subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
Delirium-
> It seems that you are assuming what you find personally offensive has
> "near universal offensiveness", and what you do not find personally
> offensive does not.

I'm willing to tolerate quite a lot of images that I find personally
offensive. For example, I tolerate and defend a link to goatse.cx, even
though I find that site highly offensive. I'm personally no big fan of
violence, but I would defend the inclusion of such pictures where they are
useful.

It is simply not true that I am arguing to justify my own moral
preconceptions. I am arguing for minimizing censorship. I think I have a
very good track record of doing so consistently and without bias. You
appear to be advocating a ban in explicit imagery, on the other hand, that
purely suits your personal feelings. Before accusing me of bias, you
should reflect on your own.

> For example, I'd argue that close-up pictures of
> genitalia are considered offensive by a similar proportion of the
> world's population as pictures of someone slitting their wrist (the
> latter appear quite often in mainstream movies, for example, while the
> former generally only appear in pornographic movies).  So then we'd have
> to include those too.  And if our article on [[feces]] has pictures of
> feces, our article on [[clitoris]] has a detailed photo of a clitoris,
> our article on [[suicide methods]] (hypothetical; I'm not sure if such
> an article exists and Wikipedia is too slow to check at the moment)
> includes photos of slit wrists, and so on, a large proportion of
> Wikipedia will simply be unreadable by a large number of people.  I
> certainly wouldn't read it, anyway, and I'm more liberal in these
> matters than most people I know.

The fact that you compare human body parts to suicide methods and
excrements is somewhat disturbing, but let's not get into this. Just some
basic cause and effect. Feces are prone to carry disease, that is why most
human beings are taught to avoid touching or even eating them (there may
also be a biological taboo that is triggered by the smell and/or taste;
note that baby feces smell differently). Similarly, most human beings with
a functional brain avoid pain, as such, events that are likely to cause
pain or death, as well as images of pain and death, are likely to trigger
the emotional associations that have been built through a lifetime to
teach avoidance thereof.

I challenge you to point to a single culture that had a notable absence of
the feces taboo. I doubt that one exists. However, it is easy to see that
many cultures have much weaker nudity taboos or none at all (the latter
usually living in warm climates where clothing is not required -- hiding
our bodies constantly obviously creates a mystery about them). Some
societies have condoned or required suicide in certain circumstances, but
the act itself has usually been a private one. Some cultures celebrate
violence and sadism, but that is simply the opposite of a taboo; we need
not pander to it by including as many gory pictures as we can find (nor
should we endorse a violence taboo by including none).

Instead, we should apply the standard of maximizing our usefulness and
neutrality. When writing about suicide methods, illustrations of different
methods would be entirely appropriate. (I'm fairly certain people would
trot out the "how-to" argument to prevent such an article from getting too
instructive, although I disagree with that logic.) Photos and blood add
little to the usefulness. In articles about body parts, photos help with
the identification and should not replace but complement illustrations. In
how-to articles, abstract illustrations are often more useful than photos,
but if someone came up with a good, not unreasonably violent "suicide
methods" video, hey, why not.

As for suicides in movies, they are rarely very explicit, unless the
movies are made for shocking purposes, which validates the taboo rathern
than refuting it. Nudity in movies on the other hand obviously varies a
great degree by culture -- I've seen full erections on regular German
daytime TV, not sure about clitorises.

> You sound like you may be arguing that close-up pictures of a clitoris
> are of a similar level of offensiveness to photos of women without a
> veil, which is simply not true: the former are far more offensive to far
> more people.

Yeah, because the latter are a subset of the former ;-). Current dominant
western attitudes regarding sexuality are descendants of views that
culminated in anti masturbation electric schock devices and [[bathing
house]]s. There is a clear relationship between these attitudes that
cannot realistically be denied.

The "near universal" standard seems to pass your "feces and suicide" test.
Feces is almost universally considered repulsing, and suicide is almost
universally a private matter (justifying some toning down of the imagery).
I therefore submit that this test is fully sufficient as our guideline for
deciding whether and where we want to censor ourselves.

Regards,

Erik


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Sascha Noyes

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 08:49 am, Anthere wrote:
> Sascha Noyes a ?crit:
> > On Tuesday 13 January 2004 03:09 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
> >>There is a legitimate question about how much human nudity should
> >>be shown in Wikipedia.
> >
> > In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I don't consider it
> > legitimate because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously
> > given the example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad
> > thing for children, they have to in the same vein consider a child
> > looking at their own unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently
> > ridiculous.
>
> Patently ridiculous ?
> An opinion is patently ridiculous ?

Yes, that is correct. I consider the position that it is harmful to children
to look at their nude body to be ridiculous. If you want to make an assertion
that something is true, you must offer some evidence that supports that
claim. Do you have any such evidence? I should like to see it. I don't
subscribe to the wishy-washy notion of not being able to give my opinion
about that of another simply because it is their opinion. Which is what you
seem to be implying.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal remarks, etc. (was: anti-semites...)

body:
Bjorn,

Your post to RK raises some interesting point, but then it became
heated and personal. Please try to tone down the language, and
make sure to leave out the personal remarks.

A couple of contributors have written me about spelling out the
word F***. I understand if you /have/ to use that kind of
language, but if you think you can get your point across without
it please try to use different language. For example, instead of
"give a @#$%", you might try:

* some things that I should pay attention to / concern myself with

Personal remarks like the following don't move the dialogue
forward:

* you are trying to find Nazis
* You ... proved someone was a Nazi
* none of my !@#$% business

Let's try to keep our posts on topic. The topic is how we can make
Wikipedia the greatest Free Encyclopedia the world has ever seen.

Thank you.

Ed Poor
Wikien-l Administrator


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Christopher Mahan

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donor management

body:
[humour]

--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
> Imagine this scenario -- I get a $10,000 donation from someone, out
> of
> the blue.  I want to telephone them...

Hey, now I know how to get Jimbo to call me :)

[/humour]

I agree.

=====
Christopher Mahan
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
818.943.1850 cell
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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from_name: Stan Shebs

subject: [Wikipedia-l] German Wikipedia Inavailability/Hardware Status

body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:

>>The replacement motherboard apparently didn't solve everything though,
>>and it's been sent back again.
>>
>
>So when do you exepct a new motherboard to arrive? These downtimes drive our
>contributors away, and are blocking us in getting new ones. I think this is
>really a serious issue. Since there are more than enough funds available now,
>I cannot understand why that much time is needed to get the system back to
>the status we had in the beginning of December. Sorry if that sounds a bit
>angry, but the german language Wikipedia is more or less unuseable since
>three weeks now.
>
Keep in mind that some of the December troubles might have been avoided if
the new hardware had gotten more testing before being put online, so let's
not be so impatient this time around. All the Wikipedias are slow, it's not
just the German one.

Stan


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 10:00 am, Anthere wrote:
> > Yes, that is correct. I consider the position that it is harmful to
> > children to look at their nude body to be ridiculous. If you want to make
> > an assertion that something is true, you must offer some evidence that
> > supports that claim. Do you have any such evidence? I should like to see
> > it. I don't subscribe to the wishy-washy notion of not being able to give
> > my opinion about that of another simply because it is their opinion.
> > Which is what you seem to be implying.
> >
> > Best,
> > Sascha Noyes
>
> As long as you do not write such a thing in Wikipedia without good
> attribution of someone whose opinion is relevant, I have no problem with
> that opinion of yours :)
>
> (you might have not understood I was not speaking of the opinion it was
> harmful or not harmful, but rather of the comment given about such a
> position)
>
> Am I clear there, I dunno...

Attribution is always good.  I don't have a problem with the opinions of
others, if they are in any way founded on some evidence. What I do have a
problems with is people pushing unfounded opinions on others. By unfounded I
mean "making an assertion as to the truth of a proposition without giving any
evidence to support this assertion."  We are presently discussing potential
policy on the mailing lists, not writing encyclopedia articles, so I don't
see how your comment about writing my opinions on Wikipedia is relevant.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Brion Vibber

body:
On Jan 14, 2004, at 11:00, Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> We need to overcome the current problems fast with a solution that
> isn't for
> eternity, but that works for now.

Ulrich, do you have any suggestions? If so, please stop dancing around
and give them. I've been asking for help on wikitech-l for days and
mostly getting useless diatribes about stuff we should get in the
future.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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from_name: Peter Jaros

subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On Jan 13, 2004, at 11:58 PM, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> On Tuesday 13 January 2004 06:16 pm, Delirium wrote:
>> Sascha Noyes wrote:
>>> In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I don't consider it
> legitimate
>>> because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously given
>>> the
>>> example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad thing for
>>> children, they have to in the same vein consider a child looking at
>>> their
> own
>>> unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently ridiculous.
>>> (And a sad
>>> reflection on the influence of religious fundamentalists on
>>> societies the
>>> world over.)
>>>
>>>
>> Ah, but should we add some graphic photographs to [[anus]], [[feces]],
>> and a variety of other subjects people perhaps wouldn't want to see
>> images of?  After all, unless you're offended by your own bowel
>> movements, you can't possibly find images of feces offensive, right?
>
> That is correct. I see my feces nearly every day, and recognise that
> defecation is a normal and natural act. I am not in the least bit
> offended by
> the sight of feces. People study feces of animals to infer what they
> ate,
> etc. I don't find these people to be morally reprehensible characters
> because
> they are interested in feces. Similarly for anuses.

How many anuses do *you* see per day?  I don't see any, myself.  Not
even my own.  So what's so great about a picture of an anus?  Will it
help you recognize one if you see it in the wild? :)

It seems like a diagram, rather than a picture, would be much more
informative, which is obviously the point.  And if we offend fewer
people, so much the better.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


from_name: Jimmy Wales

body:
Ulrich, I'm doing what I can.  I have a new server on order for Bomis,
a dual opteron, that I'm going to loan to Wikipedia when it comes in.
That server ships tomorrow, which means that Jason should have it on
Friday.  He'll install it soon after, either on the weekend if he
feels like working on the weekend (ick) or Monday.

> I've got the feeling that everyone right now is concerned with and
> waiting for the new hardware, and forgetting the one we have.

Not me!  I am doing what I can to help out.

This server will be a dual opteron 240, an Altus 1000E.  Jason will
stuff it with as much RAM as he can.  I think it will make an enormous
difference.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 11:22 am, Peter Jaros wrote:
> On Jan 13, 2004, at 11:58 PM, Sascha Noyes wrote:
> > On Tuesday 13 January 2004 06:16 pm, Delirium wrote:
> >> Sascha Noyes wrote:
> >>> In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I don't consider it
> >
> > legitimate
> >
> >>> because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously given
> >>> the
> >>> example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad thing for
> >>> children, they have to in the same vein consider a child looking at
> >>> their
> >
> > own
> >
> >>> unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently ridiculous.
> >>> (And a sad
> >>> reflection on the influence of religious fundamentalists on
> >>> societies the
> >>> world over.)
> >>
> >> Ah, but should we add some graphic photographs to [[anus]], [[feces]],
> >> and a variety of other subjects people perhaps wouldn't want to see
> >> images of?  After all, unless you're offended by your own bowel
> >> movements, you can't possibly find images of feces offensive, right?
> >
> > That is correct. I see my feces nearly every day, and recognise that
> > defecation is a normal and natural act. I am not in the least bit
> > offended by
> > the sight of feces. People study feces of animals to infer what they
> > ate,
> > etc. I don't find these people to be morally reprehensible characters
> > because
> > they are interested in feces. Similarly for anuses.
>
> How many anuses do *you* see per day?  I don't see any, myself.  Not
> even my own.  So what's so great about a picture of an anus?  Will it
> help you recognize one if you see it in the wild? :)
>
> It seems like a diagram, rather than a picture, would be much more
> informative, which is obviously the point.  And if we offend fewer
> people, so much the better.
>
> Peter

How many Lungs do *you* see per day? I don't see any, myself.  Not
even my own.  So, one might ask oneself: "What's so great about a picture of
an Lung"?  "Will it help you recognize one if you see it in the wild"? :)

Actually, it will. ;-)

I think pictures add information. Not a great deal, mind you. But you could
always attempt to argue that wikipedia should have no pictures, because the
arguments you have presented against pictures of anuses applies equally to
all other pictures. I doubt, however, that you will get very far. I share
Erik's opinion that pictures should complement illustrations/diagrams. Again,
the onus is on the part of the censors to justify the removal of encyclopedic
knowledge from an encyclopedia.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


body:
Ulrich Fuchs wrote:
> Brian, I do not "dance around" - you told me the new mainboard
> wasn't working, so you sent it back. Ok. But my question was, when
> will the replacement arrive?

The replacement arrived, and Jason tested it, and it had the same ram
errors.  The problem is mysterious, but anyhow we are to the point
where we are likely going to send the machine back and have them fix
it and return it.  I haven't spoken to Jason this morning, so I don't
know the exact status of that situation.

> As far as I can see, we had a working and well performing solution
> at the mid of december. Please bear with my for not reading
> wikitech, I've got to much to do doing the editing part. But from my
> point of view, all that needs to be done is to buy exact
> replacements for the failed hardware we had in december.  And I
> don't think that should need that much time, given the funds we
> (still) have.

I'd like to invite you to join wikitech-l, because we're well aware of
the things you're talking about and doing what we can.  It doesn't
make sense for us to buy a lot of new hardware at the existing
facility when we are going to move.  So, I'm loaning everything I've
got available to Wikipedia just as fast as I can make it available.

--Jimbo


from_name: Brian Corr

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Donor management

body:
There are a couple of free options that a lot of nonprofits I've worked
with are using, but the best one I've seen is ebase 2.0
<http://www.ebase.org/>. However, as far as I know, it's only available for
the Mac and Windows platforms, since it's a a FileMakerPro application. (It
includes a run-time version of FileMakerPro so you don't even need to buy
FMP unless you want to do a lot of customization or use it across a network
or have it be web-enabled.) The FAQ are here:
<http://www.ebase.org/about/faq.htm>

         ebase? 2.0 ? Community Relationship Management
         By Nonprofits for Nonprofits

         ebase 2.0 is powerful and affordable database software created by
TechRocks, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, for other nonprofits. ebase
software and manuals are distributed free of charge, however fees are
charged to access online support resources.

         In collaboration with nonprofit staff, database developers, and
volunteers ? the ebase community ? ebase was designed to support the
operations of your organization without locking you into a proprietary data
structure or expensive software solution.

         ebase enables you to build strong and lasting relationships with
your communities: members, donors, volunteers, activists, funders, and clients.
With ebase 2.0 you can:

     * Integrate your data about community members in one place
     * Manage and personalize email lists within ebase
     * Track "who knows who" to build deeper relationships
     * Own your own data: Secure your data and control it in-house
     * Evaluate the cost-effectiveness of campaigns as you move donors and
volunteers up the "ladder of engagement"

         ebase 2.0 support community contribution

         Although ebase is distributed for free, the cost of supporting
ebase is recovered through fees to access online support resources. To help
keep costs low for groups that can't afford expensive support services,
please consider making a voluntary contribution to support the ebase
support community.

It's a At 04:26 PM 1/14/2004 +0000, you wrote:
>I'm looking for donor management systems software, preferably
>GNU-free, although more important to me right now is doing a good job.
>I am writing a tiny little internal website on my home machine using
>PhP and MySQL to keep track of this information, but that's a pretty
>feature-poor solution.
>
>I want to be able to send receipts and thank you notes to donors, and
>I want to be able to generate summary reports for the accountant, etc.
>
>At some point I can envision (though I have no concrete plans at the
>moment for this) a quarterly magazine or report containing news about
>Wikipedia, a few well-chosen articles, etc.  This would be made
>available free on the web in pdf format or similar, and then donors
>above some threshold could opt to receive a paper copy if they want.
>
>All of this requires that I be conscientious about properly managing
>information about donors.
>
>Does anyone have direct experience in this area, with specific advice
>for me as to what packages exist and what features I should be looking
>for?


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
We want our articles to be sensitive and exciting -- like [[clitoris]]
-- warm, embracing, and all-encompassing -- like [[vagina]] -- and we
also want them to be penetrating and strong and capable of endless
growth -- like [[penis]].

;-)

Uncle Ed


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On Jan 14, 2004, at 11:33 AM, Sascha Noyes wrote:

> How many Lungs do *you* see per day? I don't see any, myself.  Not
> even my own.  So, one might ask oneself: "What's so great about a
> picture of
> an Lung"?  "Will it help you recognize one if you see it in the wild"?
> :)

Point taken.  I still have a feeling that a picture of a lung is more
useful than a picture of an anus.  But I can't think of a good reason,
so maybe that's just me.

> I think pictures add information. Not a great deal, mind you. But you
> could
> always attempt to argue that wikipedia should have no pictures,
> because the
> arguments you have presented against pictures of anuses applies
> equally to
> all other pictures. I doubt, however, that you will get very far. I
> share
> Erik's opinion that pictures should complement illustrations/diagrams.
> Again,
> the onus is on the part of the censors to justify the removal of
> encyclopedic
> knowledge from an encyclopedia.

Hehe...you said "onus"...  *giggle* *snicker*

We now return you to your regularly scheduled maturity, already in
progress.

Peter

---
Funding for this program comes from Borders without Doctors: The
Bookstore Chain That Sounds Like a Charity.
		--Harry Shearer, Le Show


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 12:19 pm, Peter Jaros wrote:
> Hehe...you said "onus"...  *giggle* *snicker*

I guess I should add "no pun intended" in hindsight. ;-)

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Dan Miller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Penises

body:
Just wanted to make a note: Sascha, Peter, the article
on "Lung" actually has no photos, just a diagram.
Thought people might want to know.

Meelar

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from_name: Nikos-Optim

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
You may also like to compare with the [[Greek
electronic game ban]], Greece's law that banned games
and ****encryption software*** in Internet Cafes.

Recently they arrested more people because of this
law.

--Optim

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
LOL! You're confusing the /article/ with the real thing, perhaps ;-)

(I hope Anthere will forgive me...)

Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: KNOTT, T [mailto:TKNOTT at qcl.org.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 12:17 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] How much?

I'm sorry to have to tell you this Ed, but penises are _not_ capable of
endless growth.

Theresa

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


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
On Wednesday 14 January 2004 11:54 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Peter Jaros wrote:
> > It seems like a diagram, rather than a picture, would be much more
> > informative, which is obviously the point.  And if we offend fewer
> > people, so much the better.
>
> I think Peter points the way towards a principle that can resolve
> most, though perhaps not all, of the dilemmas we will face in this
> area.
>
> The goal of our articles is to be informative, not offensive.  It
> turns out that in most cases (penis, for example) the ways of
> presenting the content that are offensive are also lacking in terms of
> informativeness.  A photo "in the style of" pornography takes away
> from our mission of informativeness, while a photo "in the style of" a
> medical text comports with that mission.

I am in total agreement that the images should be akin to those seen medical
texts. However, I think that the people wo don't want to have pictures of
various parts of the human body included in wikipedia won't be satisfied by
that.

The question of diagrams vs. images is a very interesting one. Images and
diagrams have slightly different aims, in my opinion. The aim of diagrams is
to reduce the visual information to a minimum in order to illustrate either
the constituent parts or the functionality of a system (or both). An image on
the other hand tells us exactly how something looks. Take for example an
article on the mars rover. A diagram of the rover would clearly and concisely
display what parts it is made up of and how they function and interact. It
would not, however give a detailed account of how it looks. While viewing an
article on the mars rover which only had a diagram, I would ask myself "but
what does it actually look like". As I have stated in anothe email in this
thread, I think that images don't add a vast amount of information, but they
add relevant and encyclopedic information nonetheless.

Best,
Sascha Noyes
--
Please encrypt all email. Public key available from
www.pantropy.net/snoyes.asc


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Ed,

That is the Stalinist position. It just needs to be labeled as such. He's
not a big reverter that I've noticed.

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:41:22 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
> Someone other than me will have to decide if Lance Murdoch is poisoning
> the Wikipedia with his pro-communist POV. I think my own fervent
> anti-communism keeps me from being neutral enough to make an unbiased
> judgment.
>
> His edits to [[Red Scare]], as well as his comments to me about it, make
> it seem like:
>
> A. Communists did nothing wrong.
> B. Anti-communism of the 1950s was "hysterical".
>
> Since this cannot be the official view of Wikipedia, I need someone
> impartial (or at least 'neutral') to intervene. I can't "mediate"
> between myself and someone else.
>
> Ed Poor
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
you don't have a law which forbids anyone from
promoting terrorism or making positive comments for
terrorists???

--Optim

--- Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org> wrote:
> * Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> [2004-01-14]:
> > Actually not bad. In their eyes they are just
> defending themselves.
> >
> > Fred
> >
>
> Yes, but their eyes are not the only ones (and the
> move, which is quite
> bold, was done without asking/discussing).
>
>
> Pedro.
>
> > > From: Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org>
> > > Reply-To: English Wikipedia
> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:27:29 +0100
> > > To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
> > >
> > > For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed
> > >
> > > "September 11 terrorist attack"
> > >
> > > to
> > >
> > > "September 11 attck"
> > >
> > > I guess this is not very very very very good
> withoug asking beforehand.
> > >
> > > Pedro.
> > > --
> > > Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
> > > Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de
> Valladolid
> > > C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->
>  www.cmpenafiel.org
> > > pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn.
> Nr. 34  983  298277
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> > >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > WikiEN-l mailing list
> > WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> >
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
> --
> Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
> Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
> C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->
> www.cmpenafiel.org
> pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr.
> 34  983  298277
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Let's wait til the watchlist comes back before we make any judgement about
his effect. Most of this stuff would have come to others attention if the
watchlist was not disabled. Poor Uncle Ed, the Little Dutch Boy...

Fred

> From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:41:22 -0500
> To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
> Someone other than me will have to decide if Lance Murdoch is poisoning
> the Wikipedia with his pro-communist POV. I think my own fervent
> anti-communism keeps me from being neutral enough to make an unbiased
> judgment.
>
> His edits to [[Red Scare]], as well as his comments to me about it, make
> it seem like:
>
> A. Communists did nothing wrong.
> B. Anti-communism of the 1950s was "hysterical".
>
> Since this cannot be the official view of Wikipedia, I need someone
> impartial (or at least 'neutral') to intervene. I can't "mediate"
> between myself and someone else.
>
> Ed Poor
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: Evan Prodromou

subject: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia is too much open

body:
>>>>> "PDN" == Pablo De N?poli <Pablo> writes:

    PDN> I don't want to start a flame war but I want to express my
    PDN> point of view on the way that articles are edited in
    PDN> wikipedia.

There are a lot of places to do this: on the village pump, on the
meta-wikipedia, and on the talk pages for individual articles.

One advantage of using the wiki itself for commenting on how the wiki
works is that you'll see what others have said before.

    PDN> Needless to say, Lebesgue integration is indeed an advanced
    PDN> topic in mathematics, so that any article on this subject is
    PDN> necesarilly advanced (or does not covered the topic).

That's an important trade-off to note: extent of coverage versus
generality. It's probably a good idea to start articles with general
introductory text, and then if one needs to get into the nitty-gritty,
do it later on. Give the layman a chance to bail out.

It's also worth noting that Wikipedia is not a textbook. There's
another project for that: www.wikibooks.org. Knowing how much
information to include in a Wikipedia article is a black art.

    PDN> It seems to me that the model of wikipedia is too much open,
    PDN> so that open that anyone can annonymously edit any page. That
    PDN> I think is to much.

There's an article about this on the meta wikipedia:

        http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_users_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles

Good pros-and-cons discussion here:

        http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Anonymous_users_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles

    PDN> But without a team of core developers or a project leader for
    PDN> each section how can you assure a minimum of quality of
    PDN> wikipedia?

One reason that Wikipedia works so well is that it's structured to
support a low level of commitment from a high number of people. Other
encyclopedias are built with a high level of commitment from a low
number of people.

There is a project to make an Open Content encyclopedia like
that. It's called Nupedia, and the main page is here:

        http://www.nupedia.org/

You should check it out.

~ESP

--
Evan Prodromou <evan at wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Actually not bad. In their eyes they are just defending themselves.

Fred

> From: Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:27:29 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
> For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed
>
> "September 11 terrorist attack"
>
> to
>
> "September 11 attck"
>
> I guess this is not very very very very good withoug asking beforehand.
>
> Pedro.
> --
> Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
> Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
> C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->        www.cmpenafiel.org
> pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr. 34  983  298277
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


list: wikitech-l

subject:
[Wikitech-l] [phil@ipal.net: Re: Who do I contact when
	webmaster@wikipedia.org does not work?]

body:
This is something we should discuss.  Right now, by refusing access to
people who don't send a user agent, we may be messing some people up
who are coming from behind a proxy?  That's what I understand him to
be saying.

Ideally, when we get our capacity up, we'll let the robots run free.

----- Forwarded message from Phil Howard <phil at ipal.net> -----

From: Phil Howard <phil at ipal.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:41:16 -0600
To: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Re: Who do I contact when webmaster at wikipedia.org does not work?

On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 06:56:02AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

| I am told that this is because you don't send a user-agent string.
| We block those requests because they are usually from badly-written
| spiders that clobber our site.

Ah.  That would be the case.

RFCs require that if a web cacher sends a user-agent string, each received
document must be cached separately on the basis of that entire string so
that a new request for the very same document from a different browser does
not get the one previously requested.  Thus if 20 different users go to a
given web site from 20 different browsers, the cache has to access the origin
server all 20 times, and no cache benefit is obtained, even for the image
files.  Given that browsers not only put major version numbers, but also
minor version numbers, and in many cases even build numbers/dates, in the
user agent string, that makes it appear to be a lot of different browsers
for the purpose of caching.

Here's what my broswer does send:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030728 Mozilla Firebird/0.6.1
I think that's excessive, but that is what is going on.

I think you need to reconsider the issue with user-agent.  There are a few
commercial web caches that do this to enhance performance for businesses
that are on slower network links.  And I don't see any way to make it make
an exception for certain sites.

Maybe I can hack the code in Squid (which is what we use here) to make it add
a generic user-agent string in place of the deleted one.  If you decide you
cannot change your action for lack of user-agent, then clearly the step to
be taken is to fake one that can't be interpreted as any specific browser.
User-Agent: generic cache

| But I notice that the screenshot is of mozilla firebird.  May I
| share that link with the developers?

Sure.  If by developers you mean the mozilla developers, be sure to tell them
it's not a mozilla issue; it's a caching issue.

BTW, I had heard that some spiders specifically omitted user-agent so that
they could be sure to cache something generic for every browser.  Maybe they
will be going to the fake user-agent string, too.

So why not at least put up a page that says why the site cannot be accessed?
Just don't put any links in that page for any spiders to continue following
so they cache/index only that one, and leave.  Surely they are not accessing
the same page over and over and over because it didn't have an error status.

|
|
| Jimmy Wales wrote:
|
| > wow that must have been a very temporary thing, let me know if you see
| > it again.
| >
| > Phil Howard wrote:
| >
| > > On Tue, Jan 13, 2004 at 04:26:55AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
| > >
| > > | Phil Howard wrote:
| > > | > Who do I contact when webmaster at wikipedia.org does not work?
| > > |
| > > | Me.  Hi, what's up?
| > >
| > > webmaster at wikipedia.org did not work, which is what I first tried when I
| > > could not access the web site.
| > >
| > > I get a 403 permission denied.  Here is a screenshot:
| > >     http://phil.ipal.org/wikipedia.png
| > >
| > > Here's the bounce from the original message I sent:
| > >
| > > =============================================================================
| > > [-- Attachment #1: Notification --]
| > > [-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.5K --]
| > >
| > > This is the Postfix program at host vega.ipal.net.
| > >
| > > I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned
| > > below could not be delivered to one or more destinations.
| > >
| > > For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>
| > >
| > > If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
| > > delete your own text from the message returned below.
| > >
| > >                         The Postfix program
| > >
| > > <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: host mail.wikipedia.org[130.94.122.197] said: 550
| > >     <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: User unknown in local recipient table (in reply
| > >     to RCPT TO command)
| > >
| > > [-- Attachment #2: Delivery error report --]
| > > [-- Type: message/delivery-status, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.3K --]
| > >
| > > Reporting-MTA: dns; vega.ipal.net
| > > Arrival-Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:31:44 -0600 (CST)
| > >
| > > Final-Recipient: rfc822; webmaster at wikipedia.org
| > > Action: failed
| > > Status: 5.0.0
| > > Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host mail.wikipedia.org[130.94.122.197] said: 550
| > >     <webmaster at wikipedia.org>: User unknown in local recipient table (in reply
| > >     to RCPT TO command)
| > >
| > > [-- Attachment #3: Undelivered Message --]
| > > [-- Type: message/rfc822, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 0.8K --]
| > >
| > > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:31:44 -0600
| > > From: Phil Howard <phil at ipal.net>
| > > To: webmaster at wikipedia.org
| > > Subject: still not working
| > > User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i
| > >
| > > Here's the screenshot:  http://phil.ipal.org/wikipedia.png
| > >
| > > --
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| > > | Phil Howard KA9WGN       | http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
| > > | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| > > =============================================================================
| > >
| > > --
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| > > | Phil Howard KA9WGN       | http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
| > > | (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| > >

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Phil Howard KA9WGN       | http://linuxhomepage.com/      http://ham.org/ |
| (first name) at ipal.net | http://phil.ipal.org/   http://ka9wgn.ham.org/ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----- End forwarded message -----


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Sascha Noyes wrote:

>Attribution is always good.  I don't have a problem with the opinions of
>others, if they are in any way founded on some evidence. What I do have a
>problems with is people pushing unfounded opinions on others. By unfounded I
>mean "making an assertion as to the truth of a proposition without giving any
>evidence to support this assertion."
>
I agree that being able to trace the source of information is important.
 The problem is not just with "pushing" opinions; sometimes a simple
innocuous statement is entered as though it were a fact.  It is not
about a contentious issue, nor is it about something that people are
likely to concern themselves.  Including such unfounded material can
have a long term effect on the credibility of Wikipedia.

In [[Acad?mie fran?aise]] there is the statement "a musician named
Gourville, who named it the Acad?mie fran?aise".  Another established
contributor and I both independently looked for some kind of
substantiation for this statement; neither of us was successful.  At the
same time we did not find any information indicating that someone else
was responsible for the name.  This particular piece of data was
contributed by an anonymous contributor on December 31, 2002.  The last
contribution of any sort by him was on April 12, 2003.  He may still be
with us, and with a real identity, but I can't know that.

What do I know about 17th century musicians.  I found a contemporary
Gourville who was in a position to exercise such influence, but no
evidence to connect him with the issue.  Fact-checking is a painstaking
and tedious process, and tracing the type of thing that I used as an
example could take hours, and may require material that is not on the
internet.  Wikipedia's credibility depends on it.  Everybody knows to
expect bias in a hotly disputed topic like Israeli/Palestinian
relations, and is on alert for that bias.  This is not so with obscure
little details.  A credibility test for Wikipedia might be to take a
random selection of obscure details and attempt to verify them, or at
least find some source.  How well would we do?

Ec

>


from_name: Viajero

subject: [WikiEN-l] Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] (a.k.a. Lir)

body:
Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons] (user:Lir) is once again listed on the Conflicts between
users page (in addition to be listed under some eight pages currently or
recently protected on Protected pages).

For those of you who comparative newcomers to the list, since his joining
Wikipedia (Fall 2002) Adam has been the source of an endless amount of
grief, as can be seen by perusing the mailing list archives:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l. He was banned in November
2002, and resurfaced under various accounts (Vera Cruz, Susan Mason,
Dietary Fiber, Pizza Puzzle). The same problems Adam is causing now were
being debated ad nauseum by Orotolan88 and others already a year ago this
month.

After a protracted negotiation with Jimbo, Adam was readmitted to the
community in September (see
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-September/006362.html).
By all appearances, Adam was given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to
start over with a clean slate. Despite the very generous reprieve, Adam
has fallen back into his old habits.

No one denies that Adam is capable of being a useful contributor, but it
appears he is constitutionally incapable of resisting the temptation to
create mischief and get involved in silly edit-wars. If other users
disagree with his contributions, Adam appears unwilling or incapable of
engaging in rational dialog on the Talk pages to resolve the issues. I
expended considerable energy (as did 172) explaining on the Talk page why
a paragraph Adam wanted to add to the introduction of [[New Imperialism]]
was unsuitable (other users also questioned its utility). For all my
efforts, I was rewarded with a sneer: If you don't like it, tough. That
page is now *again* protected.

In the final reckoning, Adam does more harm than good to Wikipedia and
time devoted to dealing with him is time taken away from more constructive
activities. Isn't it time for Adam to be banned *yet again*?

V.


subject:
[WikiEN-l] [beatnickblanket@bellsouth.net: Wikipedia: Easter
	Bradford page, and all related pages - immediate action required.]

body:
----- Forwarded message from beatnickblanket at bellsouth.net -----

From: <beatnickblanket at bellsouth.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:34:25 -0800
To: <jwales at bomis.com>
Subject: Wikipedia: Easter Bradford page, and all related pages - immediate action required.

Greetings,

This email is being wrtten to demand that the Wikipedia web page for
"Easter Bradford" as well as all related pages (including but not
limited to the "Talk" page) be deleted from your web servers
immediately. All current and former edits of this page are to be
deleted. These pages contain libelous content which, if maintained,
can and will result in litigious action against Wikipedia and it's
owners.

If this action is not taken within 48 hours of the time this email was
sent, a certified and registered letter will be sent via United States
Post. You will then have 7 days from the reciept of that letter to
take appropriate action.

I would prefer to avoid these measures, but can no longer tolerate
inaction in this case. This is not the first time I have contacted you
about the situation. If you are NOT the person to contact about the
issue, I suggest you inform me of who that person is at once.

This is the last email that will be sent in this matter,

James Warnock (aka "Easter Bradford")


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
KNOTT, T wrote:

>I'm sorry to have to tell you this Ed, but penises are _not_ capable of endless growth.
>
The same can't be said about arguments on the subject.  :-)

Ec


from_name: Schneelocke

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
Hi Jimmy,

[french net censorship law]

I'm not a legal expert in any way, and neither am I from France, but I think
that a European non-profit organization might best be set up in Scandinavia
- Sweden or Finland, for example. From what I know, these countries do tend
to have the strongest commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of the press
and similar issues.

Of course, that's just a general hint; before setting up a European
organization, one would have to look at the various countries and their laws
in detail.

--
 2:28PM  up 9 days, 17:39, 2 users, load averages: 0.33, 0.28, 0.20

Every non-empty totally disconnected perfect compact metric space is
homeomorphic to the Cantor set.


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
No, we had a revolution, and no Napolean...

Fred

> From: Nikos-Optim <optim81 at yahoo.co.uk>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:59:30 -0800 (PST)
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
> you don't have a law which forbids anyone from
> promoting terrorism or making positive comments for
> terrorists???
>
> --Optim
>
> --- Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org> wrote:
>> * Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> [2004-01-14]:
>>> Actually not bad. In their eyes they are just
>> defending themselves.
>>>
>>> Fred
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but their eyes are not the only ones (and the
>> move, which is quite
>> bold, was done without asking/discussing).
>>
>>
>> Pedro.
>>
>>>> From: Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org>
>>>> Reply-To: English Wikipedia
>> <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:27:29 +0100
>>>> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
>>>> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>>>>
>>>> For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed
>>>>
>>>> "September 11 terrorist attack"
>>>>
>>>> to
>>>>
>>>> "September 11 attck"
>>>>
>>>> I guess this is not very very very very good
>> withoug asking beforehand.
>>>>
>>>> Pedro.
>>>> --
>>>> Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
>>>> Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de
>> Valladolid
>>>> C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->
>> www.cmpenafiel.org
>>>> pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn.
>> Nr. 34  983  298277
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>>
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>>>
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>> --
>> Pedro Fortuny Ayuso: http://pfortuny.sdf-eu.org
>> Colegio Mayor Pe?afiel, Universidad de Valladolid
>> C/ Estudios 6, 47005 Valladolid, Spain -->
>> www.cmpenafiel.org
>> pfortuny at sdf-eu.org                         Tfn. Nr.
>> 34  983  298277
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Someone other than me will have to decide if Lance Murdoch is poisoning
the Wikipedia with his pro-communist POV. I think my own fervent
anti-communism keeps me from being neutral enough to make an unbiased
judgment.

His edits to [[Red Scare]], as well as his comments to me about it, make
it seem like:

A. Communists did nothing wrong.
B. Anti-communism of the 1950s was "hysterical".

Since this cannot be the official view of Wikipedia, I need someone
impartial (or at least 'neutral') to intervene. I can't "mediate"
between myself and someone else.

Ed Poor


from_name: Toby Bartels

subject:
[WikiEN-l] [beatnickblanket@bellsouth.net: Wikipedia:
	EasterBradford page,
	and all related pages - immediate action required.]

body:
Ed Poor wrote:

>I reverted the [[Easter Bradford]] article to the (Revision as of 11:00,
>15 Oct 2002), which is credited to user:Easterbradford.

I don't think that Jimbo's message was meant to tell us to comply;
he could have reverted the article himself had he wanted to.

>What's this all about? And why no discussion first?

We /should/ discuss first!  I strongly believe that we shouldn't
give in to such threats, except to follow established legal procedures
(like the DMCA takedown notices, to cover our collective ass).
IIRC, this has come up before, and Bradford's charges were without merit.

-- Toby


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Even with a broad consensus that this was a terrorist attack that is a
word which nevertheless expresses a POV.  It is not really necessary to
the title.  After all, what other September 11 attack could one possibly
be talking about?  The title can be understood without even putting the
year of the attack.  The word "terrorist" remains a characterization
even when its application is obvious.

I guess that Lance was just following the rule to be bold in one's edits.
Ec

Pedro Fortuny wrote:

>* Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> [2004-01-14]:
>
>>Actually not bad. In their eyes they are just defending themselves.
>>
>>Fred
>>
>Yes, but their eyes are not the only ones (and the move, which is quite
>bold, was done without asking/discussing).
>
>Pedro.
>
>>>From: Pedro Fortuny <pfortuny at sdf-eu.org>
>>>
>>>For the record: Lancemurdoch has renamed
>>>
>>>"September 11 terrorist attack"
>>>
>>>to
>>>
>>>"September 11 attck"
>>>
>>>I guess this is not very very very very good withoug asking beforehand.
>>>


subject: [Wikitech-l] Takedown notice for Easter Bradford page

body:
I'm talking to him, there's no need to delete the page right away.
Some clever person already listed it on VfD, and I've let "Easter
Bradford" know that.  I told him that if there's consensus among the
editors, the page will be deleted within 7-10 days, and that if there
is not such a consensus, I'll step in to make sure that his legal
rights are fully protected.

That's entirely consistent with his demands, so I think it's fine.

(I.E. he says that if I don't do something soon, he's going to send me
a letter, which will take a couple of days, and then I'll have 7 days
after that to delete the stuff.)

Your action, Ed, is a good enough one for now, I think.  It takes the
page out of general circulation.

--Jimbo


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: anti-semites...

body:
If there ever was a filter set, it does not seem to work :-)

Bjorn Lindqvist a ?crit:
>>(That being said, most anti-Zionists today also have
>>anti-Semitic views. The problem is that people are using
>>the same word ("anti-Zionism") to refer to many different
>>things.  Last year, no one saw this problem. After I made
>>this point in new ways, a number of times, others here
>>finally figured that out. Hence the new improved article.
>
>
> The article says there is a connection between anti-Semitism and
> anti-Zionism? Gotta edit that.
>
>
>>No, and I think the problem is that you have no idea what I
>>was talking about. I was talking about the many explicitly
>>anti-Semitic posts made by a number of Wikipedia users,
>>which were well-documented.
>
>
> In my narrow world there are some things that are legal and some that
> are illegal, some things that I should give a fuck about and some
> thing I should not give a fuck about.
>
> In this case it is very legal to be the thing you describe. You will
> not get booted from the project if you admit to being or if someone
> "proves" you are an anti-Semite. Atleast thats how I think it
> works. Because where I live, there are quite a few anti-Semites. And
> while I do despise them I think it would be wrong for me to shot them
> or stab them with a knife (those being the only real punishments I can
> deal out). Maybe they deserve to be punched in the face a few times,
> but I don't dare that. I'm to small and they would punch me back much
> harder. And strangely enough it seems like the officials aren't
> punishing them either! I guess all cops and politicians to are
> anti-Semites or something. Maybe it isn't illegal in my country to be
> a nazi.. dunno..
>
> And that is why I stopped caring about anti-Semites anymore. I
> realized it isn't my problem or duty to keep track on who is an
> anti-Semite and who is not. I mean I don't want to associate with them
> or anything but keeping track on each and every anti-Semite is just to
> much work for absolutely no reward.
>
> So that's what I'm curious why you are trying to find Nazis on the
> Wikipedia, RK. You had done a great study and proved someone was a
> Nazi or something, right? Well, I didn't read it because I figured
> that it is none of my fucking business to find out what ideology
> Wikipedia persons belong to.
>
> What if I am a Nazi? Would that change anything at all really?
>
> Yours truly,
> the sick Nazi bastard BL


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Sascha Noyes a ?crit:
> On Tuesday 13 January 2004 03:09 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>
>>There is a legitimate question about how much human nudity should
>>be shown in Wikipedia.
>
>
> In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I don't consider it legitimate
> because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously given the
> example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad thing for
> children, they have to in the same vein consider a child looking at their own
> unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently ridiculous.

Patently ridiculous ?
An opinion is patently ridiculous ?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Shades of Rashomon

body:
On 01/14/04  at 05:18 AM, zero 0000 <nought_0000 at yahoo.com> said:

> One of the surest marks of a problem editor is that they insist on
> filling up articles with "quotations".

This reminds me of a comment Adam Carr made on [[Talk:Zionism]]:

> I have written a new paragraph which avoids this stupid war of
> quotations. An encyclopaedia article is supposed to be a work of
> synthesis, not a collection of undigested primary source materials.
> Adam 02:40, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I thought this was very insightful. Indeed, many articles include such
"quote wars"  (like [[Norman Finkelstein]]) and they look ridiculous.

V.


from_name: Gabriel Wicke

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Problem with en?

body:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 05:31:51 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:

> This guy is having trouble connecting.  Although I can use the
> website fine with a number of browsers, I am able to replicate
> this exact sequence using telnet.  What's the issue here?

I was able to replicate it with telnet and ab, but now it works again:

GET / HTTP/1.0
User-Agent: ApacheBench/1.3d
Host: en.wikipedia.org
Accept: */*

---
 --> write(47) 85 (85)
LOG: header received:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:54:18 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.28 (Unix) mod_throttle/3.1.2 PHP/4.3.2
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.3.2
X-Accelerated-By: PHPA/1.3.3r2
Set-Cookie: enwikiSession=216be5e1ef632a2103a6deba0cf7500f; path=/; domain=.wikipedia.org
Cache-Control: private, must-revalidate, max-age=0
Last-Modified: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:52:40 GMT
Vary: User-Agent
Expires: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 00:00:00 GMT
Content-Type: text/html

--
Gabriel Wicke


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Shades of Rashomon

body:
zero 0000 a ?crit:
>>Viajero wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Several of us were discussing the topic on the IRC channel in
>>>December (Anthere may remember this because she was one of
>>>them) and this question came up. One person said they thought
>>>WP (EN) had a pro-Israeli bias. Another said a pro-Palestinian
>>>bias. A third said neither POV was accurately represented.
>>
>
> In my experience bias is not the most serious problem in the
> ME pages, it is ignorance.  People think they know something
> about the subject because they have some infantile propaganda
> tract (or a collection of infantile web sites) and insist on
> copying it into WP.

I would like to mention here that I have *never* written anything about
these topics :-)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: wikipedia is too much open

body:
Pablo De N?poli a ?crit:

Hi Pablo

Your experience is interesting :-)

<snip>

> It seems to me that the model of  wikipedia is too much open, so that open
> that anyone can annonymously edit any page. That I think is to much.that at
> least one should have to register and log in in order to modify a page, one
> has to take a responsability for what is saying (specially for deleting some
> one else work).

No one but an admin can delete someone else work. Admins are presumed of
trust. Even if one fail, another can undelete. Apart from that,
everything is kept in history. You may pick back some of the pas content
of that article to integrate it again in the current article anytime

In the current model, we don't know who write what
> (even though, most civilizated wiikipedians do log in, but I think this should
> be mandatory)

We may be civilized even when not loggued

> Another idea that comes to my mind is that there could be some teams for
> especific topics, that  manage the pages in some section (say mathematics,
> geogrpahy,
> economics or whatever). This does not mean that any user from outside the team
> could not submit modifications. But without a team of core developers or
> a project leader for each section how can you assure a minimum of
> quality of wikipedia?

Truely Pablo, apart from the wikiproject, this happens quite naturally
in some topics. Most editors have a favorite topic or two. They will in
time have most of the articles on the topic on their watch list. Little
by little, they come to know the other editors who care about these
topics. They know they can trust them, they also know which one are more
likely to express a certain type of bias.
That may not be directly visible, but depending on the person who edited
last a page, an editor will go and check or not. He will no if he can
expect a certain type of edition or not. We watch articles together. And
on these articles that we watch together, there is little chance that
much damage is done and goes unnoticed.

Welcome to the place !


from_name: Jens Frank

subject: [Wikitech-l] Problem with en?

body:
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 05:31:51AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> This guy is having trouble connecting.  Although I can use the
> website fine with a number of browsers, I am able to replicate
> this exact sequence using telnet.  What's the issue here?
>
> This fellow apparently can't see the website.
>
> =============================================================================
> phil at altair:/home/phil 96> telnet en.wikipedia.org 80
> Trying 130.94.122.199...
> Connected to en.wikipedia.org.
> Escape character is '^]'.
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: en.wikipedia.org
>
> HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden

The request doesn't specify a user-agent. Those are blocked
since they originate from badly written spiders most of the
time.

Best regards,

	JeLuF


from_name: Graham Cox

subject: [Wikitech-l] re: new system ideas

body:
> > Dual 64 bit Opteron mainboards are available with 8 DIMM sockets
> capable
> > of taing 16Gb. eg:
> > http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8w_spec.html
>
> Right, we have one of those (though broken at the moment).  Right now,
> our entire db should fit comfortably in 4 gig of Ram, which we have.
>
> But I totally agree with you about the importance of avoiding the
> hard drive as much as possible.
>
> --Jimbo

Just to throw my 2 cents-worth into the debate - any particular reason
for running on Intel? An Xserve dual G5 gives better price/performance
and is (possibly) much easier to administer. It's probably also likely
to be more reliable. I'm not an Apple apologist, but I think these
machines should be at least given fair consideration. If not, why not?

--Graham


subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Problem with en?

body:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:10:11 +0100, Jens Frank wrote:

> The request doesn't specify a user-agent. Those are blocked
> since they originate from badly written spiders most of the
> time.

Yay- that's it. My non-working ab run was a hit on my local cache.

This works:
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: en.wikipedia.org
User-Agent: idontlikeuastrings

--
Gabriel Wicke


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Hmm. Maybe I should follow my own advice about avoiding personal
remarks:

* poisoning the Wikipedia

Or else the list admin will gently prod me to rephrase that as "adding
unattributed POV".

Sheepishly,

Cousin Eddie


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:

>The fact that you compare human body parts to suicide methods and
>excrements is somewhat disturbing, but let's not get into this. Just some
>basic cause and effect. Feces are prone to carry disease, that is why most
>human beings are taught to avoid touching or even eating them (there may
>also be a biological taboo that is triggered by the smell and/or taste;
>note that baby feces smell differently). Similarly, most human beings with
>a functional brain avoid pain, as such, events that are likely to cause
>pain or death, as well as images of pain and death, are likely to trigger
>the emotional associations that have been built through a lifetime to
>teach avoidance thereof.
>
>
This is an argument that feces is "correctly" considered offensive,
while those who consider nudity offensive are incorrect.  Such arguments
are completely irrelevant to the current discussion: it is not your (or
anyone's) place to decide whether it is "natural" to avoid pain or feces
and "unnatural" to avoid nudity.  It is a simply fact that a great many
people consider explicit close-up images of a clitoris offensive--in
fact, perhaps there are more people who consider such photos offensive
than there are who consider photos of feces offensive.  You can argue
they're wrong, but I don't think that personal viewpoint ought to
influence the encyclopedia.

In fact, I think people who consider close-up photos of a clitoris
*appropriate* for public display are probably a fairly small minority,
worldwide.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Audience : was Re: pictures of genetalia

body:
Daniel Mayer a ?crit:
> Optim wrote:
>
>>There is no discrimination between Native and
>>Non-Native speakers. Let's get rid of discriminations.
>
>
> There is no discrimination. It is a matter of information organization and
> focus, which means that an encyclopedia in one language is not really the
> same thing as an encyclopedia in another language. So people who are not
> native speakers should respect the traditions of the second language they may
> be writing in. If they don't then the resulting articles will only be
> maximally useful to people who happen to have the same primary language as
> themselves. Cross pollination is nice and a good thing, but can only be taken
> so far.

One of the greatest things on each Wikipedia, is that there is no
discrimination of language, culture, sex, color, education etc...

As long as one respect copyrights, npov rules, write in the appropriate
language, and do not vandalise the place, one is welcome to participate
to the best of his abilities, with no hierarchy and classification of
value. We all have equivalent rights and duties as editors. We can all
provide content, help with setting up the rules, organise the place,
build up the community, develop the software, on a piedestal of
equality. With equal respect between editors, whatever their origin,
since they have a common goal, building the encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is empowering everyone. It is breaking up barriers of
nationalities and languages, who often give more rights to one culture
than another.

That is neat. Wikipedia is neat :-)


from_name: Tim Starling

body:
Pablo De N?poli wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm new to wikipedia, and I think that it is a great project that can help to
> extend the ideas of free software to other areas, and to non technical
> people.

Welcome to Wikipedia Pablo. I don't mean to be nasty, but I feel obliged
to mention Most Common Wikipedia Faux Pas #9 "judging and trying to
change what Wikipedia is before you understand it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AMost_common_Wikipedia_faux_pas

> I don't want to start a flame war but I want to express my point of view on
> the way that articles are edited in wikipedia.
>
> I've contributed with some articles. I'm rather disapointed, though. For
> example, I've rewriten the article on Lebesgue integration in the English
> wikipedia, since I find that the article explained the tenichal difficulties
> of Riemman integral, but it does not define the notion of Lebesgue integral
> (perhaps I had to tell you that I'm a mathematician, I work at the mathematics
> department of Buenos Aires University, Argentina).
>
> After that, looking at the history of the page, I find that some rather old
> previous versions where much better, but they had been deleted since a
> user consider them "too advanced". Needless to say, Lebesgue integration is
> indeed an advanced topic in mathematics, so that any article on this subject
> is necesarilly advanced (or does not covered the topic).

So fix it. Revert it to the previous version, and argue your case on the
talk page.

> It seems to me that the model of  wikipedia is too much open, so that open
> that anyone can annonymously edit any page. That I think is to much.that at
> least one should have to register and log in in order to modify a page, one
> has to take a responsability for what is saying (specially for deleting some
> one else work). In the current model, we don't know who write what
> (even though, most civilizated wiikipedians do log in, but I think this should
> be mandatory)

You'll be pleased to know that there is a faction you can join, and
plenty of people to argue against. This has been dicussed many times
before. Suffice to say that restrictions of this nature are against Wiki
culture and are generally unpopular. The essential reason for this is
that low barriers to entry encourage contribution and hence growth, and
it is generally thought that this benefit outweighs the associated cost.

> Another idea that comes to my mind is that there could be some teams for
> especific topics, that  manage the pages in some section (say mathematics,
> geogrpahy,
> economics or whatever). This does not mean that any user from outside the team
> could not submit modifications. But without a team of core developers or
> a project leader for each section how can you assure a minimum of
> quality of wikipedia?
> (this is more or less the model in all free software projects, no project
> grants write access to cvs to everyone anonymously, say)

The concept related to this is the WikiProject, although it is
traditionally associated with content generation, not protection. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AWikiProject

Feel free to organise groups and review content, however you can't
expect such groups to carry more weight in a dispute than a new user.
Wikipedia is based around low barriers to entry, and the opinion of an
anonymous reader should be treated with as much respect as that of a
trusted user.

-- Tim Starling.


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
To sort of clarify my viewpoint on this:

I'm not advocating that we remove any of these images, unless they're
simply completely uninformative.  I'm merely requesting that we not put
them in-line, and instead have them as a link (an internal [[media:...]]
link).  Simply an accurately labeled link, not a "WARNING: Some readers
might find this offensive" link or anything like that.

Personally, I have no problem seeing these images, but I don't want to
*always* see them.  Having seen our clitoris photograph once, I don't
need to see it again if I happen to check the article again for some
information.  If, for some reason, I do wish to see it again, I can
always click on "photograph of a clitoris" and do so.  Same with
suicide-methods photographs: I think some could be informative (say, a
wrist-slitting one), but it should be possible to read the text without
seeing them every time.

This still, of course, requires some standards for what is potentially
bothersome enough to include as a link instead of as an inline
photograph, and I agree these standards should not be overly
restrictive.  But I do think they should be somewhat more restrictive
than what some others are proposing.  I'd actually be alright with nude
photographs of people inline in the [[human]] article, if done in a
scientific style "standing upright with arms at their sides" way.  But
I'd prefer close-up photographs of genitalia be placed in a link.
Basically anything a large number of people are likely to be somewhat
shocked by.

Since it came up, same goes actually with [[lung]]: a diagram of a lung
should be fine to include of course, but an actual photograph of, say, a
removed lung, or a lung in situ in a cut-open chest, or so on, is
something a lot of people don't want to see every time they read that
article.  Similarly with photos of entrails in [[intestines]], photos of
open-heart surgery in [[heart]], and so on ("click here for a photograph
of open-heart surgery").

I guess I don't see why it'd really be censorship either, since we're
just shuffling the information around, not actually removing it or even
making it hard to get.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
His edits are not OK, they express an unidentified point of view. He says
"some" think and some disagree. Who are those folks. Surely he knows.

Fred

> From: Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:44:03 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
> On 01/14/04  at 02:41 PM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> said:
>
>> His edits to [[Red Scare]], as well as his comments to me about it, make
>> it seem like:
>
>> A. Communists did nothing wrong.
>
> Under the section "Reactions to the Red Scare" in the paragraph:
>
>> Though many of the more outr? accusations of the McCarthy
>> period—such as the claim that President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
>> was a communist—now seem laughable, the opening of Soviet
>> historical archives following the collapse of the Soviet Union has
>> provided evidence for less grandiose accusations, such as the claim by
>> [[Whittaker Chambers]] that [[Alger Hiss]] worked for Soviet
>> intelligence. Similarly, reports of mass murders committed by communist
>> states including the Soviet Union under [[Josef Stalin]], China under
>> [[Mao Zedong]], and Cambodia under the [[Khmer Rouge]]—once
>> dismissed as anti-communist [[propaganda]]—are now
>> well-documented in the historical record.
>
> Lance removed the last sentence (Similarly  --> historical record), which
> I am assuming is an edit Ed finds controversial. I think after due
> consideration that Lance /may be/ right: that this doesn't belong here
> because it is a bit of subtle editorializing suggesting that perhaps the
> anti-communists /weren't/ "paranoid" after all; moreover, Khmer Rouge were
> much later the Red Scares. I am guessing that what LM thinks is that
> central issues of the Red Scare were "infilitration" of the government and
> the labor movement and so forth and not atrocities in distant lands and to
> use these matters after the fact to justify the Red Scares may be a subtle
> bit of POV. I think he has a point.
>
>> B. Anti-communism of the 1950s was "hysterical".
>
> The phrase is in question "Red Scare hysteria".  I did a Google search
> ("red scare" + "hysteria") and found more than 2,600 hits for this phrase,
> including a reference to a book entitled "Red Scare: A Study in National
> Hysteria, 1919-1920" which looks reasonably serious. I think there is a
> good case for stating it in the article as a "hysteria" whether or not we
> personally agree; it is clearly an established usage. On the Talk page,
> Mirv agreed, and mentioned other titles which refer to the "hysteria" of
> the time.
>
> In conclusion, I think his edits are ok but I think he needs to justify
> them on the Talk page. I'll leave a note on his Talk page.
>
> Ed, satisfied?
>
>
> V.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Censorship and self-censorship [Ex: French net
	censorship law]

body:
Ruimu wrote:

>    Well, erh... It's not my imagination. I listed those few topics (I may
>have missed a couple more) that are actually under legal censorship in
>France. (The law against negationism is, imho, a very awful law, one of the
>worst in this country, but a necessary one in the context.) Censorship means
>here that it is forbidden to publish a book that will be an apology of
>suicide, paedophilia, or denying the reality of some crimes against humanity
>(without having to prove anything). If you write a book stating that "Mr XY
>raped Z...", you may face a libel suit, and have to prove your allegations.
>(That's very different, as you can see.)
>
>
I understand you're likely not a lawyer, but do you (or anyone else)
know to what extent this requires *you* to be presenting the arguments,
vs. reporting on others?  For example, we *do* have articles on
Holocaust deniers, summarizing their arguments (including that infamous
"there were no Nazi gas chambers" report a few years back), and we *do*
have information on the arguments of philosophers who wrote in favor of
suicide.  We're not personally promoting these viewpoints, but to be a
reasonable encyclopedia we do have to give them a fair summary.  In the
Holocaust denier case we can fairly easily point to a lot of other
evidence that the Holocaust actually did exist, and conclude that
historians generally disagree with them, which probably covers us.  But
with suicide, we can't really reasonably conclude "these philosophers
were wrong, and suicide is bad and you shouldn't do it", since there is
no accepted consensus answer to "is suicide always bad, sometimes bad,
or never bad?"

So I guess my question is: can we still get in trouble for publishing a
neutral description of pro- and anti-suicide arguments (and those in
between), without concluding in favor of either?

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
The US domestic reaction to Communist organizing is partially based on
events in other countries, partially on fear, partially on experience with
domestic communists and partially on the desire to continue to dominate
society. To the extent it is overblown it can fairly be described as
hysteria. I have (on another website) included it as an example of social
mania.

Fred

> From: Viajero <viajero at quilombo.nl>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:23:07 +0100
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch
>
>> I am guessing that what LM thinks is that
>> central issues of the Red Scare were "infilitration" of the government
>> and the labor movement and so forth and not atrocities in distant lands
>> and to use these matters after the fact to justify the Red Scares may
>> be a subtle bit of POV. I think he has a point.
>
> After sending the my last message, I noticed that he summarized this edit
> with:
>
>> The Red Scare was a US domestic issue, some of the issues are still disputed
>
> so my analysis was correct.
>
>
> V.
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


body:
Hi Ed, please refer to the section on Lir on [[wikc]] and the conflicts he
listed under on [[Wikipedia:Protected pages]] for references to specfic
articles.

V.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: How much?

body:
Sascha Noyes a ?crit:
> On Wednesday 14 January 2004 08:49 am, Anthere wrote:
>
>>Sascha Noyes a ?crit:
>>
>>>On Tuesday 13 January 2004 03:09 pm, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>>>
>>>>There is a legitimate question about how much human nudity should
>>>>be shown in Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>In your opinion this is a legitimate question. I don't consider it
>>>legitimate because I don't consider nudity offensive. (I have previously
>>>given the example that if puritans consider exposure to nudity a bad
>>>thing for children, they have to in the same vein consider a child
>>>looking at their own unclothed body as harmful. That position is patently
>>>ridiculous.
>>
>>Patently ridiculous ?
>>An opinion is patently ridiculous ?
>
>
> Yes, that is correct. I consider the position that it is harmful to children
> to look at their nude body to be ridiculous. If you want to make an assertion
> that something is true, you must offer some evidence that supports that
> claim. Do you have any such evidence? I should like to see it. I don't
> subscribe to the wishy-washy notion of not being able to give my opinion
> about that of another simply because it is their opinion. Which is what you
> seem to be implying.
>
> Best,
> Sascha Noyes

As long as you do not write such a thing in Wikipedia without good
attribution of someone whose opinion is relevant, I have no problem with
that opinion of yours :)

(you might have not understood I was not speaking of the opinion it was
harmful or not harmful, but rather of the comment given about such a
position)

Am I clear there, I dunno...


from_name: Alex R.

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
From: "Yann Forget" <yann at forget-me.net>

> OMO the main objectives of a French subsidiary would be helping to promote
> Wikipedia and collect funds. We have already three more requests for
talks.
> And we are getting more and more interests from schools and universities.

>> --Jimbo

Yann

Such a foreign organization is more of an affiliate than a subsidiary of
Wikipedia for the purpose of assisting in the same goals as Wikipedia,
and helping to provide resources, promotion, and awareness of Wikimedia
projects.

The question of mirroring Wikipedia does raise questions dealing with
copyright, contract and extracontractual obligations (delicts in civil law
known as torts in common law) and is not necessarily related to the issue
of having international Wikipedia organizations that assist the operations
of our group (using the word group in the largest possible meaning, not
limited only to the legal implications of having a foundation that can
accept donations and support Wikipedia through various means).

Alex R. (en:user:alex756;fr:utilisateur:Alexei756)


from_name: Peter Gervai

subject: [Wikipedia-l] French net censorship law

body:
On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:05:49PM +0800, Ruimu wrote:

> > How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to
> > set up a French nonprofit?
>
> Not much, I guess, except if Wikipedia becomes a den of negationists
> (revisionist seems to be the only translation but I don't like it as any
> historian is "revising" History), suicide apologists, or paedophiles.

Maybe you're low on imagination. For example what if there's an article on a
politician which describes what he really have done, but what he does not
like to have published? (Monsieur XY member of the parliament raped his 3
daughters and the dog of the neighbour at age 12.) Or criticising (providing
alternative points of view of) political moves, like cutting countries
apart, killing people, etc?

Oh well, maybe I get it wrong. It would happen in Hungary.

Peter


from_name: KNOTT, T

subject: [WikiEN-l] Stop slandering me.

body:
Adam wrote:
>Stop slandering me.

Who has slandered you ?


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
There are other dimensions to nude images besides "offense". Consider
modesty, privacy, and chastity.

A person might not want to reveal their naked selves to others, out of
modesty. They need not be "ashamed" of their nudity; just not want to
let others see it.

Another person might feel fine about showing their nakedness to others,
provided they get to choose the others. Often people limit these
displays to a small group of intimates; in a monogamous relationship,
that group consists of one's current partner; in what is increasingly
becoming an extreme, that sole intimate partner is one's spouse (of the
opposite sex).

Even rarer, perhaps, are those who do not want to be sexually stimulated
by viewing the naked bodies of anyone other than their own spouse. I'm
really not sure how small this minority is, even in the English-speaking
West, but since I'm a member of this minority I just thought I'd mention
it; it has to do with my membership in that kooky cult I belong to.

Some people think that "salacious" images encourage an interest in sex.
They worry that too much information too early may stimulate young
people to become interested in sex at an age when they cannot channel
their interest in a healthy manner: i.e., abstaining from sex and
preparing for lifelong monogamy.

I'm really interested in two aspects of this. First, what should our
articles say about people's attitudes and beliefs about these matters?
This needs to go into articles about [[sexual morality]], [[sex
education]], etc.

Second, how should we present information and pictures in articles?
Presumably, our current audience is adults. With only 2 or 3 exceptions,
no one posting to this list has admitted to being under 21 years old.
And any kids looking for cheescake or porn can find it at other websites
in much more potent doses.

There's no question of censorship, merely of presentation. Some people
approaching a complex subject might need some simple introductory matter
before they get into the details. Likewise, some people might want to
postpone seeing really graphic images until they're ready for them.

If I click on [[felching]], because I think it's about burping (get it?
Belching?), I might not want to be assaulted with a full color picture
of someone's tongue going, um, where the sun doesn't shine. On the other
hand, I'd feel awfully disappointed if there was nothing to click on to
see it, if I had a taste for it.

Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: Delirium [mailto:delirium at rufus.d2g.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 4:21 PM
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How much?

Erik Moeller wrote:

>The fact that you compare human body parts to suicide methods and
>excrements is somewhat disturbing, but let's not get into this. Just
some
>basic cause and effect. Feces are prone to carry disease, that is why
most
>human beings are taught to avoid touching or even eating them (there
may
>also be a biological taboo that is triggered by the smell and/or taste;

>note that baby feces smell differently). Similarly, most human beings
with
>a functional brain avoid pain, as such, events that are likely to cause

>pain or death, as well as images of pain and death, are likely to
trigger
>the emotional associations that have been built through a lifetime to
>teach avoidance thereof.
>
>
This is an argument that feces is "correctly" considered offensive,
while those who consider nudity offensive are incorrect.  Such arguments

are completely irrelevant to the current discussion: it is not your (or
anyone's) place to decide whether it is "natural" to avoid pain or feces

and "unnatural" to avoid nudity.  It is a simply fact that a great many
people consider explicit close-up images of a clitoris offensive--in
fact, perhaps there are more people who consider such photos offensive
than there are who consider photos of feces offensive.  You can argue
they're wrong, but I don't think that personal viewpoint ought to
influence the encyclopedia.

In fact, I think people who consider close-up photos of a clitoris
*appropriate* for public display are probably a fairly small minority,
worldwide.

-Mark

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


from_name: Gutza

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Donor management

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>I'm looking for donor management systems software, preferably
>GNU-free, although more important to me right now is doing a good job.
>
>
>
This project might spark your interest -- never tested it, just googled
around a bit out of curiosity:
http://visibleresults.sourceforge.net/features-en.php

--Gutza


subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
I work in the biology department of a UK school. The diagram is pretty standard stuff and is likely to be studied in year 7, 8 or 9 (aged 11 -14)
The photo OTOH is more problematic. I've never seen a semi erect penis in a UK school textbook. However photos of flaccid penises are to be found (and are the source of much giggling among the kids.

, -----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Wales [mailto:jwales at bomis.com]
Sent: 14 January 2004 16:45
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How much?

As is well known, I'm somewhat conservative about what I think we
ought to show in Wikipedia.  The bounds of good taste are very
important.

Having said that, I think that the current article and diagram/photo
are not problematic.  This is very different from the 'clitoris'
picture (don't know the current status on that one), which looked
"like porn" to me -- in poor taste.

The diagrams and photo in this case are very "textbook" looking.

As to whether this sort of thing should go into a version of Wikipedia
intended for distribution to schools is perhaps a different matter,
and one that we will have to address specifically at some point in the
future.

--Jimbo

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subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
I'm sorry to have to tell you this Ed, but penises are _not_ capable of endless growth.

Theresa


body:
I reverted the [[Easter Bradford]] article to the (Revision as of 11:00,
15 Oct 2002), which is credited to user:Easterbradford.

What's this all about? And why no discussion first?

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:LanceMurdoch

body:
Viajero wrote a lot of stuff, ending with:

> In conclusion, I think his edits are ok but I think
> he needs to justify them on the Talk page. I'll leave
> a note on his Talk page.
>
> Ed, satisfied?

Yes, thank you. Sorry about my hysterical ravings. You know how it is,
one man's (wiki)terrorist is another man's (wiki)freedom-fighter.

Thus illustrating that when a contributor (like me!) is too close to an
issue, they unaccountably lose the ability to distinguish neutral
writing ABOUT a POV from writing which ASSUMES a POV.

Thanks also to Fred for initially calming me down.

Cousin Eddie


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: French net censorship law

body:
Forward of a mail I received today

---------

De la part de http://www.ovh.net

Bonjour ? tous,

Une loi concernant chaque citoyen utilisant internet a ?t? adopt?e en
deuxi?me lecture par l'Assembl?e Nationale et doit ?tre examin?e en
deuxi?me lecture par le S?nat le mois prochain
(http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/economie_numerique.asp et
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/040113/1/3l7js.html )

Cette loi, porte atteinte directement ? la vie priv?e, elle pr?voit la
co-responsabilit? :

1)- de l'h?bergeur de sites internet et de l'?diteur de sites

2)- de l'achemineur de mails et de vous, ?metteur de mail

Ainsi cette loi conduira - par peurs (de sanctions, de p?nalit?s, de
pertes de conformit?s,..) - l'h?bergeur ? filtrer ? priori le contenu
qu'il h?berge, c'est ? dire sans d?cision de juge ni aucune autre
d?cision. Aussi bien pour les sites que pour vos email.

Cette loi conduira l'h?bergeur ? effacer le contenu qu'il jugera pas bon
(pas bon d?pendra d'?l?ments tr?s subjectifs ?videmment).

C'est comme si l'imprimeur ou le libraire ?tait responsable du contenu
du journal que vous achetez ou le facteur co-responsable de vos ?crits!

Si la loi passe au S?nat, s'en est fini de la libre circulation des
id?es et des pens?es, fini de la vie priv?e.

Ce sera la porte ouverte ?:

- donner le pouvoir aux soci?t?s priv?es

- l?galiser le viol de la vie priv?e, de la correspondance

Tous les h?bergeurs vont devoir arr?ter des sites, modifier
unilat?ralement les contrats, d?tenir le pouvoir d'effacer n'importe
laquelle page d'un site, n'importe lequel de vos email sans pr?avis,
sans accord et ? n'importe lequel moment ou de suspendre l'h?bergement
sans pr?avis.

Certains h?bergeurs estiment cette loi absurde car les conduisant ?:

- mettre en place des robots pour d?tecter sur vos mails et les sites
des mots (pourquoi pas comme mp3, divx, libert?, critique, amour,
d?veloppement personnel, alternatif, etc,...)  qui iront effacer la page
internet ou le mail imm?diatement (toujours sans pr?avis ni
explication). D'autres mots pourront ?tre ajout?s sur la liste.
Evidemment certains h?bergeurs - non sans ironie- r?fl?chissent sur la
solution o? le mail ou le site utilise le chinois ou une autre langue
qu'on ne connait pas forcement.

- mettre en place des rapports syst?matiques -tenue ? disposition de la
justice- entre les administrateurs des soci?t?s d'h?bergement et les
administrateurs de sites, prouvant que l'h?bergeur ? fait son travail de
filtrage et effac? ce qui pourrait d?clencher une proc?dure en justice.

Pour les dix grands fournisseurs d'acc?s participant ? une conf?rence de
presse, cette mesure, qui restait jusqu'? pr?sent le privil?ge d'Etats
peu d?mocratiques comme la Birmanie, la Chine ou l'Iran, est inefficace
et entra?nera des co?ts exorbitants.

Les h?bergeurs pensent que le moment est venu d'expliquer au S?nat le
probl?me. Sinon bienvenue dans le monde de parano o? l'h?bergeur est le
juge et efface le contenu de vos sites et mails pour ?viter les
poursuites judiciaires et les proc?s.

Il reste le S?nat et la protestation populaire pour ?viter qu'une loi
b?illonne nos libert?s fondamentales.

Votre libert? est entre vos mains !


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] How much?

body:
Jimmy-
> The goal of our articles is to be informative, not offensive.  It
> turns out that in most cases (penis, for example) the ways of
> presenting the content that are offensive are also lacking in terms of
> informativeness.  A photo "in the style of" pornography takes away
> from our mission of informativeness, while a photo "in the style of" a
> medical text comports with that mission.

It's simply not true that a photo of a penis or vagina is not informative.
Ironically, it is particularly informative in families where the parents
would likely consider it offensive. It helps people to actually identify
sexual organs and to understand the wide range in their looks and sizes
(many people are anxious to find out whether they are "normal"). Every sex
education book that is worth its name contains pictures of genitalia.

I would also like to point out that there is near consensus for inclusion
of links, and a slim majority for inclusion of photos (where the minority
typically argues that not they, but mysterious "other people" might be
offended).

Regards,

Erik


body:
Jimbo forwarded to Wikien-l what looks like an "official" takedown
notice for the article about Easter Bradford -- a man who has been, from
time to time, a contributor to Wikipedia.

See:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-January/009529.html

I'm not sure what we should do. If I still had ssh software on my PC, I
would probably delete the pages from the database (just to be safe).

On the other hand, it might be a good idea to back them up them
somewhere, accessible only to the head developer, in case the notice is
either (a) faked; or (b) not something we have to comply with, even if
it's real.

Cautiously,

Ed Poor