from_name: The Sam

subject: [Wikipedia-l] username change

body:
See [[User:Tzartzam]]. I did have to redo my watchlist, but that's not too
bad a job.

Sam *

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Mirko Thiessen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: weird Redirects -- Probably being stupid

body:
Am 17.01.03 13:00:06 schrieb wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org:
>
>take a look at this page:
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%E9gion_d%27honneur
>
>In what way is the article name different from the redirect?
>All I can see is that one has a "smart quote"-style apostrophe.
>
>but the URL of the redirect page seems the same:
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=L%E9gion_d%27honneur&redirect=no
>

I am responsible for that strange redirect. Yesterday I realised, that the link pointing from
the 1802 article did not find its target, although it appeared to be the same spelling. So I
just copied and pasted the spelling of the existing article to the new redirect page,
although I didn't see the difference between the spellings.

Many people use the accent sign, when an apostrophe should be used. Perhaps this was
the reason for the failing redirect.

Regards,

Mirko (AKA Cordyph)

--
Mirko Thiessen
http://www.mirko-thiessen.de


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] unbanned name

body:
> There's a billion nice people on the Internet; we can afford to lose
> the jerks.

The total number of users is probably in the area of 600-700 million
(http://www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online/), and many of them just do
e-mail. I don't know how many of these are nice people.

SCNR

On topic: The more we make a big deal out of our nickname policy, the more
people will try to make a point out of disagreeing with us. We don't
really need long winded explanations, we just need to apply it swiftly. It
would help if you would give Brion the endorsement to act on his own best
judgment in these cases (unless you have already done so and I missed it),
until we have a more convenient interface to make these changes.

Of course, voting would be even better :-) :-) :-)

Regards

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] unbanned name

body:
> Brion did think that, and he was right.  But yesterday I said that
> there's no need to ask me first.

Great. Ignore previous e-mail.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Offensive usernames...

body:
It being "open season", I changed CG's username (from c...goblin and c..guzzler).

You can see their 'User contributions' at http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=CG

Ed Poor


from_name: daniwo59 at aol.com

subject: Lir/Vera (was: [WikiEN-l] Mostly in defence of 172)

body:
In a message dated 1/17/2003 1:03:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com writes:

> Vera has also made the dubious additions of information on the
> transportation history of the Philippines in the 1940s (e.g. how many
> cars there were, etc.) and several other Philippines pages (though the
> one on its military history was interesting &probably useful too).
>

Unfortunately, I believe that most of the military history Vera wrote was
lifted from other sources, though modified slightly (which in some cases
changed the meaning). I gave an example or two in the Talk page of one of the
articles.

Danny
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from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mostly in defence of 172

body:
Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>"Asimov wrote hundreds of books." Say that.
>
>
>
That would be a true statement. But I would not enjoy writing such bland
prose.
I'll stick with "highly successful and extraordinarily prolific".

>
>


from_name: Brion Vibber

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Deliberate vandalism of earlier versions of
	articles to stop reverting

body:
On ven, 2003-01-17 at 10:46, Magnus Manske wrote:
> I doubt it is possible to change the old versions without developer
> access or shell login.
>
> Maybe there are several old edits by the same offender which were
> reverted, and you just clicked on the vandalized version?

The problem appears to have been that some of Stevertigo's edits were
marked as reversions, spelling corrections, or other such 'minor' edits
but in fact contained additional, very controversial, changes.

Someone else not looking closely might then use one of them as a base
for reversion or additional editing and retain the problematic text in
later edits unintentionally.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: elian

subject: [WikiEN-l] Offensive usernames...

body:
Hello,

Just a little add-on to the debate: some members of the mailing-list are
not even able to follow your discussion. As admin of Wikien-l I received the
following mail (mail adresses anonymized).

Maybe we can use this scanner as testing tool in the question if a certain
username is offensive or not ;-)

ROFL,
elian

****

["Worcestershire County Council Email Virus Scanner" <xxx at xxx.net>]
You sent an email that contained possible profanity

To: <wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org>
Subject: You sent an email that contained possible profanity

This email was generated automatically by the email system.
For the attention of wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org (wikien-l-request at wikipedia.org):

An automatic scan of the attached email, which you appear to have tried to
send to <xxx>, , indicated possible
objectionable content.

The Worcestershire County Council email system scans all messages and attachments before delivering them.
The scanner reports:
______________________________________
While scanning the whole email message:
Matched 'cock' in line 567
The content of this line is 'recall the earlier case of Throbbing Monster Cock correctly, a developer'

Matched 'cock' in line 592
The content of this line is '> recall the earlier case of Throbbing Monster Cock correctly, a develope='

Total found: 2

This message not was delivered to <xxx>, ,
but instead was diverted for moderation by the administrator.
Please contact admin at networcs.net if you feel that this email was incorrectly blocked.

Regards
Postmaster,
Worcestershire County Council
admin at networcs.net


subject: [WikiEN-l] Mostly in defence of 172

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>This is an old union trick called "work to rule".  Instead of
>striking, which, say, public employees have a hard time doing, they
>simply follow every rule and regulation to a hyper-T, thus bringing
>things to a halt in ways that it is hard for management to complain
>about.
>
>
>
Yeah. and it's REALLY pissing me off.

I have just tried to politely expect to Vera that NPOV is not required
for the statement that Nightfall is Asimov's most famous short story.

Her reply on my talk page:

It is obviously contested or we wouldn't be having an edit war over it.
Vera Cruz <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vera_Cruz>

What is her problem?

>
>


from_name: Eric Demolli

subject: [WikiEN-l] Mostly in defence of 172

body:
Maybe not marxist but at least marxian.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com>
To: <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2003 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mostly in defence of 172

> Red Hill Technology wrote:
> > Readers misunderstand political economist's technical expressions
> > (words like those listed above) - which is a good deal worse.
>
> I think that everywhere you have written "political economist" you
> should have written "Marxist".  The field of political economy is not
> primarily Marxist, and does not use Marxist jargon for the most part.
>
> > In summary, yes, 172 creates difficulties. But he also makes a very
> > useful contribution to Wikipedia, and is not impossible to work
> > with. He has moderated his initial anti-cooperative behaviour, and
> > (I suspect) will learn to moderate it further as time goes by (not
> > least in consequence of this present controversy).
>
> Well, I suppose we can wait and see.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Offensive usernames...

body:
Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> writes:

> >The Worcestershire County Council email system scans all messages and attachments before delivering them.

> I find the action of the bureaucrats far more offensive than the name
> chosen by TMC.

There are enough freemail provider in the net. It is everybody's own
choice (at least in Worcestershire) to get mail filtered.

Apart from that, I agree with you: the action is sad.

greetings,
elian
--
Wenn Gott gewollt haette, dass die Menschen nackt
herumlaufen, wuerden sie nackt zur Welt kommen.
- oscar wilde


list: wikipedia-l

subject: [Wikipedia-l] www.wikipedia.org

body:
Hello,

I restored the test pages for the wikipedia main page (they got deleted
when I moved my stuff to a new server)

It can be found now at http://djini.de/wikipedia-portal/

The PHP-version is not running correctly (the language guessing
functionality did not work when I tested), but I have no time to debug at
the moment.

If you send clear suggestions (like: take these colors, change the text
here into the following), I will put up new pages with your modifications.

greetings,
elian


body:
koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:

>Burning need for attention.  Off the record, I'd say--well, this isn't
>off the record.  On the record, I'll say that I think LDC was right to
>ban her when she called herself Lir, and I was wrong to unban her, and
>I wish she'd go back to wherever trolls go so we can work.
>
>
>
Seconded.
A user "Franz[name omitted for privacy reasons]" has appeared recently. Any relation to lir / Vera
Cruz / Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] I wonder?

>
>


from_name: Magnus Manske

subject:
[WikiEN-l] Deliberate vandalism of earlier versions of articles
 to stop reverting

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>james duffy wrote:
>
>
>>I've a serious allegation to make about a fellow Wiki. I wrote a page on the
>>Irish Potato famine which became rather controversial with two people. One
>>of them threatened to revert any changes I made, and make sure I could not
>>revert his changes back.
>>
>>
>
>James, if the history has been edited somehow, that's a serious bug in
>the software.  The whole point of the history mechanism is that older
>versions are available so that we can either revert, wholesale, or at
>least copy and paste good stuff that somehow got lost.
>
>
I doubt it is possible to change the old versions without developer
access or shell login.

Maybe there are several old edits by the same offender which were
reverted, and you just clicked on the vandalized version?

Magnus


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] A mentor system

body:
I think the mentoring idea smacks of elitism.  "We're better than you, and this is how you should do things."
Zoe
 "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:I like the new idea of a "mentor" better than the old idea of "this guy needs to be banned".

I suggest that mentors apply a 7-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism. That is, "I liked this" "That was good" "Thanks for mentioning X", etc. seven times, followed by "Oops! That's not how we do it" once.

"Uncle" Ed Poor
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now
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from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] A mentor system

body:
All helping and supporting relationships have that possibility, but
sometimes help and support are appropriate. Reverting or deleting someone's
work and calling it nonsense and threatening to ban them also carries the
connotation of superiority without the proffered help and support.

Fred

At 01:31 AM 1/18/03 -0800, you wrote:
>  "We're better than you, and this is how you should do things." Zoe

<Ed Poor>
>wrote: I like the new idea of a "mentor" better than the old idea of "this
>guy needs to be banned".
>
>I suggest that mentors apply a 7-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism. That
>is, "I liked this" "That was good" "Thanks for mentioning X", etc. seven
>times, followed by "Oops! That's not how we do it" once.
>
>"Uncle" Ed Poor
>_______________________________________________
>WikiEN-l mailing list
>WikiEN-l at wikipedia.org
>http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now


from_name: koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] A mentor system

body:
Zoe Wrote:
>I think the mentoring idea smacks of elitism.  "We're better than
you, and this is how you should do things."
>Zoe

I rather thought it reeked of introducing people to community
standards, but perhaps I'm an unwitting elitist.

cheers,

kq

wikikarma:  [[Economy of Portugal]] (another paste)


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www.wikipedia.org

body:
On Saturday 18 January 2003 04:00 am, elian wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I restored the test pages for the wikipedia main page (they got deleted
> when I moved my stuff to a new server)
>
> It can be found now at http://djini.de/wikipedia-portal/
>
> The PHP-version is not running correctly (the language guessing
> functionality did not work when I tested), but I have no time to debug at
> the moment.
>
> If you send clear suggestions (like: take these colors, change the text
> here into the following), I will put up new pages with your modifications.

Please shorten the English text to read similar to the new English Main Page:

[[en:Wikipedia | Wikipedia]] is a [[en:multilingual coordination |
multilingual project to create a complete and accurate
[[en:Wikipedia:Copyrights | open content]] encyclopedia. We started on 15
January 2001 and are already working on XXXX articles spread across XX number
of languages. Visit the [[en:help | help page]] and experiment in the
[[en:Wikipedia:Sandbox | sandbox]] to learn how ''you can edit any article
right now''.

Less is more.

BTW, everyone should vote on what to do with www.wikipedia.org over at meta.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

WikiKarma Payment. Have you had your Wiki today?
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_18 (added most of the events)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme

body:
Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines

Fred


from_name: X. Cunc

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www.wikipedia.org

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 18 January 2003 04:00 am, elian wrote:
> Please shorten the English text to read similar to
> the new English Main Page:
>
> [[en:Wikipedia | Wikipedia]] is a [[en:multilingual
> coordination |
> multilingual project to create a complete and
> accurate
> [[en:Wikipedia:Copyrights | open content]]
> encyclopedia. We started on 15
> January 2001 and are already working on XXXX
> articles spread across XX number
> of languages. Visit the [[en:help | help page]] and
> experiment in the
> [[en:Wikipedia:Sandbox | sandbox]] to learn how
> ''you can edit any article
> right now''.
>
> Less is more.
>
> BTW, everyone should vote on what to do with
> www.wikipedia.org over at meta.
>
> -- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

Consensus is the way to reach decision on Wikipedia.
Not voting.

C'est par le consensus que les d?cisions devraient
?tre prises sur Wikip?dia. Pas par le vote.

See
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision_making

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www.wikipedia.org

body:
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 05:55, X. Cunc wrote:
> Consensus is the way to reach decision on Wikipedia.
> Not voting.

Yes, but if we don't know what the range of opinions is, it'll be rather
difficult to say whether there's a consensus. A 'vote' is useful as a
straw poll for that, no?

> C'est par le consensus que les d?cisions devraient
> ?tre prises sur Wikip?dia. Pas par le vote.

Oui, mais si personne ne sais quelle et la distribution des opinions, ce
serait tr?s difficile ? dire si existe un consensus. Pour ?a, le 'vote'
est utile, non?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme

body:
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 04:26, Fred Bauder wrote:
> Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines

What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where
I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that
they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand.
(Of course, they respect my privacy!)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme

body:
>What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where
>I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that
>they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand.
>(Of course, they respect my privacy!)

I respect your privacy even more.  Do this:  sign in as payyourauthors
and use the password abouttime .  courtesy http://librarian.net

cheers

kq


from_name: Modemac

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Image Upload Security

body:
Speaking of security: Is there an upper limit to the size of files
(especially pictures) that can be uploaded?  Because of the increasing
traffic at Wikipedia and the fact that pictures drastically increase
the size of a page (meaning that popular pages with graphics will
increase traffic on the server), I would hypothesize that image files
over 50K in size probably aren't necessary.

--
		      First Online Church of "Bob"
			http://www.modemac.com/


subject: Respect (was Re: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme)

body:
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 07:54, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
> At 06:43 AM 1/18/03 -0800, Brion wrote:
> >What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where
> >I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that
> >they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand.
> >(Of course, they respect my privacy!)
>
> They may or may not, but (a) they don't spam (I registered with them a
> few years ago),

So far, perhaps. If they change their mind, they claim they will e-mail
you with three days' warning.

>  and (b) they don't check the data, so you can invent
> anything you like.

That would be dishonest, and put me in violation of their license
agreement. If we don't want people to abuse Wikipedia's license, I think
it's highly inappropriate to encourage abuse of other sites' licenses.
Don't you?

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Anthere

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www.wikipedia.org

body:
--- Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> On sab, 2003-01-18 at 05:55, X. Cunc wrote:
> > Consensus is the way to reach decision on
> Wikipedia.
> > Not voting.
>
> Yes, but if we don't know what the range of opinions
> is, it'll be rather
> difficult to say whether there's a consensus. A
> 'vote' is useful as a
> straw poll for that, no?
>
> > C'est par le consensus que les d??cisions
> devraient
> > ??tre prises sur Wikip??dia. Pas par le vote.
>
> Oui, mais si personne ne sais quelle et la
> distribution des opinions, ce
> serait tr??s difficile ?  dire si existe un
> consensus. Pour ??a, le 'vote'
> est utile, non?
>
> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Yeah sure. As a poll. Not as a decision. Only that is
not clear to most internationals.

And...on which basis will we say there is consensus or
not ?

When I enter a voting place in France, I know what is
the pourcentage required for a proposition to be
rejected or not. Here nobody knows, for it has never
been discussed through which process the decision
would be taken.

What is that way of doing, "voting" without knowing
what will be done with the "votes" ???

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com


from_name: Vicki Rosenzweig

subject: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme

body:
At 06:43 AM 1/18/03 -0800, Brion wrote:
>On sab, 2003-01-18 at 04:26, Fred Bauder wrote:
> > Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
>
>What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where
>I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that
>they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand.
>(Of course, they respect my privacy!)

They may or may not, but (a) they don't spam (I registered with them a
few years ago), and (b) they don't check the data, so you can invent
anything you like.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] For the Wiktionary Crowd

body:
Here's another NYT's article this time on words:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/books/17BOOK.html?tntemail1

The book reviewed is:

TITLE: Predicting New Words: The Secrets of Their Success
                     by Author: Allan A. Metcalf
                     ISBN: 0618130063
                     Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
                     Publish Date: 10/01/2002
                     Binding: Hardcover , 208 pages
                     List Price: USD 22.00

This is bleeding edge stuff, for those who loved [[stock market crash of
2002]] and [[United States Invasion of Iraq]]

Fred


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: www.wikipedia.org

body:
X. Cunc wrote:

>Consensus is the way to reach decision on Wikipedia.
>Not voting.
>
>
But if consensus (why does that word remind me of the Borg? ;-) can not
be achieved after years of discussion, voting might be a way to actually
get something done...

OK, let Yet Another Endless Discussion begin!

Magnus


subject: [WikiEN-l] Tic, toc, tic, toc - Approaching 100,000 English "articles"

body:
I've said this before and I will say it one more time: Do we want to keep the
piss-poor definition for automatic article detection?

I propose (again) that the current definition be used for "entries" and a more
stringent definition be used for "probable articles" (everything, of course,
is still a page).

We can simply take the count for entries and exclude anything that is less
than 500 bytes and has a link on it to [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation]] (or is
listed on one of links of disambiguating pages pages). That would give us
about 80,000 probable articles in the English Wikipedia (yes that still
includes about 30,000 rambot articles but so what? They are far more useful
as /articles/ than are many other entries we call articles).

The current prediction is that we should hit the 100,000 mark the middle of
next week. Press release or no press release, that number on the Main Page
will get some attention (thus the need for a press release to explain
things).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Tic, toc, tic, toc - Approaching 100,000 English "articles"


body:
mav wrot:
>I propose (again) that the current definition be used for "entries"
and a more
>stringent definition be used for "probable articles" (everything, of
course,
>is still a page).

I'd also prefer a more stringent definition.

kq


subject: [WikiEN-l] Helga'a theme

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
>
>F
>

Only in the past three years or so have German writers and historians
begun to tackle a topic previously taboo: the sufferings of the German
civilian population in the last years of World War II. (The Sebald
essay, which was excerpted in The New Yorker in November, is being
published by Random House in the United States next month under the
title "On the Natural History of Destruction.")

At least one reason for the almost complete avoidance of this topic
would appear to be self-evident: the critical authors of postwar Germany
considered it a moral and aesthetic impossibility to describe the
Germans, the nation responsible for the world war, as being among the
victims of that war.

-----------

Hmm. similar to the way *no-one* in France talks about collaboration
with the occupiers.  Some 3 years ago a French historian published a
book about it, and was immediately shunned in academic circles &
criticized in the press, I heard.

there must be a special term for it ... post-traumatic shame or something.

>
>


from_name: Jonathan Walther

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
On Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 09:11:16PM -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
>2 -Vera Cruz *never* documents or justifies his her or its changes in
>   any way and trolls just as hard in the talk pages as in the
>   article.

The evidence, especially the behavioral similarities, point to Vera Cruz
being Lir.  Because of his anti-social behavior, which is harming the
Wiki community, and more importantly because his actions show a real
lack of respect for his fellow project members, and for the project
itself, I am 100% behind a total ban of Vera Cruz.

I hope that the user ban will include an IP ban, which would cover all
IP's Vera Cruz and Lir have edited from.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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from_name: Tom Parmenter

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
I have decided not to deal with Vera Cruz, ceding to he she or it any
article he she or it wants to work on, on the grounds that life is too
short to waste fighting him her or it and then literally losing sleep
over afterwards.  He she or it is a pure troll, as anyone with eyes
can see.

Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
well.  So I don't want to drink from it.

Her his its latest triumph is to drive the earnest but hapless 172
from the [[New Imperialism]] article, which I had quit in frustration
several weeks back.  I only got into the article because I asked a
naive question as to why this imperialism was "new".  After much back
and forth with 172, tiresome but ultimately productive, I managed to
get a paragraph into the article that clarified what was new, which
172 promoted to the lead for the whole article.

Now I find a note in my talk page (and Tannin's) from 172 begging me
to get back and save the [[New Imperialism]] article from Vera
Cruz. 172 and Slrubenstein and Tannin have spent a great deal of
effort turning political guff about imperialism (much of it from 172)
into an NPOV article on the topic while Vera has slouched on the
sidelines, periodically reverting the whole article, including totally
neutral typographical fixes, and generally doing what he she or it
does best, roiling, confusing, annoying, enraging.

As much as I wish the article was better I will *not* step back in to
it because I have no facility, other than logic and committment, for
dealing with trolls, and that has been proven not to work.

I'm not one for banning, but if Vera Cruz is Lir and Lir is banned,
then . . .

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88


body:
I would also like to see a stricter definition.

Danny
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subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Tic, toc, tic, toc - Approaching 100,000 English
 "articles"

body:
Why not wait until we have 120,000 articles and then announce that we
have 100,000?

I like the "we are working on 89,375 articles".  I do not share the
disdain for stubs, any more than I disdain a bud on a rose bush, but
if we subtract the redirects, discount the Rambot articles and the
stubs by 10 or 15 per cent, then, if we wait a bit, we can honestly
claim to have 100,000 real articles and 20,000 under construction, and
every one of the 120,000  open to further expansion.

Diddling around with the definition of "article" is not in the Wiki
spirit, but undercounting and modestly claiming less than we could
legitimately claim seems quite acceptable to me.

Tom Parmenter
Ortolan88

|From: Oliver Pereira <omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
|X-ECS-MailScanner: Found to be clean
|Sender: wikipedia-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:42:49 +0000 (GMT)
|
|On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:
|
|> I propose (again) that the current definition be used for "entries" and
|> a more stringent definition be used for "probable articles" (everything,
|> of course, is still a page).
|
|If the definition is changed after we pass the 100,000 article milestone,
|then we would quite likely end up in the embarrassing situation of
|dropping back below it again, and people who have seen the press reports
|might think we were lying! And then would we do another press release when
|we passed the same milestone the second time...? ;)
|
|Of course, we could change the word "articles" to "entries" on the Main
|page and in the press release now, and then do a second press release when
|we get to 100,000 *articles*. The advantage in this would be that we would
|get another chance for publicity, but the disadvantage would be that we
|would look rather silly...
|
|Alternatively, someone could quickly rewrite the article-counter to follow
|mav's proposed new definition *before* the milestone is passed, and then
|we'd only have one milestone to deal with, later in the year. But then
|we'd have got all excited this week for no reason...
|
|Or we could just leave redefining what an article is until we have enough
|proper articles that changing the definition would still leave us above
|the 100,000 mark, which would probably be the easiest thing to do.
|
|Oliver
|
|+-------------------------------------------+
|| Oliver Pereira                            |
|| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
|| University of Southampton                 |
|| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
|+-------------------------------------------+
|
|_______________________________________________
|Wikipedia-l mailing list
|Wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
|http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
|


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Giskart

subject: [Wikitech-l] reason why midi is not a recommended file type

body:
Upload warning
".MID" is not a recommended image file format.

Why is this not a recommended file type?

It looks like a very good format for some types of music.

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
|From: Oliver Pereira <omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
|X-ECS-MailScanner: Found to be clean
|Sender: wikien-l-admin at wikipedia.org
|Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
|Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 01:35:28 +0000 (GMT)
|
|On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Tom Parmenter (Ortolan88) wrote:
|
|> Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
|> dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
|> ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
|> engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
|> well.  So I don't want to drink from it.
|
|I don't want to get involved in any discussion right now about the merits
|or otherwise of Vera Cruz's edits, but here is one of my conclusions from
|the Isaac Asimov argument.
|
|As a general matter of principle, I think that any Wikipedian should be
|prepared to back up any of their additions - if specifically asked to by
|another Wikipedian - by pointing to some reference source. I do not think
|that saying that "everybody except you agrees", which some people (not
|Ortolan88, I hasten to add) were doing, is at all acceptable as a
|response. Of course, people will not always have their references to hand,
|but they can always just say on the Talk page that they will check. Then,
|once they have a reference, they can put their addition back in, with the
|reference. Just reverting things back and forth doesn't help anyone. If
|someone is not able (or simply refuses) to back up an addition to an
|article, then they should not complain about it being removed. Otherwise,
|the Wikipedia will never be a reliable reference source, as it will always
|contain unsubstantiated statements.
|
|I also think that removed sections should always be placed on the relevant
|Talk page, with a note saying why it was removed. It's quite tiresome
|having to look through an article's history to find out what people have
|removed, and since there are often no comments explaining the removal, I
|never know whether I should just put the sections back in or not.
|
|As I say, I don't want to get into an argument about Vera Cruz's edits,
|but do let me know if you disagree with my general principle!
|
|Oliver
|

I certainly agree with this, both with the principles pronounced and
with the suggested practices.  However, I have to add two points:

1 -People just plain get tired of arguing over and over as the ground
   shifts beneath their feet, as, in this case, a discussion of "the
   best known short story" turns almost undetectably into a discussion
   of "the best known work in any genre" and they lose their manners
   and good sense sometimes.

2 -Vera Cruz *never* documents or justifies his her or its changes in
   any way and trolls just as hard in the talk pages as in the
   article.

Tom P.
O88


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [Wikitech-l] Page rendering

body:
Something has gone strange with the way the Wikipedia pages are
rendered.  I keep a standard skin with a fixed right QuickBar (since
floating right is not available).  For some reason the software to-day
began putting the QuickBar on the left, overlapping the main frame of
the page.  Links from the top part of the main frame are unavailable,
including my own user preferences.

Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] Page rendering

body:
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 22:22, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Something has gone strange with the way the Wikipedia pages are
> rendered.  I keep a standard skin with a fixed right QuickBar (since
> floating right is not available).  For some reason the software to-day
> began putting the QuickBar on the left, overlapping the main frame of
> the page.  Links from the top part of the main frame are unavailable,
> including my own user preferences.

The code looks okay to me, and runs great in Mozilla/Phoenix 0.5, IE
6.0, and Konqueror 3.0.3.

What version of which browser are you using? That should help narrow it
down. (Please don't say Netscape 4.x... I fear it greatly! ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Page rendering

body:
Brion Vibber wrote:

>On sab, 2003-01-18 at 22:22, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>>Something has gone strange with the way the Wikipedia pages are
>>rendered.  I keep a standard skin with a fixed right QuickBar (since
>>floating right is not available).  For some reason the software to-day
>>began putting the QuickBar on the left, overlapping the main frame of
>>the page.  Links from the top part of the main frame are unavailable,
>>including my own user preferences.
>>
>
>The code looks okay to me, and runs great in Mozilla/Phoenix 0.5, IE
>6.0, and Konqueror 3.0.3.
>
>What version of which browser are you using? That should help narrow it
>down. (Please don't say Netscape 4.x... I fear it greatly! ;)
>
>-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>
I'm using Netscape 6.2.2.  I've found that I can access my preferences
page by going to the "differences" page for any article.  The problem
seems to go away if I choose a left QuickBar in the preferences.  Still
I like having the right QuickBar because it's my own peculiar way of
telling myself whether I'm in Wikipedia or Wiktionary at any particular
moment.

BTW, is it worthwhile to go to Netscape 7

Eclecticology


from_name: Oliver Pereira

body:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Daniel Mayer wrote:

> I propose (again) that the current definition be used for "entries" and
> a more stringent definition be used for "probable articles" (everything,
> of course, is still a page).

If the definition is changed after we pass the 100,000 article milestone,
then we would quite likely end up in the embarrassing situation of
dropping back below it again, and people who have seen the press reports
might think we were lying! And then would we do another press release when
we passed the same milestone the second time...? ;)

Of course, we could change the word "articles" to "entries" on the Main
page and in the press release now, and then do a second press release when
we get to 100,000 *articles*. The advantage in this would be that we would
get another chance for publicity, but the disadvantage would be that we
would look rather silly...

Alternatively, someone could quickly rewrite the article-counter to follow
mav's proposed new definition *before* the milestone is passed, and then
we'd only have one milestone to deal with, later in the year. But then
we'd have got all excited this week for no reason...

Or we could just leave redefining what an article is until we have enough
proper articles that changing the definition would still leave us above
the 100,000 mark, which would probably be the easiest thing to do.

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


subject: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta

body:
I am very upset

very

Yesterday, I wanted to put something on the "what to
do with wikipedia.org" page on meta

Then I realised I could not edit this page because

1. It was made with plenty of special characters and
my editing would break all of them

2. The page was too long anyway, so my editing would
remove the end the page

So, with the best of my energy, I opened this brand
new Opera 6, that sure indeed handle the utf stuff (so
at least I didnot mess with this)

Then, I noticed two things

1. Opera 6 handles very unwell some return to lines
(it seems to transform curiously texts edited in other
editors, and misunderstand returns)

2. For about 1 save among 2, It just crashed, so I had
to do all over again

Consequently, since I want to edit this page without
breaking it, since I know other people also have this
length issue with their browser, and since I think
some of the stuff is less important than others, and
can easily be moved to something like a sub page

I decided to break that page in more pieces. It was to
late to put everything back into good shape. So I did
only part of it, still it took me more than half an
hour, and it was painful to do (restart the browser 8
times)

I took time to explain why I was doing it, in the
comments, and on brion talk page

This morning, I discover that what I tried to do was
considered a sort of vandalism. Everything reverted,
and more people add things on top of it.

As a conclusion
1. I can't do any revert back, or it will lose the new
stuff
2. I lost my time yesterday
3. I can't edit that page again, without breaking
things up, or making some stuff disappear. In other
words, either I am a vandal (if I edit) or I am
censored (If I don't)
4. What I did was utterly misconsidered, and abused by
Mav, who didnot even "try" to understand why I was
doing it.

So, I am very upset

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
On Sat, 18 Jan 2003, Tom Parmenter (Ortolan88) wrote:

> Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
> dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
> ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
> engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
> well.  So I don't want to drink from it.

I don't want to get involved in any discussion right now about the merits
or otherwise of Vera Cruz's edits, but here is one of my conclusions from
the Isaac Asimov argument.

As a general matter of principle, I think that any Wikipedian should be
prepared to back up any of their additions - if specifically asked to by
another Wikipedian - by pointing to some reference source. I do not think
that saying that "everybody except you agrees", which some people (not
Ortolan88, I hasten to add) were doing, is at all acceptable as a
response. Of course, people will not always have their references to hand,
but they can always just say on the Talk page that they will check. Then,
once they have a reference, they can put their addition back in, with the
reference. Just reverting things back and forth doesn't help anyone. If
someone is not able (or simply refuses) to back up an addition to an
article, then they should not complain about it being removed. Otherwise,
the Wikipedia will never be a reliable reference source, as it will always
contain unsubstantiated statements.

I also think that removed sections should always be placed on the relevant
Talk page, with a note saying why it was removed. It's quite tiresome
having to look through an article's history to find out what people have
removed, and since there are often no comments explaining the removal, I
never know whether I should just put the sections back in or not.

As I say, I don't want to get into an argument about Vera Cruz's edits,
but do let me know if you disagree with my general principle!

Oliver

+-------------------------------------------+
| Oliver Pereira                            |
| Dept. of Electronics and Computer Science |
| University of Southampton                 |
| omp199 at ecs.soton.ac.uk                    |
+-------------------------------------------+


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
> I'm not one for banning, but if Vera Cruz is Lir and Lir is banned,
> then . . .

If Lir is causing trouble again, just re-ban her. We don't even need
another trial since, technically, she is still banned.

Don't count on her to stay away, though.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Lee Pilich

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
At 19:25 18/01/2003 -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
>I'm not one for banning, but if Vera Cruz is Lir and Lir is banned,
>then . . .

For the record, I just left a note on Vera Cruz' talk page, asking if Vera
Cruz is/was Lir. It seemed the obvious thing to do. The exchange went as
follows:

Camembert: Hi VC - quick question: are you the user formerly known as
[[User:Lir]]? --[[User:Camembert|Camembert]]

Vera Cruz: Why? [[User:Vera Cruz|Vera Cruz]]

Camembert: Because there have been several suggestions that you are, and,
as such, should be banned immediately (for the reason that, as I understand
it, the being who used the name Lir is banned pending discussion with
[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo]] on the matter). --[[User:Camembert| Camembert]]

Vera Cruz: Im obviously [[User:Vera Cruz]] [[User:Vera Cruz|Vera Cruz]]

I don't have the inclination to pursue it any further (I don't know if
there's any point anyway). And I'm so far successful in my effort to not
form an opinion on the whole "let's ban Vera Cruz" thing, by the way.

lp (camembert)
Wikikarma: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islay_whisky


subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
At 19:25 18/01/2003 -0500, Tom Parmenter wrote:
>I'm not one for banning, but if Vera Cruz is Lir and Lir is banned,
>then . . .

For the record, I just left a note on Vera Cruz' talk page, asking if Vera
Cruz is/was Lir. It seemed the obvious thing to do. The exchange went as
follows:

Camembert: Hi VC - quick question: are you the user formerly known as
[[User:Lir]]? --[[User:Camembert|Camembert]]

Vera Cruz: Why? [[User:Vera Cruz|Vera Cruz]]

Camembert: Because there have been several suggestions that you are, and,
as such, should be banned immediately (for the reason that, as I understand
it, the being who used the name Lir is banned pending discussion with
[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo]] on the matter). --[[User:Camembert| Camembert]]

Vera Cruz: Im obviously [[User:Vera Cruz]] [[User:Vera Cruz|Vera Cruz]]

I don't have the inclination to pursue it any further (I don't know if
there's any point anyway). And I'm so far successful in my effort to not
form an opinion on the whole "let's ban Vera Cruz" thing, by the way.

lp (camembert)
Wikikarma: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islay_whisky

[btw - I accidentally sent this from the wrong email address initially, so
it may end up on the list twice - apologies if so]


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta

body:
Ah, sorry, I probably should have sent this both to
the main and the tech. There are both a tech and a
policy issues here...

---------

Note: forwarded message attached.

__________________________________________________
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From: Anthere <anthere5 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 01:01:23 -0800 (PST)
Size: 3998
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:
> Anthere,

Erik, thanks for acknowledging the technological part
of my message

> I agree that we need to figure out how we can make
> large pages work
> better. There have been plenty of problem reports
> regarding that.
>
> What do you think about the external editor support
> I proposed in a recent
> message to wikitech? That would allow you to edit a
> page directly using
> gvim, emacs or any editor you like.

You didnot understand me apparently. I can very well
edit in the wiki window. But Opera 6 makes some weird
transformations of texts *edited in external editors*
by *other people*. So, the pb is not entirely me, it's
others too.
That's probably an encoding issue. As if somehow

were transformed in

Plus, Opera 6 crashes for most save, hence it is not
possible to use it anyway

> Furthermore, perhaps we need to set some limit by
> policy for what the
> maximum length of a page should be. This should be
> as high as possible, so
> perhaps you can help us with finding out at which
> length browsers start
> having problems.

I can save you anytime again the "what to do with
wikipedia.org". You'll see where that cut the page
very well, and should be able to automatically count
the number of characters.

But probably, some sysop will revert my changes before
you have time to look at the differences easily.

Last week I was a fascist, this week I am a vandal,
next week ???

Regards

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
On Sunday 19 January 2003 04:00 am, wikitech-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> As a conclusion
> 1. I can't do any revert back, or it will lose the new
> stuff
> 2. I lost my time yesterday
> 3. I can't edit that page again, without breaking
> things up, or making some stuff disappear. In other
> words, either I am a vandal (if I edit) or I am
> censored (If I don't)
> 4. What I did was utterly misconsidered, and abused by
> Mav, who didnot even "try" to understand why I was
> doing it.
>
> So, I am very upset

I am sorry that I made you upset, but I looked at the diffs - all that was
done was breaking off a couple of proposals onto separate pages. Was there
other editing that you did? If there was I didn't see it.

The revert was needed due to the fact that your browser (I know it wasn't you
on purpose) inserted HUGE amounts of whitespace inbetween each and every
line. See the revert diff here
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org&diff=4618&oldid=4617
notice all the extra spacing that was deleted and also the two proposals that
were pasted back-in.

I would have done what I normally do in these cases and perform version
management but the proposals you moved were still very relevant to the
current discussion. It will take only a few minutes to delete these proposals
and provide links to the new pages you created.

So even though I still don't think it is such a good idea, I've already done
this. Now look at this diff
http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org&diff=0&oldid=4617
the only difference between your last version and the newest one is all the
white space placed into your version.

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
On Sunday 19 January 2003 04:00 am, wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> Ah, sorry, I probably should have sent this both to
> the main and the tech. There are both a tech and a
> policy issues here...

How is it a policy issue when it was your browser that inserted the huge
amount of whitespace in the page in question? My response is where it should
be - on Wikitech.

--mav

WikiKarma:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Flatow
and updating each year page and many other pages from January 18


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Censorship at meta

body:
>Last week I was a fascist, this week I am a vandal,
>next week ???
>
>Regards

Nobody is calling you a vandal - the only issue here is that your choice of
browser/platform and the Wikipedia software for some reason try to kill each
other.

-- mav


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Sunday 19 January 2003 04:00 am,
> wikipedia-l-request at wikipedia.org wrote:
> > Ah, sorry, I probably should have sent this both
> to
> > the main and the tech. There are both a tech and a
> > policy issues here...
>
> How is it a policy issue when it was your browser
> that inserted the huge
> amount of whitespace in the page in question? My
> response is where it should
> be - on Wikitech.
>
> --mav

It is a policy issue when I try to do something, I
explain *why* I do it on Brion page, and in the
comment box,

and that without any consideration with what I tried
to do, you revert all without even taking care to
check why I did it, without taking care to ask why I
did it on the talk page of the page in question in
case you didnot understand.

What I did (but left unfinished for it took me quite
some time just to do that, and even adding something
on the talk page would have taken about 10 mn to avoid
getting things messed) was utterly discarded and
labelled destruction by you, and is now unrecoverable.

I consider having many different propositions done on
the same page is useless, they could be on separate
pages. That whole page is a total mess, and it is very
hard to see the different arguments. All the arguments
are not even there. Nobody is doing the job. I tried
to start it. And it was dismissed as inopportune.
Without consideration.

When edits are reverted without consideration, that's
a policy issue.

__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com


subject: [Wikitech-l] RE: Censorship at meta

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Last week I was a fascist, this week I am a vandal,
> >next week ???
> >
> >Regards
>
> Nobody is calling you a vandal - the only issue here
> is that your choice of
> browser/platform and the Wikipedia software for some
> reason try to kill each
> other.
>
> -- mav

None of my plateform/browsers (5) know meta.wiki
language well. Some don't handle long conversations.
Some are troubled by complicated conversations, so
they add blanks in the conversation to give themselves
more time to understand. Others just plain don't
understand some of the words used.

None of my plateform/browsers (5) know meta.wiki
language well.
When they speak, they make many mistakes. They don't
make themselves be understood very well. Good browsers
get tired with them.

None of my plateform/browsers (5) know meta.wiki
language well.
So, maybe that's better they give up trying to speak.

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body:
> How could editing the page break all the special
> characters?

editing a utf coded page with a "broken" browser
breaks all the special caracters

> >I took time to explain why I was doing it, in the
> >comments, and on brion talk page
>
> I didn't look at the brion talk page but there is
> nothing by either you or
> mav in the talk page for the article itself.

Because each save took me about 10 mn. So I commented
in the comment box. And indicated the troubles to
Brion on his talk page.
You likely couldnot find any comment from Mav before
he reverted, because he left none.

> Well, I've looked at this for a while (wasted my 15
> minutes) and I'm pretty
> confused.

Sorry I made you loose your time

I was struck by your remark that some
> parts were more important
> than others... Not sure what you then did.

I just tried to make that page editable to all.
Removed some of the propositions to other pages, so
that non-utf browsers could edit the page without
messing it
Removed some stuff, so it would cut down the length of
the page, so that non-lengthy-page-tolerant could edit
the page, without cutting the end of it

Part of
> this seems to be trying
> a new browser, part just a general feeling of
> feeling flustered. I guess
> try, try again. When you have the time and patience.
>
> Fred

I will not. Unless somebody can explain to me how to
avoid Opera 6 can avoid adding these white lines, and
avoid crashing at each save. Or unless somebody offers
me a brand new mac X to replace my "barely 3 years
old" mac 9

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
>It is a policy issue when I try to do something, I
>explain *why* I do it on Brion page, and in the
>comment box,

Why am I supposed to be reading Brion's talk page to figure out what you were
doing on a completely different page? That is silly.

>.....
>What I did (but left unfinished for it took me quite
>some time just to do that, and even adding something
>on the talk page would have taken about 10 mn to avoid
>getting things messed) was utterly discarded and
>labelled destruction by you, and is now unrecoverable.

? I did a backwards merge - it took me 7 minutes. However, when I first saw
your changes along with destruction your browser caused, I didn't have 5
minutes or the urge to fix the mess your browser caused AND recreate your
edits. Why should I be responsible for that anyway?

>I consider having many different propositions done on
>the same page is useless, they could be on separate
>pages. That whole page is a total mess, and it is very
>hard to see the different arguments. All the arguments
>are not even there. Nobody is doing the job. I tried
>to start it. And it was dismissed as inopportune.
>Without consideration.
>
>When edits are reverted without consideration, that's
>a policy issue.

I considered your changes - and I disagreed with them. Especially the part
where your browser /destroyed/ the page. Hence this is a technical issue.

--mav

WikiKarma
I updated all the year pages and most of the other pages liked from
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_17


body:
At 03:50 AM 1/19/03 -0800, you wrote:
>Ah, sorry, I probably should have sent this both to
>the main and the tech. There are both a tech and a
>policy issues here...
>

>I am very upset
>
>very
>
>Yesterday, I wanted to put something on the "what to
>do with wikipedia.org" page on meta
>
>Then I realised I could not edit this page because
>
>1. It was made with plenty of special characters and
>my editing would break all of them
>

How could editing the page break all the special characters?

>2. The page was too long anyway, so my editing would
>remove the end the page

The page displays and edits well enough on my old thinkpad using explorer.
It's long, but not yet to the massive length. I suppose you were useing
netscape.
>
>So, with the best of my energy, I opened this brand
>new Opera 6, that sure indeed handle the utf stuff (so
>at least I didnot mess with this)
>
>Then, I noticed two things
>
>1. Opera 6 handles very unwell some return to lines
>(it seems to transform curiously texts edited in other
>editors, and misunderstand returns)
>
>2. For about 1 save among 2, It just crashed, so I had
>to do all over again
>
>Consequently, since I want to edit this page without
>breaking it, since I know other people also have this
>length issue with their browser, and since I think
>some of the stuff is less important than others, and
>can easily be moved to something like a sub page
>
>I decided to break that page in more pieces. It was to
>late to put everything back into good shape. So I did
>only part of it, still it took me more than half an
>hour, and it was painful to do (restart the browser 8
>times)
>
>I took time to explain why I was doing it, in the
>comments, and on brion talk page

I didn't look at the brion talk page but there is nothing by either you or
mav in the talk page for the article itself.

>
>This morning, I discover that what I tried to do was
>considered a sort of vandalism. Everything reverted,
>and more people add things on top of it.
>
>As a conclusion
>1. I can't do any revert back, or it will lose the new
>stuff
>2. I lost my time yesterday
>3. I can't edit that page again, without breaking
>things up, or making some stuff disappear. In other
>words, either I am a vandal (if I edit) or I am
>censored (If I don't)
>4. What I did was utterly misconsidered, and abused by
>Mav, who didnot even "try" to understand why I was
>doing it.
>
>So, I am very upset

Well, I've looked at this for a while (wasted my 15 minutes) and I'm pretty
confused. I was struck by your remark that some parts were more important
than others... Not sure what you then did. Part of this seems to be trying
a new browser, part just a general feeling of feeling flustered. I guess
try, try again. When you have the time and patience.

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
tannin Wrote:
>The enormous frustration, disruption, and harm to Wikipedia that Vera
Cruz creates is perfectly clear.
>The probability of successfully negotiating with her to effect a
reform is equally clear: near enough to zero
>as makes no difference. She shows not the slightest sign of being
able to reform, and every sign of being
>able to evade and make a mockery of any and all attempts to restrain
her: indeed, she obviously delights
>in them, and goes out of her way to court them. An IP ban is the only
practical response, and is probably
>in any case inevitable. The sooner the better.

Vera Cruz posted to mav's talk page a ranting (and quite redundant and
self-pitying) Faulknerian screed which mav (rightly, I think) refused
to read.  The interesting thing about this is that she did so while
not logged in, and from the IP address 172.130.118.81 .  The
temptation to ban her immediately was quite strong.  Now, this
morning, I did ban her.

It occurs to me that Vera might *also* be user:172.  If so, I'd say
she's been having us on even better than I thought.  what is the rest
of 172's IP?

cheers,

kq

wikikarma: cashing in various [[Russia]]-related edits from yesterday


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vera = 172? Unlikely.

body:
>Vera's and 172's styles are very different, and Vera has several times
>displayed an embarrassing ignorance of things which 172 would know
>backwards. (And also displayed a knowledge of weird stuff like the exact
>composition of the military of the Phillipines in 1941 that doesn't
strike me as
>within 172's compass.) Besides, I don't think even VC would have the
>paitence to have had such massive edit wars with herself.

well that's good.  I was beginning to fear for her mental health.  ^_^
 But I admit I've done by best to avoid them both lately.

The ban is on Vera's IP, not her username; I don't have the ability to
ban her username also.  (though, as before, she'd probably just choose
another and continue being a gadfly).

kq


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On dim, 2003-01-19 at 05:30, Anthere wrote:
> I will not. Unless somebody can explain to me how to
> avoid Opera 6 can avoid adding these white lines, and
> avoid crashing at each save.

Anthere, could you try creating a blank page on meta, and just put a few
random paragraphs in it with Opera 6?

Depending on how the newline characters are inserted, the wiki may be
able to correct for it on save, but I'll need a "clean" sample to
compare against.

Sorry about all this trouble, urk... Now, can we all calm down? :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
On dim, 2003-01-19 at 04:32, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> The revert was needed due to the fact that your browser (I know it wasn't you
> on purpose) inserted HUGE amounts of whitespace inbetween each and every
> line.

That is *not* grounds for reverting the changes made, particularly
without explanation. It wouldn't have been that hard to remove the
whitespace and note the problem in the talk page, would it?

> See the revert diff here
> http://meta.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org&diff=4618&oldid=4617
> notice all the extra spacing that was deleted and also the two proposals that
> were pasted back-in.

They were broken out to separate pages; I agree with that. The single
page was waaayyy too cluttered, and it was confusing to see what was
what.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
On dim, 2003-01-19 at 04:39, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> On Sunday 19 January 2003 04:00 am, Anthere wrote:
> > Ah, sorry, I probably should have sent this both to
> > the main and the tech. There are both a tech and a
> > policy issues here...
>
> How is it a policy issue when it was your browser that inserted the huge
> amount of whitespace in the page in question? My response is where it should
> be - on Wikitech.

It's a policy issue because you appear to be advocating the policy that
edits by someone with a broken browser should be reverted with
prejudice.

If we can correct the problem automatically, nobody'd ever have to know.
If we can correct it manually, that should be enough -- make the fix,
and note the problem so the user can work around it if possible.

If we can't correct it at all (eg, page cut off half-way), only _then_
should we get into the realm of completely reverting pages for technical
reasons. But if there are legitimate changes in the part that made it
through, we should still keep them...

As much as it's tempting to tell people to not come back until they
upgrade their computer, they're not always willing or able to do so. Not
allowing them to edit is perhaps not _quite_ as morally repellant as
kicking a grandmother in a wheelchair down the stairs, but I still
wouldn't recommend it.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
On dim, 2003-01-19 at 05:32, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> >It is a policy issue when I try to do something, I
> >explain *why* I do it on Brion page, and in the
> >comment box,
>
> Why am I supposed to be reading Brion's talk page to figure out what you were
> doing on a completely different page? That is silly.

When making reversions, the smart militiaman/volunteer fireman checks
user contribs for other pages that might need to be fixed. This would
have quickly turned up Ant's note on my talk page.

Yes, perhaps the page's talk page would have been a better place, but
had you, mav, been playing your part you would have seen it anyway.

> >When edits are reverted without consideration, that's
> >a policy issue.
>
> I considered your changes - and I disagreed with them. Especially the part
> where your browser /destroyed/ the page. Hence this is a technical issue.

I like how you explain your disagreement with her changes: "REVERT page
from utter destruction". Clear as mud...

Now, mav, I suggest you apologize to Anthere.

Anthere, I suggest you accept the apology.

And I will try to find a technical fix for the linebreak insertion.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Censorship at meta

body:
> I like how you explain your disagreement with her
> changes: "REVERT page
> from utter destruction". Clear as mud...
>
>
> Now, mav, I suggest you apologize to Anthere.
>
> Anthere, I suggest you accept the apology.
>
> And I will try to find a technical fix for the
> linebreak insertion.

Thanks Brion

I am sure Mav will apologize, and I accept the apology
in advance; and I apologize myself for having been so aggressive.

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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Burn all GIFs?

body:
(For why GIFs are bad, see http://burnallgifs.org/ )

At present, when someone uploads a GIF image file to Wikipedia, they're
told it's "not a recommended format". This isn't likely to stop anyone
once they've got that far, so they'll probably just hit "Save anyway".
Plus, we've got a zillion GIF files already uploaded from the olden
days.

Would it be desireable to do automated conversion to PNG? Or at the
least, offering a conversion along with that upload warning.

Pros:
* By eliminating the use of a patent-encumbered file format on our site,
we support the open/free-content ideals this project is built on.

* Wikipedia and Bomis avoid the potential of a Unisys lawsuit for
'contributory infringement' of their LZW compression patent for
providing download of files that might be compressed with unlicensed
software.

Cons:
* Animated GIFs can't be converted cleanly (or is that a pro? ;) (Note
that there is MNG, but it's not widely supported)

* Some browsers don't support transparency in PNGs correctly. These are
older versions, but still in use.

* Conversion may hide/destroy embedded comments which note the origin of
a mistakenly uploaded copyrighted non-GFDL image, making it harder to
track down things we need to eliminate

Comments to http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_All_GIFs please.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikitech-l] Page rendering

body:
Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Brion Vibber wrote:
>
>> On sab, 2003-01-18 at 22:22, Ray Saintonge wrote:
>>
>>> Something has gone strange with the way the Wikipedia pages are
>>> rendered.  I keep a standard skin with a fixed right QuickBar (since
>>> floating right is not available).  For some reason the software
>>> to-day began putting the QuickBar on the left, overlapping the main
>>> frame of the page.  Links from the top part of the main frame are
>>> unavailable, including my own user preferences.
>>>
>>
>> The code looks okay to me, and runs great in Mozilla/Phoenix 0.5, IE
>> 6.0, and Konqueror 3.0.3.
>>
>> What version of which browser are you using? That should help narrow it
>> down. (Please don't say Netscape 4.x... I fear it greatly! ;)
>>
>> -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
>>
> I'm using Netscape 6.2.2.  I've found that I can access my preferences
> page by going to the "differences" page for any article.  The problem
> seems to go away if I choose a left QuickBar in the preferences.
> Still I like having the right QuickBar because it's my own peculiar
> way of telling myself whether I'm in Wikipedia or Wiktionary at any
> particular moment.
>
> BTW, is it worthwhile to go to Netscape 7
>
> Eclecticology
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l at wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
>
I thought I had a temporary solution, but I guess not.  It just looked
that way.  In fact even with the left QuickBar, the logo does not
appear, and everything in the principal frame above the level of the
lowest QuickBar item is frozen.

I do not get this problem at all in Meta or in Wiktionary or in the
French Wikipedia. The problem may be with an "improvement" that was made
in Wikipedia that was not made in the others.
.
Eclecticology


subject: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta

body:
Anthere,

I agree that we need to figure out how we can make large pages work
better. There have been plenty of problem reports regarding that.

What do you think about the external editor support I proposed in a recent
message to wikitech? That would allow you to edit a page directly using
gvim, emacs or any editor you like.

Furthermore, perhaps we need to set some limit by policy for what the
maximum length of a page should be. This should be as high as possible, so
perhaps you can help us with finding out at which length browsers start
having problems.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Axel Boldt

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
--- Erik Moeller <erik_moeller at gmx.de> wrote:

> The main problem I see is that we already *are*
> voting  (votes for deletion, votes for NPOV, votes for
> www.wikipedia.org) without
> an ordered process to do so because, thanks to the anarchists who
> constantly decry voting, we are living in cognitive dissonance.

If you call the process on [[Votes for deletion]] "voting", then I'm
all for it of course. That page doesn't operate in the way "Here's a
question, who says Yes or No?", but instead "Here's a question, who has
an argument for or against?". I have rarely seen people adding their
names to a "vote" without providing a reason, and I have never seen
anybody producing a tally there by simply counting names.

Axel

WikiKarma: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect

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from_name: Magnus Manske

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
<rambling>

100.000 articles
Will we have 100.000 articles in a few days? This depends on wether we
do have *any* articles (like a magazine or newspaper) or entries (like
an encyclopedia). I think the number itself is not the point. Stubs?
Yes, we do have stubs. So what? Any encyclopedia has them. Opened one
lately? I just went to my bookshelf and opened one of the "Brockhaus"
(big German quality encyclopedia) volumes at a random page, and guess
what I found?
We're not saying "we have 100.000 complete, detailed, perfect,
bullet-proof articles", we say "we have 100.000 articles". We even link
directly to our definition of "article".

Vera Cruz
Well, I never had any quarrel with him/her/it. I noticed some strange
activity on Recent Chages, but that was it.
On the other hand, I *am* tempted to ban "Vera Cruz" just to reduce the
amount of incoming mails.
If it's Lir (prove!), or harming the 'pedia (subtle or not), I say get
rid of it.

Images
After DW told me some weeks ago in a rather commanding tone that some
images I uploaded were too large and to dark (images that I had already
downsized, filtered and dust-removed), and started to replace them with
tiny thumbs, I found myself rather displeased with the current image
handling, both by software and by people. Did anyone notice that lots of
our images have no source or PD explanation given? That we have
double/triple images of the same thing/person? That there are "x.jpg",
"x (small).jpg", "x (large).jpg", etc. and no handling of the different
sizes?

Consensus
Great thing. We talk about the different options, argue a little, and
finally agree on the way to go.
Except we don't.
Anyone know a country or big company that is successfully run by
consensus? I don't.
Dictatorship or voting. Pick one.

</rambling>

That's it for today ;-)

Magnus


from_name: tarquin

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>I have decided not to deal with Vera Cruz, ceding to he she or it any
>article he she or it wants to work on, on the grounds that life is too
>short to waste fighting him her or it and then literally losing sleep
>over afterwards.  He she or it is a pure troll, as anyone with eyes
>can see.
>
>Look at what he she or it has contributed to [[Talk:Isaac Asimov]],
>dragging people into debates over pointless subjects, subtly shifting
>ground from one tiny truism to another while everyone else fumes,
>engaging in look-at-me-I'm-horrible ploys, and generally poisoning the
>well.  So I don't want to drink from it.
>
eek! That was an edit was I hope to forget. It was impressive the way
Vera managed to shift the focus each time.

>
>Her his its latest triumph is to drive the earnest but hapless 172
>from the [[New Imperialism]] article, which I had quit in frustration
>several weeks back.
>
There's been criticism of 172, but I thought his/her suggestion on
[[Talk:New Imperialism]] for both 172 and Vera to stop work on the
article was made in good faith. It's a pity that vera Cruz misunderstood
-- wilfully or not I don't know. I tried to give the benefit of the
doubt and got dragged into get more incomprehensible debate.
I can never work out if Vera does this deliberately, or has some sort of
behavioural problem.
Either way, I'm fed up.
I suport a ban.

>
>


body:
Anthere wrote:

>I will not. Unless somebody can explain to me how to
>avoid Opera 6 can avoid adding these white lines, and
>avoid crashing at each save. Or unless somebody offers
>me a brand new mac X to replace my "barely 3 years
>old" mac 9
>
>
>
Have you tried Mozilla for mac?

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-stub.bin

>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 02:09:45PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>Dictatorship or voting. Pick one.

I pick both.  Benevolent dictatorship where the dictator listens to and
respects the voice of his constituents works quite well.  It amounts to
concsensus; to retain power, the benevolent dictator has to come up with
solutions that everyone can live with.  When you have votes on the other
hand, the will of the majority can make things so unlikeable for
minorities that they just up and leave.

Did anyone ever notice that Kropotkin said Russian villages used to run
entirely based on consensus, without any voting?  Too bad the communists
destroyed that lifestyle; I'd like to see firsthand how they managed it.
I suspect it was because everyone shared a common culture, language, and
religion, and had known each other all their lives.

Jonathan

--
                     Geek House Productions, Ltd.

  Providing Unix & Internet Contracting and Consulting,
  QA Testing, Technical Documentation, Systems Design & Implementation,
  General Programming, E-commerce, Web & Mail Services since 1998

Phone:   604-435-1205
Email:   djw at reactor-core.org
Webpage: http://reactor-core.org
Address: 2459 E 41st Ave, Vancouver, BC  V5R2W2
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
Round and round we go ..

> We're not saying "we have 100.000 complete, detailed, perfect,
> bullet-proof articles", we say "we have 100.000 articles". We even link
> directly to our definition of "article".

The major problem was the import of ~30,000 articles, but there is a valid
point to be made that these should be counted: Many of them *are* built
upon, either by people using "Random page" to find articles to work on, or
by people searching for their hometown etc. Then again, there are 10-
person-towns which are likely never to be edited.

I suggested counting only articles with a minimum number of edits, but
that wouldn't help us much here, as Rambot updates his own articles
occasionally to change the wording. Neither would a specific article
length. What would help us would be flagging particular users as bots and
excluding them from the count. [No offense to Ram-Man: A lot of work went
into the bot's design, but it is not equivalent to 30k human-written
articles.]

But there's the problem that we're going to cross 100k articles in a few
days, and nobody is going to rewrite the code until then. And after that,
drastically reducing our article count would seem silly. It's not that the
counter is *deceptive*, it just doesn't properly reflect the human
attention that articles have been given.

So here's what we should do: Go ahead, put out the press release when we
reach 100K. Work on a system to properly handle bots in the article count.
Then, suggest this revised article count as a way to measure our *human*
contributions and list it as an additional count in the stats. If we feel
like it, we can put out another 100K press release when we hit that count,
and hope that nobody remembers our first one ;-)

> Vera Cruz
> Well, I never had any quarrel with him/her/it. I noticed some strange
> activity on Recent Chages, but that was it.
> On the other hand, I *am* tempted to ban "Vera Cruz" just to reduce the
> amount of incoming mails.
> If it's Lir (prove!), or harming the 'pedia (subtle or not), I say get
> rid of it.

Proof:

1) Vera Cruz appeared immediately after Lir's ban. Her edit behavior is
virtually identical (mark everything as minor, don't use preview etc.).
Her homepage style, listing all minor edits, is the same. She has worked
on exactly the same articles and finished the work she started as Lir.

2) Brion checked the email address and it was Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] (she has
reportedly since changed it to another Hotmail account). A. [name omitted for privacy reasons] runs
this blog: http://qwert.diaryland.com/ where she has written about her
Wikipedia experiences as Lir. Lir has also posted to this list as "Bridget
[name omitted for privacy reasons]", a name for which Google has no hits other than these archived
mails.

> Images
> After DW told me some weeks ago in a rather commanding tone that some
> images I uploaded were too large and to dark (images that I had already
> downsized, filtered and dust-removed), and started to replace them with
> tiny thumbs, I found myself rather displeased with the current image
> handling, both by software and by people. Did anyone notice that lots of
> our images have no source or PD explanation given? That we have
> double/triple images of the same thing/person? That there are "x.jpg",
> "x (small).jpg", "x (large).jpg", etc. and no handling of the different
> sizes?

See wikitech-l discussion - let's go ahead and redesign the image code to
generate thumbnails on request.

> Consensus
> Great thing. We talk about the different options, argue a little, and
> finally agree on the way to go.
> Except we don't.
> Anyone know a country or big company that is successfully run by
> consensus? I don't.
> Dictatorship or voting. Pick one.

You know I agree. The main problem I see is that we already *are* voting
(votes for deletion, votes for NPOV, votes for www.wikipedia.org) without
an ordered process to do so because, thanks to the anarchists who
constantly decry voting, we are living in cognitive dissonance. This
ordered process should actually be supported by the anarchists, because we
could say "before any vote, we have an argument period of X days and try
to collect all pro/con arguments on a wiki page; everyone who votes is
encouraged to make a reasonable effort to read and understand these
arguments". We can also set specific thresholds instead of the current
guessing what the "not quite unanimous consensus" is.

Things will only change when Jimbo decides to let us officially use voting
in some cases. He said to me that he thinks that voting may be necessary
in a small number of cases, so perhaps it's possible to convince him. Drop
him a mail.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Zoe

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
How about the EU?
Zoe
 Jason Williams <jason at jasonandali.org.uk> wrote:On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 02:09:45PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Anyone know a country or big company that is successfully run by
> consensus? I don't.

Would you accept NATO?

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/
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from_name: Jason Williams

subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 02:09:45PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
> Anyone know a country or big company that is successfully run by
> consensus? I don't.

Would you accept NATO?

--
jason at jasonandali.org.uk    http://www.jasonandali.org.uk/jason/


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
Jason Williams wrote:

>On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 02:09:45PM +0100, Magnus Manske wrote:
>
>
>>Anyone know a country or big company that is successfully run by
>>consensus? I don't.
>>
>>
>
>Would you accept NATO?
>
>
No. First, they are representing countries whose leaders have been voted
in (kind of an indirect vote). Second, they actually come to a decision,
because there needs to be one; our version of consensus drags on without
a due date or something. Third, I doubt there would be consensus in NATO
without the US agreeing ;-)

Magnus


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Limits to fiction

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>Instead of just *recommending* that we do not add fiction shared only
>among a small number of participants, I suggest that we prohibit it
>entirely or at least restrict it to single articles (e.g. "Star Wars fan
>fiction"). This would allow us to quickly resolve many disputes caused by
>people bent on adding fringe fictional material to Wikipedia.

Another possibility, that might mitigate the problem, would be to
create a separate Wiki site for people who want to post fiction. As
it happens, I've been toying with the idea of creating just such a
site. There are people who *like* reading fiction and perhaps
creating it collaboratively. Give them their own playground, and
maybe they'll leave Wikipedia alone.
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Limits to fiction

body:
In part in response to recent edit disputes, I have suggested a new
policy:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ACheck_your_fiction

(complementing "Check your facts"). It appears to me that we have not
really defined what types of fiction are OK on Wikipedia, inviting all
sorts of micronation-fantasies, online RPGs, fan fiction and so on. In the
above policy, I merely recommend not adding fiction that is limited to an
insignificant number of participants. While the "fact" that this is
fiction is to some extent verifiable, the small involvement of others
makes it hard to expand and improve these entries, and they have little
value for us as an encyclopedia.

I recall a discussion where someone suggested that we shouldn't have
articles about every "anti"-movement, and that there would probably be
hits for "anti-banana", too. I checked, and there are. The Anti Banana
Society:
        http://antibanana.8m.com/
A typical teenager nonsense page, much like many micronations. I doubt
anyone would want an article about this one.

Instead of just *recommending* that we do not add fiction shared only
among a small number of participants, I suggest that we prohibit it
entirely or at least restrict it to single articles (e.g. "Star Wars fan
fiction"). This would allow us to quickly resolve many disputes caused by
people bent on adding fringe fictional material to Wikipedia.

There seem to be plenty of people who have lost their ability to properly
distinguish fantasy from reality (or never had it in the first place, or
are still too young to be expected to have it) and we should define a
clear policy on how to deal with these people and their writings.
Wikipedia is not Everything2.

My apologies if this particular horse has already been mutilated.

Regards,

Erik


subject: [WikiEN-l] Limits to fiction

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>My apologies if this particular horse has already been mutilated.
>
>
>
It had a brief flogging on the "establish context" policy -- but it's
worth repeating :-)
I've crosslinked.

>
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Things that bother me

body:
> If you call the process on [[Votes for deletion]] "voting", then I'm
> all for it of course. That page doesn't operate in the way "Here's a
> question, who says Yes or No?", but instead "Here's a question, who has
> an argument for or against?". I have rarely seen people adding their
> names to a "vote" without providing a reason, and I have never seen
> anybody producing a tally there by simply counting names.

My impression is that pages which quickly gather "votes" (and yes, there
are "votes" in the sense of a plain "~~~~") are deleted sooner than those
which do not. Sysops are left to guess whether or not a page has received
enough review from others or not (if a page has been up for a long time,
does that mean there are no objections to deletion?), making these
deletion decisions essentially arbitrary, which is reflected by the
wording on the page that gives only rough recommendations. That you, as a
mathematician, are satisfied by this imprecise process is a mystery to me.
Furthermore, pages where only one person expresses dissent are often (but
not always) not deleted for weeks. Some sysops are bold in determining
what the "consensus" / vote result is, others aren't.

So, it's a bit like voting on crack: Decisions are eventually made based
on the tabulated opinions, but the criteria are neither properly defined
nor consistently followed. "Votes for deletion" is a mess because of it.
If we used organized voting, that page would be down to 5 recent entries
at most. We would set a high threshold, of course, something like 70-80%,
but *everyone* could help in getting that page cut down to size simply by
checking which entries still need votes and adding theirs. As is, the
deletion process is an excellent example for the schizophrenia of
"consensus" "decision making".

Regards,

Erik


body:
Tom Parmenter wrote:

>Why not wait until we have 120,000 articles and then announce that we
>have 100,000?
>
it's twisted... I like it

>
>I like the "we are working on 89,375 articles".  I do not share the
>disdain for stubs, any more than I disdain a bud on a rose bush,
>
Indeed.
stubbishness is in the eye of the beholder. A biography might still be
called a stub at  a couple of pages.

>
>


from_name: Tony Wilson

subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

body:
The enormous frustration, disruption, and harm to Wikipedia that Vera Cruz creates is perfectly clear.
The probability of successfully negotiating with her to effect a reform is equally clear: near enough to zero
as makes no difference. She shows not the slightest sign of being able to reform, and every sign of being
able to evade and make a mockery of any and all attempts to restrain her: indeed, she obviously delights
in them, and goes out of her way to court them. An IP ban is the only practical response, and is probably
in any case inevitable. The sooner the better.

Tony (Tannin)

PS: My apologies for my double post a few days ago, and for the lack of word-wrap. After more than half
a lifetime working with computers, I *still* have trouble with mailing lists. Hate the damn things. If you
have multiple machines spanning several domains, they get very tricky. </excuse>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Vera = 172? Unlikely.

body:
Vera's IP ban is excellent news. I look forward to us all being able to get on
with useful work now. 172 is on a dynamic IP in the 172 range. He detailed
many of the IPs on his user page a while back. I don't know about VC.

Vera's and 172's styles are very different, and Vera has several times
displayed an embarrassing ignorance of things which 172 would know
backwards. (And also displayed a knowledge of weird stuff like the exact
composition of the military of the Phillipines in 1941 that doesn't strike me as
within 172's compass.) Besides, I don't think even VC would have the
paitence to have had such massive edit wars with herself.

Tony
(Tannin)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] A mentor system

body:
Zoe wrote:
> I think the mentoring idea smacks of elitism.  "We're better than
> you, and this is how you should do things."  Zoe

So?

What I mean is, we should always strive to be open to newcomers,
welcoming, friendly, helpful.  But we should also not lower our
standards out of a misguided fear of "elitism".  The fact is, some
contributors *are* better than others -- by a long shot -- and that we
can ease the 'learning curve' for our social mores if oldtimers aren't
afraid to explain and defend them.

There is a way that things should be done, and people who do them
correctly are better than people who don't.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: NYT and Google News

in_reply_to: <200301181603.h0IG3Pd24929@ross.bomis.com>; from koyaanisqatsi@nupedia.com on Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 08:03:25AM -0800

body:
Currently, it is possible to see NYT stories without registration
by going through google news.  I found this link on Google easily
enough:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?ex=1043470800&en=ae8ca203d748029f&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Some experimentation suggests to me that it's not possible to just
tack on 'partner=GOOGLE' -- those 'ex' and 'en' and 'ei' parameters
seem to encode some magic.

Presumably, Google is paying for this, or the NYT has chosen to give
Google News users access for free (i.e. without having to pay in
personal information) for promotional reasons, or something like that.

--Jimbo


body:
I support Mav's suggestion of a more stringent definition, imposed
before we hit 100,000.  We're in no hurry to make "fake milestones" of
any kind.  Better to have 100,000 next year, even, and have that *mean
something*, than to have 100,000 now but have them be meaningless.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] vera cruz is a troll

in_reply_to: <8e8J9mYCpVB@erik_moeller>; from erik_moeller@gmx.de on Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 01:44:00AM +0100

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
> If Lir is causing trouble again, just re-ban her. We don't even need
> another trial since, technically, she is still banned.

That's right.  Vera Cruz is welcome to appeal to me with proof of not
being Lir.  Otherwise, sayonara.

> Don't count on her to stay away, though.

At some point, I'll be willing to take legal (or similar) steps.

We're crazy tolerant, but not suicidal.

--Jimbo


subject: [Wikitech-l] Censorship at meta

body:
Anthere wrote:
> Last week I was a fascist, this week I am a vandal,
> next week ???

Next week, a hero.  Such is the way of the world.

Seriously, this sounds to me like some kind of unfortunate
misunderstanding.  I don't think anyone could seriously consider you
to be a vandal.

--Jimbo