 and which has an option to send e-mail
notifications also for any _new_ page.
T.


body:
David Gerard wrote:

>Because this one's presently so bad it's not an improvement on a blank
>edit box ... which is editorial rather than topic, but ew.
>
>
In those cases, one approach is to bypass AfD and just replace the
article with a stub, insisting that any of the removed claims be
referenced before being readded.

-Mark


from_name: Delphine Ménard

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
On 12/16/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:

> No in response to a suggestion by you to make Africa the predestined
> continent I already put up a bid for bangkok. I treated you with respect
> I like to be treated back with respect it could be my lack of sleep but
> I am pretty pissed at SJ's answer....

Wow wow wow... please.

I think things have gotten a little out of hand here. But let me try
and explain. I believe Sj was rather amazed and excited than critical
at your proposal. And he adopted an artistic and  "lunar" way of
saying it. Which got, apparently, completely lost in translation. And
he didn't realize how wrong you could take it. And you didn't realize
that he didn't realize.

The never ending problem of not speaking the same language in the
first place. Being a non-native myself, I think I understood where you
could take it wrong. But I am sure it wasn't meant that way.

What you think, what you say, what I hear and what I understand...
between what you think and what I understand, there can be so many
interferences. Assume good faith is a good one in this case. Let the
anger fly at first, and answer "huh????". Because, indeed, Sj's post
was... "huh?" ;-). And Sj, for any lunar interventions, remember that
some of us live on this earth and speak another tongue ;-)

Best,

Delphine
PS. This said. Bangkok? WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!! :DDDD
--
~notafish


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


from_name: Bryan Derksen

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Anthony, I'm not normally one to state harsh opinions.  But frankly, if
>you don't find those errors to be blindingly obvious, you need to find
>another hobby.  Writing an encyclopedia is quite frankly beyond you.
>
>
Me too, then. When the mood hits me (as it often does) I spend a lot of
time clicking "random page" and tidying up any articles I come across
that look in need of tidying. Before this controversy I've never heard
of Siegenthaler before, so if I'd hit this page and tidied it up I would
have left all of those errors in place because they are _not_ obvious.
All of those things could well have been true for all I know, and it's
not like I'm giving my personal stamp of approval to every word in any
article I click the "save" button on so I shouldn't have to fact-check
every one of them whenever I throw in category tag or succession box.

If it had said Siegenthaler had been suspected of being involved in
Nixon's assassination, or had lived on Mars for a period of time, then
_that_ would have been a blindingly obvious error. And even then I'd
forgive an editor who just skimmed over the line without noticing it
while doing other things, since it still fits well enough into the flow
of the article that one might suffer a momentary lapse of attention.


from_name: kelvSYC

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikipedia, Britannica, and CBC

body:
Here's another story comparing Wikipedia and Britannica on [[Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] to add to our collection:

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/12/15/Wikipedia-
review051215.html


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia, Britannica, and CBC


body:
Brian wrote:

>[[Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol]]
>
>That's a great idea, I'd personally like to see an undeletion accompanied by
>a little cleanup. There's plenty of out-of-process speedy deletion but a lot
>of them were in pretty sad shape (which is probably partly what got them
>speedied in the first place). I know some admins don't like when someone
>restores something they speedied but if it was also cleaned up a bit I doubt
>if anyone would object...
>
>
I've undeleted a few things in recent days (though I doubt I'll be
adding my name to the patroller list, looks too much like "work" :), and
in pretty much every case I immediately did an edit of some sort to the
article so that I could at least explain why I undeleted it in the edit
summary. Most had obvious cleanup to do, but even those that don't
probably still have a speedy deletion template on them that'll need
removing.

Perhaps a future edition of the MediaWiki software might add an "insert
reason here"-type field for undeletions, like it has for deletions?


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:
>
>> And fourth, you forgot Poland! We also are preparing a bid, you know.
>> At least we plan to, since we have the facilities, and the people
>> interested in organizing a conference.
>>
>> --
>> Pozdrawiam,
>>
> Ouch Poland tough competition great country I think and in Europe. May
> the best bid win Datrio :)
>
> Waerth/Walter
Hoi,
I am aware that there may be another bid.. This would have the added
charm of being hosted from a world heritage site ..
No I am not going to say where.. But to call it a nice and interesting
place is an understatement..
Thanks,
   GerardM


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid


from_name: The Cunctator

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article size
	for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB for Wikipedia: 1;
	Britannica: 6.5

body:
On 12/15/05, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/15/05, Brian <brian0918 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Result: Average article size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB; Britannica: 2.60
> > KB.
>
> We badly need to tighten up our writing.

Blame this on the ability to edit by section and the strong
merge/agglomeration camp. Merging two small articles into one bigger
article inevitably leads to ungainly, uneditable articles over time.


subject: [Wikitech-l] Empty passwords

body:
On 12/15/05, Neil Harris <neil at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> Brion Vibber wrote:
> >
> >> It would probably make sense to check for zero-length passwords at
> >> account creation time,
> >>
> >
> > On your own site, set the minimum password length. See DefaultSettings.php for
> > all available configuration settings.
> >
> > -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
> >
> >
> The site in question is the en: Wikipedia...
>
Brion is obliquely making the point that this is by design on en:Wikipedia.

It's something of a soft-security measure. User accounts shouldn't be
terribly exciting. The fewer locks, the less fun.


from_name: Uwe Brauer

subject:
[Wikitech-l] why doesn't the internal editor break lines at column
	72

body:
Hello

Wouldn't it be possible that the internal editor would break lines say
at column 72 as do most mail applications.

Regards

Uwe Brauer


from_name: Abigail Brady

body:
Someone has made this article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_People_suggested_to_have_been_involved_in_the_Kennedy_Assassination

Some choice quotes from this :

"The two persons at the top of the list of suspects have always been
Fidel Castro and President Lyndon B. Johnson. " and "There are even a
few people who believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had something to do with
it."

It then gives a big list of names, including J. Edgar Hoover,

I think the article should be speedily deleted, and the author banned
for being clearly insane.  However, I'm not sure whether present
policy would allow me to unilaterally do that - and I'm pretty sure
I'd get a lot of hassle out of doing that.  So I'm bringing this to
your attention.

We need to be able to summarily ban crazies.

--
Abi


from_name: David Gerard

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
Walter van Kalken wrote:

> No in response to a suggestion by you to make Africa the predestined
> continent I already put up a bid for bangkok. I treated you with respect
> I like to be treated back with respect it could be my lack of sleep but
> I am pretty pissed at SJ's answer especially in the light of him being
> at the current wikimania organising committee I find him ridiculing
> someone else's idea totally inappropriate and uncalled for.

This may be a cross-lingual issue, but to me it was pretty obviously a
light and silly joke, not an attack. Please assume better faith.

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> You make some very good points.  One concern I have is that we lack the
> tools for users to share their tentative sources.  Where exactly would a
> user note "Think I this in one of Chomsky's earlier works"?  In the
> comment? In a <!-- comment -->?  Starting a separate section on the talk
> page just for a single sentence?

I have done all of these at different times, sometimes more than one at
once.

You shouldn't go too far wrong if you keep in mind that you're writing
this for the editors that follow you - that the aim is verifiability
and/or to honestly note when you have a source but don't think you have
the very best one, or when you're doing it from memory, so that others
can improve or correct as is appropriate to Getting It Right.

Is that a sufficient guideline for people's editorial judgement?

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Verifiability

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:
>David Gerard wrote:

>>Some sort of referencing should be possible. For TV or movie
>>synopses, the text itself as an implicit reference is obvious
>>and sufficient, for example.

> How far do you want to extend this?  For computer games, is unreferenced
> description of characters ok? What about of cheats and secrets? Of
> songs, is discussion of lyrics ok? What about chord changes? Etc.
> The big question: When is an unreferenced text better than no text?

Sorry, when I said "text" I meant the book, movie, TV show, etc, not the
article text. (I'm obviously suffering a mild infection of academic jargon.)

And for the answer to your question, I'm going to say: editorial
judgement. We can't Taylorise everything.

- d.


subject:
[Foundation-l] Closer look at Nature's results: Average article
	size for Wikipedia: 6.80 KB;
	Britannica: 2.60 KB. Number of errors per 2KB
	for Wikipedia: 1;	Britannica: 6.5

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Sentiment makes me agree with you, and this noble idea.  I wonder if
> Britannica can even survive.  That's sad for an institution that's been
> around for 250 years.  They were built on the model of a bulky
> multi-volume set of books.  Who's going to buy that if one can find so
> much more information at no cost?  At present Wikipedia is well ahead of
> Britannica in quantity, and almost equal in quality.  Recent events have
> forced us to look at quality, and there is certainly incentive to do
> something about it.  Where does that leave them when the only asset they
> have left is an established name?

Brockhaus is pretty much the German equivalent of Britannica in quality
and respectability. They don't seem to be panicking at Wikipedia's
popularity and de:'s market-ready level of quality.

> If one can depend on Alexa ratings they show that we are at that part of
> the pyramid where the air is thin.  How we managed to get there has
> probably left most of us puzzled.  When you're that big it's hard to
> roll over in bed without crushing the one beside you.  What are the
> ethical implications of being where we are?  Maybe as a group we need to
> address some of these issues in Boston.

It is extremely important that we NOT be spooked by our silly levels of
popularity. They indicate that we fill a real need, even if those of us
inside the project are painfully aware of its defects.

I think being honest about what we are and where we are will be enough.
"It's not a finished product, it's the raw materials for one. But an
outside company helped polish up the German one and released it on a DVD
for a few Euros, and we're working on getting the others up to that
standard. It's a work in progress."

> Can I start pushing the POV that Wikimania 2007 should be in Africa?

You're going to move there and become a local organiser? :-D

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Improve quality by reviewing all new articles

body:
Steve Bennett wrote:

> Libel considerations aside, it might be worthwhile making "unpublished"
> versions available to the general public underneath massive spammy
> WARNING UNVERIFIED banners.

Big yellow and black stripes!

- d.


body:
Chris Owen wrote:

> I suggest that we tackle this by putting all new
> articles into an approval queue - they shouldn't
> appear on Wikipedia unless they meet basic quality
> standards. If a reviewing editor judges that the
> article meets an objective set of criteria, it should
> be "published". If not, the submitted new article
> should either be deleted or sorted into a "needs
> improvement" category outside the main namespace.

Probably the simplest way to do this would to tag the article with an
appropriate template that contains a category.

Mind you, cleanup is already so big and growing so fast I can't see us
getting through it in a reasonable time ...

> We're effectively trying to bail out a leaky boat
> while the water is still entering.

Yes.

> Note also that quite a few of the speedy deletions
> were things like personal attacks, patent nonsense,
> tests etc (e.g. "wow, hey carly, i cant believe i can
> put this on a site! :O its so cool!"). I strongly
> suspect that people wouldn't submit this sort of thing
> if they knew that they wouldn't see it appearing
> instantly on a Wikipedia page.

Remember that this stuff shouldn't be assumed to be vandalism, i.e.
malicious - a lot of it is just sandboxing. "'Edit this page'? What on
earth? That's unbelievable ..." (hits "submit") "... Oh. Er. HELP!"

> 1) New articles should go somewhere outside the main
> namespace until reviewed and passed. They should *not*
> immediately enter the main namespace.

Possibly. Seems like work.

> 2) We need a simple, clearly defined set of criteria
> for assessing whether an article passes the grade. Is
> it wikilinked? Written in English? Correctly
> formatted? Includes references? etc etc...

Let me once more strongly suggest my new article prefill idea:

 http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-December/034414.html

This clearly shows the expectations for a new article. I'm sure we'll
get some really amusing and creative new BJAODN, but the new editor
who's heard of this "Wikipedia" thing will see what we're after.

> 3) Reviewing editors should assess newly created
> articles against these criteria. If the article
> passes, the article should be cleared to enter the
> main namespace. If not, it should be sorted into a
> queue to deal with whatever the problem is. For
> instance, an article lacking any wikilinks and
> incorrectly spelled should first be sorted into a
> "needs links" queue, then moved to a "needs spelling
> corrections", then finally moved to the main
> namespace.

This might actually be almost workable without instruction-creeping into
Nupedia. Looking through a slush pile with an editorial eye and tagging
something with its defects is a *lot* easier, more scaleable and less
painful than actually trying to fix some horrible crappy prose right
then and there.

> Because reviewing editors would necessarily need to be
> people with a bit of experience of editing, I would
> limit the ability to review and approve new articles
> to editors with a certain number of edits - say 500+.
> However, any editor should be able to work on
> improving a queued article.
> Any thoughts on this idea?

It's new process, so therefore should be assumed to be instruction creep
until absolutely proven not to be ;-) But parts of it might be workable
and would help all by themselves.

I really would like anon page creation switched back on, but article
prefill would IMO help a *lot*. And prefill would work with an
assumption of good faith on the part of the new editors, and that
assumption's what's got us this far.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

>> Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
>> Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?

> "Alternate science" is such a term which does not carrry the same
> negative baggage as "pseudoscience".

No, instead it carries unduly positive baggage. It's not "alternate
science", it's "pretend science". That's the point. "Alternate science"
is not an alternative wording that means what the stuff is.
"Pseudoscience" is precisely what pseudoscience actually is.

- d.


body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

(re: [[John Seigenthaler Sr.]])

> I think the mistakes were blatantly obvious and if the person who wikied
> the article had had enough time, the article would have been:
> -tagged as a stub
> -placed into a category
> -edited down to uncontroversial claims

See, they wouldn't have been "blatantly obvious" to me either.

> Any good editor _with enough time_ who looks at an article about a
> living person which makes claims as transparently outlandish as these
> will know to remove those claims and insist on a source.  It would have
> taken 15 seconds of googling to see that the claims were in no way
> supported by any obvious source.

Newpages patrol typically doesn't take or have the time to do that. It's
a firehose of slush-pile quality information. It's about a first cull.

> The Seigenthaler article didn't pass _any_ basic quality standards.

It passed *basic* ones, which is how it survived Newpages patrol. Basic
quality standards for Newpages means more or less that's it's shaped
enough like something that might be a Wikipedia article not to shoot on
sight.

What it would need is something like what someone else mooted, a
biography patrol. Which is a damn fine idea, I think.

- d.


from_name: Walter Vermeir

subject: [Foundation-l] Re: New variant on an old idea

body:
Fennec Foxen schreef:
> A new variant on an old idea follows.
>
> I propose a new variant on protection of pages, a sort of "deferred
> edits" solution, to be used on high-traffic vandalism targets a la
> George W Bush and other presidential candidates.
>
> Someone vandalizes GWB. Someone reverts the vandalism, say, sixty
> seconds to three or four minutes later. (Hey, the wiki is danged slow
> sometime.) The vandalism is gone. In those sixty seconds, however,
> someone may have viewed the page.
>
> My solution would be a feature that would defer any edits for a short
> period of time, say, five minutes. If the revision remains unchanged
> (unedited, unreverted, un-rolledback) for those five minutes, it
> becomes the currently displayed 'article'. This should provide an
> adequate window during which such vandalism can be reverted, without
> it ever being displayed.
>
[cut]

This would be a fantastic function. But the are dreams :(

My dream is that I can block a ipadress but still give access to the
wiki for registered users of that ipadres.

http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/550

--
Ook een artikeltje schrijven? WikipediaNL, de vrije GNU/FDL encyclopedie
http://www.wikipedia.be


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Here we are not concerned with any particular subject by itself, but a
> wide range of subjects with varying degrees of support or hostility,
> including mutual hostility.  "Alternative science" may appear
> sympathetic to the proponents, but not outrageously so.

I think it's too sympathetic to pass NPOV muster when it simply isn't.

> Sorry, but I'm not at all sympathetic to intelligent design.  There are
> other subjects in this category that I find more interesting, but I'm
> willing to allow it to be called "alternate science" in order to be able
> to have meningful discussions.

I'm not. It's an example of the pseudo- in "pseudoscience": wearing some
of the clothes of "science" to pretend to respectability it doesn't warrant.

> If we interpret "science" strictly that's true.  Nevertheless, others
> use the word "science" to refer to any kind of disciplined approach to a
> subject, as in the science of Texas Hold'em.

Pseudoscience is stuff pretending to be [[science]], properly speaking -
not stuff claiming to be other plausible meanings of the word "science."

- d.


body:
Stan Shebs wrote:

> If you really want to keep the vandals and pranksters from getting
> through, you either need more volunteers on patrol (Shinseki says
> 300,000 at least :-) ), or use them more efficiently, or cut down
> on the inflow somehow.

I think a few more levels of catchers will do the job fine.

e.g. [[Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol]] appears to be a workable idea
- rather than hassle the Newpages patrollers to be perfect, we just let
some admins check the deletion logs and restore articles clearly deleted
in error - which will be a much smaller subset. Both the deleters and
the restorers are admins, and if you pass RFA you can be assumed not to
have completely whacked-out judgement, so the people doing each function
can assume basic sanity on the part of the others, and the deletions and
restorations can proceed with assumption of good faith and without a
zillion layers of red tape. Which is ideal, really.

e.g. the mooted biography patrol - presumably checking the surviving new
articles for anything resembling a person's name.

e.g. whatever else.

This should help the screening in manageable doses without setting up a
structure or bureaucracy that will be a pain in the backside or cause
rancor.

- d.


from_name: Karl A. Krueger

subject: [WikiEN-l] Parascience subst. pseudoscience

body:
On Fri, Dec 16, 2005 at 10:35:11PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> stevertigo wrote:
> > Thats it:
> >   'Parascience' shall be the NPOV term that replaces
> > the SPOV
> >   term 'pseudoscience' in most cases.
>
> If it describes what pseudoscience describes, and it ever reaches common
> English usage rather than being a Wikipedia neologism, I predict those
> so labeled will object to it in just the same way.

Yup.  See also [[euphemism treadmill]].  Creating a politically-correct
neologism won't change the situation:  People who are misleading the
public (by pretending to scientific research they aren't doing) don't
like having the fact pointed out.

> (Trivia: the word "Scientology" was first used in 1910 or so to mean
> what we now call "pseudoscience".)

I've heard people who didn't know of Hubbard's group use the term in
that way as recently as a few years ago.  Also to mean what's sometimes
called "scientism", that is, the ascription of moral truth to the latest
favored hypothesis.

--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger at whoi.edu>


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> I agree, and many of the mainstream scientists who are quick to attach
> the "pseudoscience" label have likely done little or no study of the
> field that they want to label.  In doing so they are themselves acting
> pseudoscientifically.

When a field of study is clearly grossly defective as science but still
insists it's a science, it's pretty obvious. (In the case of intelligent
design, the smoking-gun documents showing it was invented as a
creationist stalking horse have reached the public eye and are
referenceable.) A scientist doesn't have to become an expert in
aetherometry to call it pseudoscience any more than you have to become a
heroin addict to say that being so is probably a bad thing.

> Is medicine anything other than a branch of science?  "Unorthodox
> science" anybody?

It's bodily tech support that tries to be supported by science. c.f.
[[Evidence-based medicine]].

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
billy mills wrote:
> David Gerard write:

>>Is there any word or phrase in *common usage* (i.e., we can't coin a
>>Wikipedia-only neologism) that covers what is meant by "pseudoscience"?

> Yes. Problem is that it's "pseudoscience"

I'm still not at all convinced this is a problem, except in the view of
those who don't like a label that accurately and concisely describes
what they're doing.

(and, per the A is part of B therefore B is part of A fallacy, I now
expect someone to follow up with a marvellous strawman example of some
unrelated grossly POV description)

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid

body:
Dariusz Siedlecki wrote:

> And fourth, you forgot Poland!

LOL!

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Poland - current featured article!

- d.


subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Bangkok bid


from_name: xkernigh at netscape.net

subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses

body:
Cormac Lawler wrote:
> The 'safe' proposal until now has been to make wikiversity a
> repository of learning materials. This, I presume, would include
> lesson plans/curricula as well as actual resources like
> reading/listening comprehension exercises, flash cards, discursive
> questions on particular advertisements, etc.
> ...
> * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity_%28overview%29
> *
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal

This proposal is not 'safe'. Look at the Wikiversity (overview) page
linked here, then follow any of the six links from "Cell Biology" to
"Media literacy". They all read like textbooks or introductions to
textbooks. The C programming course contains "lectures" and "quizzes",
which together function as a textbook. The pages also contain lists of
students (instead of authors), but in short, most of the current
Wikiversity consists of textbooks which must stay at Wikibooks, and not
become a separate wiki.

A 'safe' version of the proposal would include all learning materials
EXCEPT any that could be found in a textbook, encyclopedia, dictionary
(or other Wikimedia project).

> *
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal

What is interesting about the "modified project proposal" is that it is
an opportunity to define Wikiversity (or whatever we call this project)
in a way that does not overlap with Wikibooks, but supports the other
Wikimedia projects including Wikibooks, Wiktionary, and Wikipedia. I
like the proposal for "reading groups" where multiple users meet on a
wiki and agree to read the same (free or non-free) material and discuss
it; then if they want, they use their knowledge to improve Wikibooks or
Wiktionary or add citations to Wikipedia. The users learn and
(optionally) the other Wikimedia projects including Wikibooks gain
benefits.

Another proposal that I have read about is to have an "index of
sources". This would not be a collection of free source texts, like
Wikisource is. This would be a database potentially listing every (free
or non-free) source that was ever cited in any Wikipedia article or
Wikibook, and some new sources. What if whenever I wanted more
information while writing a Wikibook, I could go to "Wikiversity" to
find interesting books or web sites on my topic?

The problem with both of these proposals is that with the current
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity they share not much. Its as if
someone just made some random proposals and attached the "Wikiversity"
name.

In fact, there is currently no consensus for what Wikiversity means.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Moving_Wikiversity_forward wrote:
> Wikiversity currently means different things to different people.

See for example
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Moving_Wikiversity_forward#living_boo
ks where a user actually proposes that Wikiversity should develop
textbooks!

-- [[Wikibooks:User:Kernigh]]
___________________________________________________
Try the New Netscape Mail Today!
Virtually Spam-Free | More Storage | Import Your Contact List
http://mail.netscape.com


subject: [Foundation-l] Wikiversity - courses


body:
Brian wrote:

> That's a great idea, I'd personally like to see an undeletion accompanied by
> a little cleanup. There's plenty of out-of-process speedy deletion but a lot
> of them were in pretty sad shape (which is probably partly what got them
> speedied in the first place). I know some admins don't like when someone
> restores something they speedied but if it was also cleaned up a bit I doubt
> if anyone would object...

Well, that's the point - we're all admins there, so basic judgemental
skills can be assumed. The idea is to *reduce* hassle for the newpages
patrollers - that they're not expected to be perfect.

And to reduce the ridiculous bureaucracy and resulting rancor
surrounding the whole deletion process on en:.

It doesn't cut through the [[Gordian Knot]] of en: deletion bureaucracy,
but I think it will help pick a few threads out of it.

> I'd still like to see tag and bag though.....

No reason not to do that too.

(I need to do some SPD myself, for that matter ...)

- d.


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid

body:
SJ wrote:

>On 12/16/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>
>
>>What on earth did I deserve such an answer for.
>>
>>
>Hm?   Just thinking ahead to what happens when you run out of
>continents... no ridicule here.  A Thai bid would be exciting.  There
>really was already discussion of having Wikimania in sub-orbit.
>
My reaction to your comments were to view them as raucus humour, not
ridicule.  They did have a tone reminiscent of Howard Dean, who also got
taken the wrong way.

>>No in response to a suggestion by you to make Africa the predestined
>>continent I already put up a bid for bangkok.
>>
>>
>I think you're taking Ec the wrong way... it sounded to me as though
>he wanted to encourage a serious Africa bid, though maybe not in a
>position to make one himself.
>
That's pretty well what I had in mind.  My rationale was based on the
concept that if we are ever going to have a presence in the developing
world it would be a good idea to have a Wikimania there to give
Wikipedians a dramatic grasp of what the problems are.  In any case,
there can be no valid African bid without Africans being involved in a
significant way.

>But Ec wrote:
>
>
>>Could we book early for someone like Eric Idle or John Cleese to be a
>>guest speaker? :-)
>>
>>
>If we have /really/ out of this world contacts by then, maybe we could
>book Douglas Adams...
>
>
Now that you put it that way maybe my invitation list for "something
completely different" should have included Graham Chapman.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Ec


subject: [Foundation-l] Bangkok bid


subject: [WikiEN-l] SPOV threatens NPOV

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Karl A. Krueger wrote:

>>     * Homeopathic preparations made according to Hahnemann's method
>>       contain none of the "potentized" substance.

> Hahnemann needs to be viewed in the context of his own time.  He didn't
> know about bacteria and virusus because they weren't discovered yet, but
> unwittingly his thinking foreshadows the discovery of vaccines.

I think that's far too generous, akin to claiming that the thinking of
alchemists who wanted to turn lead into gold unwittingly foreshadowed
the work of [[Ernest Rutherford]].

>  Your
> comment is still phrased negatively.  Burdens of proof remain with the
> person making the claim; requiring proof that something does not exist
> can be an impossible task.  If it doesn't exist you won't find it; if it
> does exist you may not find it.

The burden of proof is on the pseudoscientist asserting the
respectability of "science" to show this apparent non-science works for
any verifiable definition of "works" - theirs is the outrageous claim.

> The astrological example is a question of definition.  Astrologers will
> say that the sun is in a sign rather than a constellation.  These signs
> are predetermined 30 degree segments which need not correspond with the
> constellations of the same name.  The real issues in astrology are quite
> different, and have more to do about the relationship of planetary
> positions to what happens here on earth.

I have yet to see an advocate of astrology asked for some
[[falsifiable]] prediction even understand the question.

>> Consider also the related case of the law, which -- like science -- has
>> some kind of standards of evidence.  We start the article on [[Ted
>> Bundy]] with the claim that he _was_ a serial killer and rapist ... not
>> merely that the court _claimed_ that he was a serial killer and rapist.
>> We don't apply this standard uncritically; there are certainly courts
>> whose opinions we would not take in evidence.  But where we do, we are
>> generally not wrong to do so.

> I essentially agree, but there will still be a problem with deciding
> which court decisions can be used as valid evidence.  We can doubt the
> validity of Trotsky's conviction by Stalin's show trials, but even
> countries with suspect governments will need to deal with common criminals.

This is really not relevant to the issue of the word "pseudoscience".

>> I certainly agree that we need to refrain from epithets.  I'm not sure
>> where the term "pseudoscience" falls, though.  I personally would use it
>> very narrowly, to refer to fields whose practitioners make a point of
>> calling the field scientific, but where nothing like scientific practice
>> is being done ... or, perhaps by extension, where there are not actually
>> any data upon which to do scientfic study.

> I too prefer a narrow usage, tending to not at all.  "Nothing like" and
> "not any data" both depend on negative findings.

"Where's the science?" is a reasonable question that pseudoscience fails.

>> In short, you can't be doing pseudoscience if you don't claim to be
>> doing science, or more generally try to adopt the mantle of science.  If
>> you teach dance and tell your students that it's good for their souls,
>> this isn't a claim to science -- so it can't be pseudoscientific.

> Some people in the dance community might dispute your findings.  I sit
> as a parent member on a stakeholders' committee of our local school
> board, and we heard a recent presentation on learning and the arts.
> Their point was that dance activity can help to improve student
> achievement iover a range of more traditional subjects.

Did they have numbers? Did you examine the methodology?

>> I'm not so sure this makes sense.  There are lots of labels that we are
>> willing to apply to people who do not themselves accept the labels.  The
>> most obvious are those drawn from fields such as science and law, which
>> have reasonably credible standards of verifiability.

> When it comes to naming issues I tend to favour proponents rather than
> opponents.  In our situation there is no dispute about the naming of
> most individual fields, only about what we call them collectively.  It's
> important that the term which we choose carry no implication about the
> truth or falsity of the contents, or carry in anyway that something is
> personally wrong with the practitioners.  To me "alternat[iv]e" only
> suggests that it's different.

The thing is that it isn't just "different", it's qualitatively
defective as the thing it's pretending to be.

I'm coming across as much more strident in this thread than I mean to
be. But the point is that pseudoscience is in fact *bullshit*, not
science, and there's going to be no label that doesn't puff up the
subjects with false respectability that won't soon carry the same
connotations. Because it is in fact bullshit.

- d.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Unwanted bio - editorial help needed

body:
David Gerard wrote:

>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Palmer_%28Avatar%29
> Mr Palmer has emailed User:Shanel to complain and demand his article
> be deleted - see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Strange_email
> He deserves an article (whether he wants one or not), and it's now got
> something approaching usable references, but if there's anyone bored
> for a project, it could do with much better prose and the para-by-para
> (or sentence-by-sentence) approach to referencing.

It's now much better and I've used and added a pile of references. I'll
be trying to hack on it more over the weekend to get it to the stage of
footnoted sentence-by-sentence referencing.

Mr Palmer has blanked the article *again* from his IP (216.53.175.8) so
I've had to block him for 24 hours. I did put a note on the IP talk page
to please instead list disputed statements and references on the article
talk page, and also to please look at [[WP:SCN]] as helping there would
be a much more productive use of his knowledge and time.

- d.