from_name: Nathan J. Yoder

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: (fwd) bishonen exercises abuse of admin power

body:
> Instead of using your point of view to identify
> reputable resources which expressed it or diverged from it, you
> declared that other points of view were nonsense and attempted to
> structure articles accordingly.

This is just plain ridiculous, I cited *very extensive* resources on
the Bisexuality article from experts, alternative studies and even
direct quotes from the Kinsey institute.

I'll note that you didn't provide a single link for that 'cite your
sources' nonsense, because there is no place where I should have cited
a source where I didn't.

What makes this even crazier is that I had contested content for which
the parties involved in my case took forever to cite a source for and
even then the best they could come up with was some random magazine
publication and a random website, not anything written by a historian
or other relevent authority figure.  They couldn't even produce a
single book written on the stuff related to Bisexuality, what does
that tell you?

> Rather than familiarizing yourself
> with Wikipedia policy about citing sources, you decided that you
> would judge for yourself whether what a source said was true and
> based on your own judgement decide whether or not the source could be
> cited.

I'm extremely familiar with the Wikipedia policy about citing sources
and if you're going to make this claim, you better damn well provide
examples (NONE were provided in my case).  The "cite your sources"
thing was in response to just the gender article, for which I had
removed/rephrased, not added to like the "finding of fact" incorrectly
suggested.  The fact that you even added that, knowing the other arbs
wouldn't bother to check, shows that you're intent on using any lie
possible to make the case against me.

The issue with the gender article had _nothing_ to do with citing
sources and I was not even contesting any sources given anyway (they
didn't give any since it wasn't relevent).  What's really odd is that
you seem to have added the part of my case that recognizes that it's
the obligation of the person who added something to provide a source,
not the remover and yet you deliberately ignored that policy.  These
are the reasons for my modifications:

1.  The sentence was incoherent and meaning was unclear.  (No cite
necessary)
2.  Various POV statements that contributed nothing to the article
(Such as calling the change of the usage of 'gender'
dissapointing--obviously POV).
3.  A factually incorrect statement calling a usage of gender
'incorrect' even though a general consensus had already been reached,
with evidence provided by others (e.g. the dictionary) that it's a
perfeclty valid usage.  No sources contesting the dictionary
definition, which is common usage, were provided.
4.  Etymology which I removed because it was a) inappropriate for the
article as I explained (and you didn't read and b) incorrect (source
provided from an etymology website).

In summary, you are inventing claims here that not even the parties of
my case made.  Worst of all, the RfA for me didn't provide a single
example of me supposedly violating the Wikipedia:cite your sources
page.  Really, what kind of decision is made with ZERO EVIDENCE?

>  What is much worse, you show absolutely no insight into the
> issues that were involved, and we can look forward to nothing but
> more trouble.

Really?  On what basis are you making that judgement?  What edits have
 I made that indicated anything like that?  The removal of POV
 content?  The mountains of proof I prevented that Kinsey statistics
 were not valid?  You make a lot of accusations with NO evidence.

>  It comes down to this: Wikipedia is not a forum or
> platform for advocacy. Many other internet venues exist for that, but
> Wikipedia is and ought to be a frustrating, even punishing
> environment if that is what you are here for.

What exactly was I advocating?  Please, point to a single example
where I was putting POV into an article--oh wait, you can't!--because
I never did it.  I wasn't even accused of POV pushing, I was accused
of perseonal attacks.  You should really take a look at yourself when
you're the only one making a claim and you can't provide an ounce of
evidence for it.

You should tell that to AlexR and Axon who are
massive POV pushers. They used some the most absurd logically
fallacious arguments to defend their edits and even suggested that
calling usage of the term gender to mean sex dissapointing wasn't POV.
Someone who can't identify obvious POV like that shouldn't be editing
articles.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> We could add some examples to [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]. We
> had a big talk here about "moron." If you want trouble with someone
> who is little slow, just call em a moron and see what it gets you.
> Nazi is a little easier case, but we still have Wikipedia users who
> think they can throw the word around and make it stick, see for
> example the current Arbitration case
> [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Mlorrey/

I never called anyone a moron or anything similar though, why are you
even using that as an example?  It seems you're only intent on
misleading everyone into thinking I did things that I didn't.

> Proposed_decision#Advocacy_by_Mlorrey]]. Hypocrite is a bit more
> difficult -- how do you say nicely that an editor is applying one
> standard to himself and another to others. I guess you have to spell
> out the behavior, giving examples. Maybe some talk about how to do
> that on Wikipedia:No personal attacks, about adequately communicating
> about what is bothering you rather than resorting to invidious labels.

There's no policy on Wikipedia saying you have to be Mr. Nice Guy.
Whenever I make an accusation like hypocrite, I always explain why I'm
giving that accusation.  So this doesn't make any sense at all, you're
saying I'm allowed to do it with explanation, but that's exactly what
I was banned for doing.

So let me get this straight about the real policy: if you're in favor
with the admins and you make an accusation of hypocrisy with an
accusation, it's ok, but if you're not, you get banned.  Gotcha.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
Begin forwarded message:

> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> Date: July 2, 2005 9:45:36 AM MDT
> To: "Nathan J. Yoder" <njyoder at energon.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs
>
>
>
> On Jul 2, 2005, at 8:32 AM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote:
>
>>> "You are a hypocrite" is a personal attack. "You seem to apply a
>>> lenient standard to yourself and a strict standard to others" is a
>>> description of behavior, particularly if you cite examples.
>>>
>>
>> Those mean the exact same thing!  You just gave the definition of a
>> hypocrite.  You're making a meaningless distinction here and I
>> seriously doubt you follow your own logic.  Are you saying you've
>> never called someone a troll or accused them of using sock puppets?
>> Can you honestly say that you've been using a very long-winded,
>> politically correct version of a troll accusation?
>>
>> And I do give examples, but you seem to keep ignoring that repeatedly
>> because it suits you to ignore it.
>>
>> You REALLY do not have the authority to make an arbitrary distinction
>> like that as it's outlined in *zero* policies.
>
> What it says, at [[Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.27t_do_it]]
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.
> 27t_do_it) is "Comment on content, not on the contributor." Let's
> suppose you are trying to add content and someone is reverting it
> on the basis that it is "personal research" "POV" "unsourced" or
> whatever. You look at their edits and find they are doing the same
> thing or a number of other things equally bad and are vigorously
> defending their actions behind a smokescreen of righteousness. This
> is all publicly visible on Wikipedia and can be demonstrated by
> diffs. Going to a person's talk page or the talk page of an article
> and discussing this double standard is not a personal attack. A
> bald statement that someone is a "hypocrite" is.
>
> I have sinned and doubtless will sin again; however, I think I'm
> doing better; partly because looking at all the ways people get it
> wrong and serving as a spokesman for Wikipedia policies does get me
> to thinking about my own behavior. When you find yourself about to
> do something you have banned someone for you can sometimes pay
> enough attention that you don't do it.
>
> As to authority, doubtless Wikipedia policies can be expressed more
> clearly, doubtless decisions of the Arbitration Committee could be
> both plainer and more comprehensive, but Jimbo and through him the
> Arbitration Committee do have authority to make reasonable
> decisions. Please keep in mind that you are only being limited in
> the range of voluntary work you chose to do on a particular website.
>
> This politically correct business is worth a comment. If I succeed
> in following Wikipedia policy or correctly restating it I am in
> some sense "correct" in that I have followed the "party line." That
> is what I am supposed to do. I am not in a state of sin because I
> describe in detail behavior which could be summarized as an
> invidious characterization.
>
> Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> We could start by banning words like "hypocrite", "moron" and "nazi"
> when describing other wikipedians (regardless of how true these could
> be as Timwi said). It's the loaded words that make up a majority of
> personal attacks.

How is hypocrite a "loaded word"?  That's totally ridiculous to start
banning words without context and goes against the basic principles of
 Wikipedia.  You better start banning terms like 'troll' and 'sock
 puppet' too, since those are all "personal attacks" too.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV

body:
> As truly informative (and useful in arguments) as it is, isn't
> [[Category:Logical fallacies]] a little non-NPOV too, if people use them
> everyday, and believe in their truth?

If they aren't NPOV, you can correct them.  There are generic examples
you can make that convey the point clearly without treading on any
ground that would involve something like mocking a religion
indirectly.

I haven't reviewed the logical fallacies category extensively, but
from what I've seen, they've identified legitimate logical fallacies,
ones that are widely recognized in literature about logical fallacies.
 Now I think a lot of the articles are poorly written, but they are
 generally on the mark about the logical fallacies.

If you could provide specific examples of what you consider POV within
a logical fallacy article, I'd like to see them.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
On Jul 2, 2005, at 8:01 AM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote:

> Also, there is no  Wikipedia policy against hurting peoples' feelings.

There is a policy: [[Wikipedia:Civility]].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility

It is considered part a "key policy:" "Respect other users."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#Key_policies

It is enforced:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#How_are_policies_enforced.3F

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> 99% of people have an intuitive feel for what constitutes a personal
> attack; they have the empathy to understand that certain remarks can
> hurt another person, even when the objective contents of the statement
> are true (e.g. "you're a hypocrite"). [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> assumes this of the reader.

Strange then that 99% of the people on the talk page for "no personal
attacks" don't actually understand it.  There is no conensus on it as
you're suggesting, so your argument holds no water.

Also, there is no  Wikipedia policy against hurting peoples' feelings.
 The policy is against personal attacks only, whether or not it hurts
 someone's feelings is entirely irrelevent.  You might have a point if
 you were arguing from Wikipedia policy rather than your personal
 feelings.

 Now following your premise, we can *never* criticize another
 Wikipedian again without using totally politically correct,
 walking-on-eggshells language.  You couldn't accuse someone of being
 a troll, you'd have to say something like "well, it seems to me like
 you're just trying to get people riled up, I may be wrong and I
 apologize if I do, but it seems like that and you should please stop
 doing this kind of behavior that seems like it" instead of just
 saying "you're a troll."

> Nathan appears to belong to the 1% of people who have a low EQ
> (empathisation quotient) which enables him to comment in an insulting
> way without realising the effect it has on other people, solemnly
> believing that he's "only telling the truth". Most of the abusive
> ranters I see on this list are like that.

Your accusation of me being abusive and having a low EQ hurts my
feelings.  Ooops, I guess that puts you in that 1% too!  Now this is a
very good example of hypocrisy, he just got done saying that "personal
attacks" (as in applying a label to someone's behavior) is wrong, then
just proceeded to do it himself right now!

Oh wait, did I hurt your feelings in describing your behavior that
hurt my feelings?  Who do we punish in a case like this?!  What a
conundrum!

> Wikipedia is one of those online communities that tend to attract these
> kinds of people, so the percentage of them is higher here than in the
> general population. Unfortunately, even, these kinds of people tend to
> be more dedicated editors, since high-EQ people tend to have more of a
> real life.

Wow, you just attacked me by saying I don't have a life, where does
the hypocrisy end?  *clap clap clap*  I applaud you on making yourself
look so bad.

I'd also like to note that it's actually quite the opposite, the
Wikipedians who are the whiniest are the ones who spend the most time
editing.  In fact, that is the typical accusation--that "meany heads"
like me rarely edit by comparison.

> I don't know how many Wikipedians have thought about this issue in the
> past, but we will have to come to some sort of agreement on whether to
> (a) require a minimum EQ, thereby outright excluding a certain set of
> people, or (b) actually attempt to define "personal attack".

(a)  You don't meet that requirement (pot and kettle situation).
(b)  Watch this get put on the article without having a vote.

> Once you start to try defining "personal attack", you'll begin to
> realise how hard it is; then maybe you'll begin to understand how hard
> it must be for someone who doesn't have the intuitive ability to
> classify remarks as "personal attacks".

Well you don't seem to have an intuitive ability to do it either,
since you just engaged in several "personal attacks" against me.  You
even proceded to call the many people on the "no personal attacks"
talk page low EQ having, abusive people for wanting a definition.

Apparently, Timwi is one of the great enlightened ones who knows
better than those obviously inferior people on the talk page who agree
with me that it's not clear what constitutes a personal attack.
Clearly, this is something that is TOTALLY obvious if you're not a
bad, abusive person (I'm still crying over that personal attack
btw--are you going to apologize?).

In any case, if you're relying on "intuition" it means that you're
probably not relying on logic, which is a very, VERY bad thing when
you're talking about a policy.  If a policy can't be based on logic,
then it shouldn't exist.  That said, it IS possible to define it if
you are an objective thinkier with a high IQ (wait, is it a personal
attack for me to say you ahve a low IQ, but not one for you to say I
have a low EQ?).

I also love your assumption that personal attacks should be defined in
terms of how hurt people's feelings are rather than how
counter-productive they are to Wikipedia.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: Servien Ilaino

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage

body:
Hi,

I requested Dutch-Low Saxon a few weeks ago and I kind of made my own
mainpage for Wikipedia (if it ever gets created that is...) but anyway...
for people who like to check it out here is the link:
http://nds.wikipedia.org/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde

Please post any suggestions and stuff, like to read some comments.

Question: On Wikipedia-L posts are mostly grouped together, but how do
you do that? (messages below each other like on wikipedia ": and :: and
:::" to show those are the replies. I hope you kind of understand it
because I don't really know how to explain it myself haha.)

Servien Ilaino!

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm


subject: [WikiEN-l] more active censorship

body:
I'm still having several of my important messages being dropped to
this mailing list with no explanation.  One was a refutation of Ambi's
silly argument that the auto-reblock bug was an intentional feature
(it's definitely not--even bishonen thought it didn't function that
way) and the other was a response to someone saying admins have no
real power.

So I guess new rules are:

1) No pointing out that an admin (especially an arbitrator) is dead
wrong about an administrative function.  Administrators are allowed to
spread misinformation at will.

2) No suggesting that the current system is less than perfect and that
admins aren't actually harmless.

I guess they just don't like valid criticism.  They'll let idiots go
on asinine, insulting tirades soley because they want the idiots to
make themselves look bad, but when a dissenter presents valid
criticism, they just can't take it.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


body:
Sorry it's suppose to be
http://nds.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Servien Ilaino"
  To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
  Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Dutch-Low Saxon test-mainpage
  Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 10:11:47 -0500

  >
  > Hi,
  >
  > I requested Dutch-Low Saxon a few weeks ago and I kind of made my
  own
  > mainpage for Wikipedia (if it ever gets created that is...) but
  anyway...
  > for people who like to check it out here is the link:
  > http://nds.wikipedia.org/Bruker:Servien/Heufdbladsyde
  >
  > Please post any suggestions and stuff, like to read some comments.
  >
  > Question: On Wikipedia-L posts are mostly grouped together, but how
  do
  > you do that? (messages below each other like on wikipedia ": and ::
  and
  > :::" to show those are the replies. I hope you kind of understand
  it
  > because I don't really know how to explain it myself haha.)
  >
  > Servien Ilaino!
  >
  > --
  > ___________________________________________________________
  > Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
  > http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
  >
  > _______________________________________________
  > Wikipedia-l mailing list
  > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
  > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> "You are a hypocrite" is a personal attack. "You seem to apply a
> lenient standard to yourself and a strict standard to others" is a
> description of behavior, particularly if you cite examples.

Those mean the exact same thing!  You just gave the definition of a
hypocrite.  You're making a meaningless distinction here and I
seriously doubt you follow your own logic.  Are you saying you've
never called someone a troll or accused them of using sock puppets?
Can you honestly say that you've been using a very long-winded,
politically correct version of a troll accusation?

And I do give examples, but you seem to keep ignoring that repeatedly
because it suits you to ignore it.

You REALLY do not have the authority to make an arbitrary distinction
like that as it's outlined in *zero* policies.

>  There are
> several policies which do require you to be Mr. Nice Guy in addition
> to general exhortations about Wikiipedia:Wikilove: Wikipedia:No
> personal attacks and Wikipedia:Civility.

...such as?  Give an example if you're going to make a claim.  Oh
wait, you can't give examples when you're *wrong* :-/

> All the
> rest of Wikipedia is open to you including all the policy
> discussions.

Wrong, users who are well-liked and admins/arbitrators are not subject
to this rule.  David Gerard himself, under that silly logic,
personally attacked me in my very own injunction against personal
attacks.  Who held him responsible?

>  You are subject to a personal attack parole for one
> year. Just don't do it. You are by no means done here.

The only possible way for me to do it would be to either not
contribute or just not call people out on bad behavior, since you guys
obviously are not enforcing on personal attacks, but rather content
and arguments you don't like..

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


from_name: Rob

subject: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power

body:
Calling someone a "fascist hag" is not a crime either,
but it is obnoxious namecalling that should not belong
on this list.  We shouldn't tolerate such trollish
behavior in the name of "dissent".

Geoffrey Bell truetheatertype at gmail.com:

Wait wait wait...I haven't been watching this list
like a hawk, and maybe
we're talking about two different people, but I don't
see any trolls, only a
dissenter. And dissent is not a crime, of course.

On 7/1/05, Rob <gamaliel8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Can we please remove the anonymous troll from this
list?
>

____________________________________________________
Yahoo! Sports
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com


subject:
[WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific
	POV

body:
> Most?  I would say that the creationists are a significant minority; I
> don't believe that they're a majority, at least not yet.

About 40% believe it, but the opinion of the general population isn't
relevent when it comes to scientific matters--it's the opinion of the
relevent parts of the scientific community that matter.

I should also note I love timwi's qualifier of "most" which isn't
based on actual statistics and is just a blatant attempt at America
bashing deeply hurts my feelings (see Wikipedia:No personal
attacks).

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] e-mails to wikien-l being dropped

body:
> Yep. People's patience has run out with noise.

How convenient and totally not childish if you.  After all, it's not
like people can just scroll past messages that they don't like.  Valid
criticism must be censored at all costs regardless of how on-topic
they are!

I'm beginning to seriously wonder how you became an arbitrator in the
first place, since you don't even follow Wikipedia policies and you're
obviously intent on silencing dissenters.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


body:
Or instead, we could give the trolls what they
actually deserve and kick them off the list, that way
we don't have the list overwhelmed with troll posts
that we have to pick through to get to the actual
discussions here.  Turning the other cheek only goes
so far.

Dan Grey dangrey at gmail.com:

Why don't people just give trolls what they deserve?

Do us all a favour, and when people post here only
looking for
trouble, give them what they deserve - the silent
treatment.

Dan

On 02/07/05, Rob <gamaliel8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Calling someone a "fascist hag" is not a crime
either,
> but it is obnoxious namecalling that should not
belong
> on this list.  We shouldn't tolerate such trollish
> behavior in the name of "dissent".
>
> Geoffrey Bell truetheatertype at gmail.com:
>
> Wait wait wait...I haven't been watching this list
> like a hawk, and maybe
> we're talking about two different people, but I
don't
> see any trolls, only a
> dissenter. And dissent is not a crime, of course.
>
> On 7/1/05, Rob <gamaliel8 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Can we please remove the anonymous troll from this
> list?
> >
>

--- wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> Send WikiEN-l mailing list submissions to
> 	wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web,
> visit
> 	http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body
> 'help' to
> 	wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	wikien-l-owner at Wikipedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it
> is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of WikiEN-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power (David
> Gerard)
>    2. Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs
> (Fred Bauder)
>    3. Live 8 and the In the news box (Dan Grey)
>    4. Re: Personal attacks and low EQs (Fred Bauder)
>    5. Re: SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin Power (Sean
> Barrett)
>    6. Re: Personal attacks and low EQs (Jerome
> Jamnicky)
>    7. Re: Personal attacks and low EQs (Timwi)
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 01:37:06 +1000
> From: fun at thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] SHOWCASING Abuses of Admin
> Power
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <20050702153706.GH7309 at thingy.apana.org.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
> I have a dream ... of a wikien-l that isn't the
> [[Thomas Crapper]] Memorial
> Sewer for en:. One that has something vaguely to do
> with writing an
> encyclopedia.
>
> New members of the list now start moderated. This is
> a major PITA for your
> power-crazed fascist list admins (to be addressed
> henceforth as Dear
> Leader), but that's the problem with persistent
> trolling.
>
>
> - d.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 09:46:52 -0600
> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> Subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low
> EQs
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <79149CF7-ADE9-4123-802E-EAB4A51A1854 at ctelco.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=US-ASCII;
> delsp=yes;	format=flowed
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
> > Date: July 2, 2005 9:45:36 AM MDT
> > To: "Nathan J. Yoder" <njyoder at energon.org>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low
> EQs
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jul 2, 2005, at 8:32 AM, Nathan J. Yoder wrote:
> >
> >>> "You are a hypocrite" is a personal attack. "You
> seem to apply a
> >>> lenient standard to yourself and a strict
> standard to others" is a
> >>> description of behavior, particularly if you
> cite examples.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Those mean the exact same thing!  You just gave
> the definition of a
> >> hypocrite.  You're making a meaningless
> distinction here and I
> >> seriously doubt you follow your own logic.  Are
> you saying you've
> >> never called someone a troll or accused them of
> using sock puppets?
> >> Can you honestly say that you've been using a
> very long-winded,
> >> politically correct version of a troll
> accusation?
> >>
> >> And I do give examples, but you seem to keep
> ignoring that repeatedly
> >> because it suits you to ignore it.
> >>
> >> You REALLY do not have the authority to make an
> arbitrary distinction
> >> like that as it's outlined in *zero* policies.
> >
> > What it says, at
> [[Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.27t_do_it]]
> >
>
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.
>
> > 27t_do_it) is "Comment on content, not on the
> contributor." Let's
> > suppose you are trying to add content and someone
> is reverting it
> > on the basis that it is "personal research" "POV"
> "unsourced" or
> > whatever. You look at their edits and find they
> are doing the same
> > thing or a number of other things equally bad and
> are vigorously
> > defending their actions behind a smokescreen of
> righteousness. This
> > is all publicly visible on Wikipedia and can be
> demonstrated by
> > diffs. Going to a person's talk page or the talk
> page of an article
> > and discussing this double standard is not a
> personal attack. A
> > bald statement that someone is a "hypocrite" is.
> >
> > I have sinned and doubtless will sin again;
> however, I think I'm
> > doing better; partly because looking at all the
> ways people get it
> > wrong and serving as a spokesman for Wikipedia
> policies does get me
> > to thinking about my own behavior. When you find
> yourself about to
> > do something you have banned someone for you can
> sometimes pay
> > enough attention that you don't do it.
> >
> > As to authority, doubtless Wikipedia policies can
> be expressed more
> > clearly, doubtless decisions of the Arbitration
> Committee could be
> > both plainer and more comprehensive, but Jimbo and
> through him the
> > Arbitration Committee do have authority to make
> reasonable
> > decisions. Please keep in mind that you are only
> being limited in
> > the range of voluntary work you chose to do on a
> particular website.
> >
> > This politically correct business is worth a
> comment. If I succeed
> > in following Wikipedia policy or correctly
> restating it I am in
> > some sense "correct" in that I have followed the
> "party line." That
> > is what I am supposed to do. I am not in a state
> of sin because I
> > describe in detail behavior which could be
> summarized as an
> > invidious characterization.
> >
> > Fred
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2005 16:48:58 +0100
> From: Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com>
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Live 8 and the In the news box
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <cfe1dfe1050702084871d548ce at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> It would be nice if any admins reading this could
> update the In the news box:
>
=== message truncated ===

__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail
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subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> [[Wikipedia:Civility]]

That rule is far too broad and ambiguous to be meaningful.  If were
are to interpt it in the way that you're saying, then practically
anything could be considered uncivil, since disagreements over
anything vaguely controversial will lead to 'conflict' and 'stress'
making this a hand-holding, coddling policy that no one, yourself
included, actually follows.

Didn't you recently make an e-mail to this list that you didn't care
if people were offended by certain categorizations on wikipedia and
that they should suck it up?  That seems like a blatant violation of
this silly interpretation of civility which you change the meaning of
to suit you.  It's clear that you don't think this is a hand-holding
encyclopedia based on other statements, but just for the purpose of
justifying your wrongful ban you're changing that stance.

> The rules are explicitly different for Nathan J. Yoder; that's what a
> short-leash personal attack parole, such as you've been put on, means.  Any
> admin feels you've made a personal attack, *ZAP*. Having run out of words,
> we've had to resort to [[B. F. Skinner]] and the lessons of Professor
> Cattleprod.

Run out of what words?  This is the first time you've actually
responded to my concerns and even then you still haven't address them.
You *still* haven't defined what a personal attack is and I've already
proven your absurd "all reasonable people know what it is" argument to
be wrong as evidenced by the many people on the talk page who agree
with me that it's not clear.

> If you really don't want the choke chain to bite, I strongly suggest doing
> your best not to say anything that could *conceivably* be taken as a
> personal attack, since you don't have much of a feel for what is and isn't.

You don't seem to either, since you've personally attacked me.  So why
should an arbitrator who can't judge themselves using their own
criteria be able to do it?

This doesn't make sense anyway, it's just "because we say so" logic

> You're quite capable of writing sensible, well thought-out emails that
> contribute quality to the discussion, you sent one today and one yesterday.
> This is the only reason you haven't just been kicked off.

Not when someone is being a hypocrite, liar or otherwise POV pushing.
Dealing with someone like that lends itself to "conflict" and "stress"
no matter what, but you are deliberately ignoring that.  Your behavior
is quite obnoxious here (just mirroring one of your
non-personal-attacks back at you).

"This is the only reason you haven't just been kicked off" is
ridiculous and only goes further to show how biased you are.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


from_name: Wouter Steenbeek

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
once more: Do you really want those vandal bot operators to go on at their
own will and make the whole project crush? Yes or no?

Oh my God, with fools like those, we MUST return to the Nupedia structure
sooner or later!
Wouter

_________________________________________________________________
Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Walter van Kalken

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
I do not know what Brion did, but hail to him. He solved it for now. I
hope we will find a permanent solution before it happens again.
Captcha's for open proxies seem like the way to go for me personally.
Otherwise a system of emailnotification for open proxies?

If it is technically feasible you could even make it such a way that the
first 10 edits from an open proxy need to b spaced one minute apart.
That way a vandalbot would not be able to wreak havoc instantly.

Waerth/Walter


list: wikitech-l

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: How to get whitelisted ? (Re: Blocked yet AGAIN!)

body:
Walter Vermeir wrote:
> Op 30 jun 2005 07:26 (vervalt op indefinite) blokkeerde Gebruiker::
> 69.90.135.67 (bijdragen) (de-blokkeer) (Auto-added for persistent
> vandalism; possible open proxy.)
>
>
> Auto-blocks done by an user "User:" whit the reason "(Auto-added for
> persistent vandalism; possible open proxy.)"
>
> What system is this? The return of [[User:Proxyblocker]] ?

Those are mass blocks I manually put in place for specific IP addresses
used by a repetitive vandal who hits multiple wikis.

The IPs he uses are not home ISPs, but mostly web and mail servers at
small-to-medium hosting providers which appear to have been cracked and
have some sort of proxy available on them.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
>Thanks for calling me a fool.
WHAT THE HELL!!!

I talk about those vandals!
Wouter
>_______________________________________________
>Wikipedia-l mailing list
>Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

_________________________________________________________________
Altijd in contact met de kleinkinderen: MSN Messenger
http://messenger.msn.nl/


from_name: Timwi

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
David Gerard wrote:

> [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]

I've taken a look at the page and I quite agree with Nathan that it
fails to define what a personal attack is.

99% of people have an intuitive feel for what constitutes a personal
attack; they have the empathy to understand that certain remarks can
hurt another person, even when the objective contents of the statement
are true (e.g. "you're a hypocrite"). [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
assumes this of the reader.

Nathan appears to belong to the 1% of people who have a low EQ
(empathisation quotient) which enables him to comment in an insulting
way without realising the effect it has on other people, solemnly
believing that he's "only telling the truth". Most of the abusive
ranters I see on this list are like that. It is no surprise to me that
such a person strongly feels that a block for something they cannot
define is highly unjust, and that they feel they are treated quite
unfairly given they're telling their version of the truth.

Wikipedia is one of those online communities that tend to attract these
kinds of people, so the percentage of them is higher here than in the
general population. Unfortunately, even, these kinds of people tend to
be more dedicated editors, since high-EQ people tend to have more of a
real life.

I don't know how many Wikipedians have thought about this issue in the
past, but we will have to come to some sort of agreement on whether to
(a) require a minimum EQ, thereby outright excluding a certain set of
people, or (b) actually attempt to define "personal attack".

Once you start to try defining "personal attack", you'll begin to
realise how hard it is; then maybe you'll begin to understand how hard
it must be for someone who doesn't have the intuitive ability to
classify remarks as "personal attacks".

Timwi


body:
> What it says, at [[Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.27t_do_it]]
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#Don.
> 27t_do_it) is "Comment on content, not on the contributor."

Are you seriously now suggesting that anything that commenting on
the contributor automatically amounts to a personal attack?  Ignoring
for a moment that that would make it impossible to address someone's
bad behavior (which clearly isn't banned), you already gave an example
of something which describes someone's behavior that you don't
consider a personal attack.

This would have to be the very first time I've ever heard anyone
suggest that that's either de jure or even de facto policy.

> Going to a person's talk page or the talk page of an article
> and discussing this double standard is not a personal attack. A
> bald statement that someone is a "hypocrite" is.

Are you kidding me?  Do you realize how extremely rare that kind of
extreme politically correct diplomacy is employed, even with admins?
Even those who filed the RfA against me critcized my behavior on
article talk pages.  Admins do this on a regular basis and they don't
even make the slightest attempt to hide it.

If I find a dozen examples of an admin doing in a month, will you
remove their admin status or punish them in some way?  That seems
doubtful as this is something they regularly do and is considered to
be ok by most.

It's also silly to make such a black and white distinction between
behavior and argumentation as they are directly tied together.
Someone using hypocritical logic to defend their POV and being a
hypocrite are one in the same, making it both argumentative and
behaviora.

> I have sinned and doubtless will sin again; however, I think I'm
> doing better; partly because looking at all the ways people get it
> wrong and serving as a spokesman for Wikipedia policies does get me
> to thinking about my own behavior. When you find yourself about to
> do something you have banned someone for you can sometimes pay
> enough attention that you don't do it.

Yeah and there's no accountability for that.  If anyone gives an
example of an admin doing it, they're just told to get over it.  I
could find numerous examples of any given admin critcizing behavionr
outside of user talk pages, but it would be shrugged off in the same
regard.  It's a MASSIVE double standard.

> There is a policy: [[Wikipedia:Civility]].
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility

You said 'in addition to' Wikipedia:Civility.  In any case, I already
addressed this in a message to David Gerard.  The policy is far, far
too broad to be enforceable.  According to Wikipedia:Civility, you are
not allowed to do anything which causes stress or conflict, which are
unavoidable on any remotely controversial article and even on many
non-controversial articles due to disagreement about how it should be
written.

By POV pushing and engaing in constant strawman arguments, the parties
in my dispute were causing conflict and stress.  Of course, they
aren't reprimanded for that.

> It is considered part a "key policy:" "Respect other users."

Yes, and that's entirely subjective.  I consider AlexR's and Axon's
constant strawman arguments against me and refusal to read/address
parts of my argument extremely disrespectful.  I also consider you
LYING about me not citing sources where needed in order to get a ban
passed on me to be disrespectful.

I've had direct criticism of my behavior and been called names in
another article too, which were directly responded to by an admin
(ambi), but she responded to agree with the personal criticsm, and
didn't bother to reprimand the guy in the slightest.  That can hardly
be qualified as a little slip up.

That's entirely inconsistent if they don't even so much as make a
comment saying it's wrong.  Let's not be fooled into thinking that
admins are actually being fair with me.

How much evidence do I need to compile against an admin and especially
an arbitrator of criticizing someone's behavior outside of user talk
pages in order to revoke their status?

> It is enforced:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#How_are_policies_enforced.3F

It's enforced, but it's not possibly to enforce something objectively
which is so open to interpretation.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
Gregory Maxwell stated for the record:

> Can someone suggest a rephrasing of "Be liberal in what you accept,
> and conservative in what you send" which will not get misunderstood as
> speaking of anything political?

How about "be forgiving to others and strict with yourself"?

Note that even if one were to accept Postel's maxim as a divine
commandment, one would not be required to be a cooperative victim.

--
  Sean Barrett
  sean at epoptic.com


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> It will be useful to you if you criticise the person's behaviour rather
> than criticise the person.  Maybe you see no distinction, but the fact
> is that criticising the behaviour is less likely to cause offense and
> lead to a flamewar.

Calling someone a hypocrite IS criticizing their behavior.  Having to
write out "your behavior is hypocritical" in place of "you are a
hypocrite" is just tedious and redundant.  The accusation (and others
like it) is also very well deserved when someone continually acts in
bad faith on a talk page by trying to constalt twist parts of and
ignore other parts of your argument.

> Unfortunately Wikipedia does not provide a course in social skills for
> the benefit of those who can't or won't learn by themselves.

Wow, that sounds like a personal insult, did you just imply I have no
social skills?

>   In fact
> it's likely to be impossible to completely unambiguously codify it,
> which makes things vulnerable to _lawyering_ by people acting in bad
> faith.

It makes it even more vulnerable to scrupulous admins who act in bad
faith all for a rule of questionable benefit.

> I'd suggest you try to make it quite clear that you're
> acting in good faith.

Ok?  I am making it clear that I'm acting in good faith.  Sadly, the
same can't be said of the list owner David Gerard, who is saying I
need to be conditioned like an animal (with a cattle prod).  His
entirely immature behavior and personal attacks on this list and
censorship of me are in bad faith.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV

body:
Jtkiefer wrote:
> I think wikipedia will always end up taking the scientific view as long
> as the scientific view is the prevailing view in americn society

What does American society have to do with this?

The scientific view is *not* the prevailing view in American society.
Most Americans are Christians and believe in some form of Creationism or
other.

Europe is quite a bit ahead ;-)

Timwi


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
> I'm a bit puzzled by your angered reaction. You're making it sound like
> I was expressing some sort of grudge against you. I assure you I don't.
> Please calm down a bit.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you think I'm angered and why you persist
in attacking me personally.

> 99% of the people on that page are hardly representative of 99% of the
> population of the Earth, especially seeing as the remaining 1% is much
> more likely to be on Wikipedia in the first place.

So basically you just made up that figure?  It really doesn't matter
anyway, since you're not dealing with the general population, you're
dealing with Wikipedians.  You make Wikipedia rules to deal with
Wikipedians, not Wikipedia rules to deal with the general population.

> People usually prefer to work in an environment in which they are not
> exposed to things that hurt their feelings.

Of course people *prefer* it, but that's not a realistic expectation,
especially in the context of contrversial topics on Wikipedia, and
it's certainly not something that should be enforced.  There's a
reason why there are no laws against hurting peoples feelings.

> Not really -- the policy was set up precisely *because* personal attacks
> hurt people's feelings and therefore make Wikipedia a less enjoyable
> experience.

I doubt many people would disagree that Wikipedia policies exist for
the purpose of making a better encyclopedia.  Preserving anyone and
everyone's personal feelings at all costs is not only impossible even
by the most well intentioned people, it's also very counter-productive
to enfore a "you must be politically correct and hand-holding" rule.

The personal attacks rule exists to squash counter-productive
behavior, not to enforce some insane politically correct standard.

> That is correct; that would be the ideal situation. A dispute on
> Wikipedia should ideally always centre around content issues, and never
> a Wikipedian's person. Unfortunately, not all Wikipedians can always
> control their temper enough...

It has nothing to do with temper.  If someone is behaving badly, it is
*necessary* to discuss that.  Otherwise you're simply accepting that
bad behavior and allowing it to continue.

> Indeed I would prefer if people not do this, even when they are right.
> Trolls, too, are people with feelings that can be hurt, and I don't
> think anybody would want to be called a troll.

Then you're really out on a limb here, since you'll have trouble
finding support for a "don't call people trolls no matter what" rule.
By supporting that view, you can't really claim you're acting in the
interest of the consensus formed on the policy.

> There was no accusation of you being abusive. You're reading too much
> into it.

You did say I had a low EQ and made the association between the two,
so I just read the implication and cried buckets of tears over it
(yes, that was sarcasm, but with a point to demonstrate that there are
very fragile people). Since your alleged goal is to avoid offending
people at all costs, you should have been more careful with your
language and that would be a violation of your interpretation of the
policy.

> I apologise if it does. I guess it was na?ve of me to assume that you
> would find this revelation as useful as I did.

And this is exactly why such an undefined rule is silly, because you
can never know when you're going to offend someone.

> Here you are making the assumption that I would have placed myself in
> the 99%. However, I never did. You are also making the assumption that I
> think the 1% are necessarily bad people, just because they have a low
> EQ.

So then where do you place yourself then?  When people say something
like "I never said X" and then refuse to clarify what their stance is,
it usually means that the "assumption" was dead on.

> Unfortunately, there is no deterministic algorithm that universally
> classifies any statement as either a "personal attack" or not.

Which is why it should be defined soley in terms of the reason it was
created--to punish seriously counter-productive behavior.  Defining it
in terms of the general population instead of Wikipedia producitivity
makes no sense.

> I didn't say you don't have a life. You're reading into it again. The
> term "real life" is usually used to refer to social interaction with
> other people outside the Internet and computers. I'm sure you have a
> life, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's primarily an online/Internet life.

Saying someone's life is primarily online is what is usually meant by
saying someone doesn't have a life, don't try to weasel your way out
of this one.  In any case, that kind of accusation, regardless of what
you call it, is typically considered insulting.  Again, I'm totally
crying buckets of tears here.

If you're going to be a spokesperson for EQ, personal attacks and
whanot, it would help to have a better understanding of what a
personal attack is.

> I don't think many people here will disagree that the average EQ is
> quite a bit lower on Wikipedia than in the general population (nor do I
> think many people will consider that a bad thing). It is no surprise
> that the average EQ on [[Wikipedia talk:No personal attacks]] is even
> lower.

Now how would you be able to make an asessment like that unless you're
suggesting you have a high EQ yourself?  You seem to like to pull all
kinds of figures out of your ass without substantiating them.  I also
have to wonder though, if what you say is true--that most Wikipedians
have a low EQ, then what's the point of a rule that they couldn't
understand?

> In fact, in my previous posting I actually agreed with you that it's
> not clear what constitutes a personal attack -- except to people
> with a high  enough EQ that they have an intuitive feel for it.

So then would you think that the only admins enforcing the rule would
be required to have a high EQ?  Because that doesn't seem to be the
case.

> Unfortunately humans aren't logical, much less
> predictable and algorithmic. Especially whether a true statement is seen
> as offensive/an insult/a "personal attack" is incredibly unpredictable.

How much a certain type of behavior contributes negatively to
Wikipedia progress is something which can be logically and objectively
analyzed.  You keep thinking in terms of personal offense, rather than
the resulting producitivity (or lack thereof) of said personal
offense, which IS measurable.

----------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Yoder
http://www.gummibears.nu/
http://www.gummibears.nu/files/njyoder_pgp.key
----------------------------------------------


from_name: Gregory Maxwell

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Why are we blindly using this SORBS list if it is that bad? It is
> trivial to check if a certain IP-address/port combination is still an
> open proxy, so when someone edits from that IP, just check it and unban
> it if it isn't...?

Well my impression was that SORBS was designed to be used by email
servers... where it really isn't acceptable to stall the pipeline to
make a test... and in that role it is fairly acceptable: I'd use it to
add some spam assassin points but not block outright.

It's not like testing is all love and flowers.. generally if you run
your own tester you can expect a fair number of angry emails as your
probes trigger off peoples stupid personal firewalls. Perhaps that
would be mitigated if we only executed that test if  someone failed
the SORBS list... a quick freshmeat search yields a half dozen proxy
testers that we could use.

If we added the proxy tester for sorbs we could also address another
problem.  Right now when an admin believes (i.e. not necessarily
backed up with anything measured beyond editing pattern) that an IP
address is an open proxy, we are implementing indefinite blocks in
many cases. We could provide our users with the proxy check tool to
have a lot more confidence that it really is an open proxy and  It
would be nice  if rather than blocking the user we placed them on our
own 'sorbs list'... where they would be tested when they try to edit.

As it stands right now, there are addresses blocked from open
proxies.. but eventually those addresses will belong to someone else,
and when they try to edit wikipedia they will be told to contact an
admin who might not even be active in our community a year from now.


from_name: MacGyverMagic/Mgm

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
We could start by banning words like "hypocrite", "moron" and "nazi"
when describing other wikipedians (regardless of how true these could
be as Timwi said). It's the loaded words that make up a majority of
personal attacks.

--Mgm

On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
> > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
>
> I've taken a look at the page and I quite agree with Nathan that it
> fails to define what a personal attack is.
>
> 99% of people have an intuitive feel for what constitutes a personal
> attack; they have the empathy to understand that certain remarks can
> hurt another person, even when the objective contents of the statement
> are true (e.g. "you're a hypocrite"). [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> assumes this of the reader.
>
> Nathan appears to belong to the 1% of people who have a low EQ
> (empathisation quotient) which enables him to comment in an insulting
> way without realising the effect it has on other people, solemnly
> believing that he's "only telling the truth". Most of the abusive
> ranters I see on this list are like that. It is no surprise to me that
> such a person strongly feels that a block for something they cannot
> define is highly unjust, and that they feel they are treated quite
> unfairly given they're telling their version of the truth.
>
> Wikipedia is one of those online communities that tend to attract these
> kinds of people, so the percentage of them is higher here than in the
> general population. Unfortunately, even, these kinds of people tend to
> be more dedicated editors, since high-EQ people tend to have more of a
> real life.
>
> I don't know how many Wikipedians have thought about this issue in the
> past, but we will have to come to some sort of agreement on whether to
> (a) require a minimum EQ, thereby outright excluding a certain set of
> people, or (b) actually attempt to define "personal attack".
>
> Once you start to try defining "personal attack", you'll begin to
> realise how hard it is; then maybe you'll begin to understand how hard
> it must be for someone who doesn't have the intuitive ability to
> classify remarks as "personal attacks".
>
> Timwi
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> > The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha
> > itself.
> If LiveJournal have done it, surely MediaWiki can?

Yes, infact LJs captcha code is available... as well as a lot of other
captcha code. We'd only need to do integration work.

> > I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even
> > those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha
> > would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia.
> LiveJournal's captcha includes the option to take an audio test.

We could also invoke the captchas against users who are editing too
quickly as a way to suppress highspeed vandalism. It would be
disadvantageous to just implement aggressive rate limiting, but
kicking people over a threshold to a captcha every once in a while
(perhaps also based on their approximate edit count) would be good.


from_name: David 'DJ' Hedley

subject: [WikiEN-l] Game-playing on Wikipedia

body:
Even though I participated in (and sorely lost in) the Chess Championship, I
agree that games may be going too far. We had Mornington Crescent
Championship or something recently too.

I think some Wikigames can be ok, but a Wikicity may be needed. That said,
they do little harm to Wikipedia, as long as there aren't too many.
----- Original Message -----
From: <daniwo59 at aol.com>
To: <wikiEN-l at wikipedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 1:21 PM
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Game-playing on Wikipedia

> The purpose of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia. Period. Everything
> else is tangential to that. We have been fortunate in seeing that a strong
> community has emerged as a result of this common goal, but that is
precisely the
> point. The community emerged because a bunch of people around the world
are
> trying to create something together. People who are not interested in that
goal
>  have all the rights in the world not to be involved in it.
>
> Nevertheless, we have recently seen quite a bit of game-playing on
> Wikipedia. If it is not stopped now, it will continue to grow. We already
have  chess,
> checkers, hangman, N degrees of separation, and I am sure that there  will
be
> more to come.
>
> Not only does this clog up an already overburdened Recent Changes page. It
> is an insult to the many people who have given of their time and money so
that
> Wikipedia can become the world's greatest encyclopedia. It detracts from
the
> serious nature of the project, and has the potential to turn it into yet
> another  gaming site. As for referring to the people who oppose these
games and
> tournaments as "killjoys," this is a very upsetting ad hominem attack. In
> essence it means that the people who keep Wikipedia's goals in mind are
> "killjoys." I hardly see how that helps Wikipedia.
>
> Jimbo has offered a place on Wikicities for people to play. He has even
> suggested on mIRC that it might be ad-free. I hope that these games are
moved
> their immediately. I am still astounded that this is even a matter for a
vote.
>
> Danny
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


from_name: Michael Snow

body:
Nathan J. Yoder wrote:

>>I'm a bit puzzled by your angered reaction. You're making it sound like
>>I was expressing some sort of grudge against you. I assure you I don't.
>>Please calm down a bit.
>>
>>
>I'm a bit puzzled as to why you think I'm angered
>
Flooding a mailing list with messages (by my count, 19 in a little over
24 hours) that are loaded with sarcastic invective will give almost
everyone reading the impression that you're angry.

--Michael Snow


from_name: Fastfission

subject: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is *already* written from a scientific POV

body:
Ah, but "beliefs" is a touchy word. If you put "Origin beliefs" on the
article about the Big Bang, I'm betting some people would get
irritated -- "Science isn't about mere belief."

Of course, in a sense they're right -- if you take "belief" to just
mean something held on unsubstantiated faith, then scientific facts
are generally held to be a bit more than that. But of course the
Creationists don't consider their beliefs to be of that nature either
-- they're more than happy to give you what they considered to be
reasonable substantiation! In the end it comes down to disagreements
about methodology, interpretation, etc.

So what words to use? "Origin considerations"? Now we're getting into
the absurd and the meaningless. The need to have some meaning
indicates we will have to perhaps sometimes have some statements which
are less neutral than others.

But I agree with the notion that Wikipedia will always reflect a
certain POV. It is impossible to do anything truly "objectively" --
what would it mean to be an observerless observer? But I think the
issues here are a bit more complicated than this. The Apollo moon
landing article is mostly about what is most widely considered by
*relevant authorities* to be true -- it doesn't matter if 60% of the
world population doesn't believe it happened that way if 99% of
scientists do, in my opinion, as this sort of knowledge is firmly
within the domain of scientists to provide the best answers on. So
they get the "unmarked" POV.

Of course, enough people believe that the landing was a hoax to make
that a notable interpretation. There have been books, magazine
articles, television programs, etc. about the question -- it is a
relevant POV which must be addressed. And so at the end of the article
it says, "See this other article for the hoax theory." (Not all
alternative interpretations are notable enough to discuss at length,
of course. Some require only a small paragraph and a link to provide
enough relevant coverage, in my opinion).

I think writing "Homeopathy is a pseudoscience" is too strongly worded
-- the question of whether certain aspects of homeopathy (not the
diluting part, but the other "like helps like" part) is unclear. I've
heard certain parts of homeopathy discussed by biologists and
physicians in a positive light during a class at a major American
state university. It is best to say, "Many aspects of homeopathy are
considered to be pseudoscientific by the mainstream medical community"
or something along those lines. Attribute the POV, "mark" it a bit,
but honestly it is not a deep "mark".

FF

On 6/30/05, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> We have an overview article [[Origin beliefs]], which seems to be a
> reasonably neutral yet succinct and descriptive term for the class of
> beliefs about the origin of the universe that lay outside the scientific
> community.  How about [[Category:Origin beliefs]]?
>
> -Mark
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

body:
JAY JG wrote:
>
> What tangible (not philosophical) benefits in terms of creating a
> better encyclopedia would these changes provide?

What tanglble (not philosophical) benefits in terms of creating a better
encyclopedia would being able to edit freely provide? Well, duh, you
have more freedom and therefore are better able to help.

> Disagree.  Admin is a position of increased responsibility and trust;
> trust must be earned.

This is exactly the "we have to assume everyone's guilty" argument I
already refuted. Trust must be earned, I agree; but distrust must be
earned too. We are currently requiring too much trust for people to
become admins, and we are distrusting new users undeservedly.

>> As a first step, I would like to suggest to make it policy that
>> "oppose" votes must be accompanied by reasoning indicating the
>> nominee's past wrongdoing or potential for wrongdoing. It should
>> not be permitted to vote "oppose" just because someone has "only a
>> few hundred edits", as this is neither a crime nor a sign of bad
>> faith. As a safeguard against crackpots nominating themselves
>> straight after their first edit, however, I suggest that candidates
>> must be nominated by an existing admin.
>
> Not only is this easily gamed,

It's no more easily gamed than normal editing privileges are. You just
get them! If you do bad things, you lose your editing privileges.

> but only having a few hundred edits means that other people
> evaluating the editor have little to go on when trying to assess
> whether or not they will abuse being an admin.

Again, the "guilty until proven innocent" mentality. You have no reason
to believe that anyone (who hasn't even nominated themselves) is going
to abuse anything, especially not if they haven't abused their
already-present editing privileges already.

> As has been pointed out, there are already plenty of admins, 500 and
> growing, more than enough,

I'm afraid "we already have 500 admins, more than enough" is an even
worse reason to vote "oppose" than "this user doesn't have enough
edits". Why should we deny anyone adminship just because we already have
500 of them?

> and there is a process of voting them in which ensures that they are
> generally quite sensible.

Again, so you're assuming that people are "unsensible" until you're
convinced otherwise.

> This is simply another attempt to fix a non-existent problem.

I do have my reasons for posting this proposal; I believe that there
*is* a problem. Of course most current admins won't see the problem
because they're already admins. If it's too hard for a new user to
become admin, current admins wouldn't have to care, but it means there
*is* a problem.

> Imagine a bunch of page-move/pelican-shit vandals admins working
> together.

We've already had page-move vandals working together. We've dealt with them.

> Changes to current processes which are currently working well make no
> sense,

If a user with >600 edits, >1.5 edits per day, nominated by an existing
admin, and absolutely no history of trouble or ill-behaving for over a
year, cannot become admin, the current process is clearly *not* working
well.

> particularly as these changes do not seem to be at all for the
> purpose of making a better encyclopedia.

See above.

Timwi


body:
BJ?rn Lindqvist wrote:
>
> Enter a channel with 50 users whereof 10 are administrators. Say "fuck".
> Enter a channel with 50 users whereof 5 are administrators. Say "fuck"
> and observe what happens.
>
> Assuming both channels are English language channels, in which channel
> are you more likely to get kicked/banned from? That's right - the one
> with 10 administrators!

Have you tested this empirically? I would have thought otherwise. I
would have thought that if there are 10 ops in the channel, the channel
is generally more liberal than if there are only 5. How else did the 10
people become op?

According to your logic, en-Wikipedia (with 500 admins) should be a lot
more strict.

Personally, I think the correlation is exactly the other way than you
are suggesting, but other than my intuition and experience, I have no
empirical data to base this on.

Timwi


from_name: Alex Regh

subject: [WikiEN-l] Thoughts on the process of requesting adminship

body:
Hi!

On Fri, 1 Jul 2005 08:09:23 -0400, Nathan J. Yoder wrote:

>Exactly, these suggestions are obviously for the sole purpose of
>allowing a certain clique to perpetually stay in power.  These ideas
>aren't just bad, they're ridiculous and clearly don't represent the
>best interest of Wikipedia in the slightest.

Of course, some people would argue that a certain Mr. Yoder is one of those
shining examples of people who, and I assume the vast majority here agrees
with me, should not be able to get access to any admin features, unless there
is a significant change in his attitude. (And I'm not exactly holding my
breath for that.)

SCNR
Alex
--
If you don't go over the top,
you can't see what's on the other side.
        --- Jim Steinman ---

Alex' Assorted Homepages: www.alexsite.de


body:
geni wrote:
>> I suggest that candidates must be nominated by an existing admin.
>
> hell does not appear to be frozen over

English please?

>> Having more admins, and therefore more sensible admins ;-), makes
>> this much easier to keep under control by the community.
>
> It is the percentage not the absolute numbers that matter. We are
> very close to 500 admins they are some of the most active members of
> the comunity. Can you show me where the views of admins have been
> that different from those of the community?

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was just trying to
say that if there are more admins, then it will be easier to keep
problem users with administrative privileges under control, just like it
is easier to keep problem users with regular editing privileges under
control when there are more sensible users with regular editing privileges.

Timwi


body:
See the article on [[Evolution poll]] for some depressing statistics.

It doesn't matter if the majority of the American people think that
the world is flat or not -- this is not a question which is in their
domain of knowledge.

We wouldn't expect the U.S. population as a whole to know how to
calculate the effect of Jupiter on the Earth's orbit, would we? We
would, however, expect astronomers to be able to do it. There are
different domains of knowledge which are relevant to different
questions.

The whole religion/science thing is about these boundaries. Is the
origin of the universe a topic to be answered by science or the bible?
Not an easy question. However it is clear to me, anyway, that the
default, "unmarked" view to be represented in the article [[Big Bang]]
is that of the people who are recognized to be the experts in it --
astrophysicists. That much seems easy.

But what about articles like [[Creationism]]? Now it becomes more
contentious -- statements of "fact" become very questionable. Now
statements like "The earth is thought to have been created X years
ago" start requiring heavy attribution (i.e. to Bishop Ussher) where
they didn't before.

I think the best approach is to attribute anything which would
possibly be a "contested fact" -- any bit of information which someone
might question the origins of. There is not much debate on the height
of the Empire State Building -- there is no need to attribute such a
fact. There is, however, some debate over the age of the universe, and
so such statements should be attributed. And so forth.

But of course this doesn't really answer the question of which way
Wikipedia should "lean" on such questions. I'm not sure there's a way
to solve this from first principles -- it would be best if someone
with authority (cough cough, Jimbo) would put out a decree saying,
"Wikipedia should strive for NPOV as much as possible, but if there
are questions as to which direction to lean in terms of very subtle
unmarked POV, it should lean towards the POV of the relevant
scientific community." At least, that's what I'd like the result to
be, both for my own personal reasons, and because I think it would
make Wikipedia a more reliable resource, but that's obviously up for
objection.

FF

On 7/2/05, Kelly Martin <kelly.lynn.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> > The scientific view is *not* the prevailing view in American society.
> > Most Americans are Christians and believe in some form of Creationism or
> > other.
>
> Most?  I would say that the creationists are a significant minority; I
> don't believe that they're a majority, at least not yet.
>
> Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
> > [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> I've taken a look at the page and I quite agree with Nathan that it
> fails to define what a personal attack is.
> 99% of people have an intuitive feel for what constitutes a personal
> attack; they have the empathy to understand that certain remarks can
> hurt another person, even when the objective contents of the statement
> are true (e.g. "you're a hypocrite"). [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks]]
> assumes this of the reader.

Unfortunately trying to solve hurt feelings purely on the sender's
side is an intractable problem. There will always be people who *want*
to hurt you, and eventually someone will write some software that can
participate in an online community and insult people... Judging by
some of the weirdos who have successfully hurt the feelings of people
in our community, the bar for intelligence for such software would be
pretty low.

I think the only solution for this, long term, is learn to apply the
internet protocol mantra to our social interactions: "Be liberal in
what you accept, and conservative in what you send".

That is, while it is my responsibility as a good intentioned writer to
select words which have a reduced risk of hurting people, it is  your
responsibility as a reader to try not to be offended or hurt.  If you
are hurt, we've both failed.. the blame would, if measured, be split
based on how everyone else would have felt in that situation.

There are some people on Wikipedia with very thin skins, who are quite
eager to feel 'attacked' by every word they could possibly interpret
as critical. I believe these users are as much of a problem as users
who casually throw around hurtful comments.

This is not a problem unique to Wikipedia, but I haven't seen it  well
solved anywhere..  It seems that Internet communities tend to cluster
into two major camps based on the two obvious solutions to the
problem:  Nanny-moderated, and nearly unmoderated.   In
nanny-moderated forms people are kicked off for a simple polite
disagreement, if they are unlucky enough to disagree with one of the
hypersensitive who is also well liked. This becomes fairly likely
because such forums tend to fill with the hypersensitive.  The other
type of community is the effectively unmoderated, in this everyone is
expected to have a very thick skin and and working kill-file.
Sensitive users find it nearly impossible to participate since the
forum becomes filled with the low-EQ people that can't participate
elsewhere.

Because of Wikipedia's nature and roots, we do have a lot of low EQ
participants who are very valuable. As a result, we have probably the
lowest nanny-moderation amount of any general audience community of
our size. I think this is a really good thing.

I think going forward we need to adopt policies with respect to
uncivil language which realize that communication is two way street,
and which work to:
1) Identify people whom enjoy hurting others and encourage them to leave.
2) Assist well meaning but ill spoken or hot tempered wikipedians in
speaking in a way which is less hurtful and more constructive.
3) Assist overly sensitive users in adapting to an online environment
which lacks the softening effect indirect communication provides with
voice or face to interactions.
4) And when overly sensitive and emotionally insensitive editors meet
and have a dispute, we should just step in and separate them... and
not unreasonably punish one side over the other.

Can someone suggest a rephrasing of "Be liberal in what you accept,
and conservative in what you send" which will not get misunderstood as
speaking of anything political?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
On 7/2/05, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately trying to solve hurt feelings purely on the sender's
> side is an intractable problem.

Another quick point... One of the biggest problems communicating
across cultures and languages is that the 'non-offensive' form
generally doesn't translate well. What I've found is that if you are
communicating in a language you speak imperfectly or to people who
speak your language imperfectly, it rapidly becomes very difficult to
avoid offense at the sender's side.

Since our entire project exists across many languages, and each
language may span many cultures, our behaviours need to be mindful of
these issues.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV

references:
<98dd099a0506261256ec30b9d@mail.gmail.com>
	<da0veq$dn0$1@sea.gmane.org>
	<98961323-7A6B-47BC-8ED3-0FDCC0214FD8@sbcglobal.net>

body:
"Pseudoscience" implies, at the very minimum, a form of deception (it
is "pretending" to be science). I think that's a pretty strong value
judgment. And most people interpret it to mean "crackpot" and "false."
It is certainly not a neutral term in and of itself. I don't know how
to quantify whether it is more or less neutral than something like
"Satanic lies" but I don't think it's quite so far off for most
people. For a practice or belief system which attempts to be
represented as some form of truth, being labeled as "pseudoscience"
cannot be seen in a "neutral" light. Which is why I think a heavy
attributional approach (what I've been calling a "sociological"
approach) is the only NPOV way to approach it.

FF

On 6/30/05, Phil Sandifer <sandifer at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> The important insertion that Wikipedia is not making in this debate
> is that pseudoscience is wrong.
>
> That most reasonable people do believe pseudoscience to be wrong is
> incidental. The term itself does not necessarily imply the value
> judgment that "satanic lies" does.
>
> -Snowspinner
>
> On Jun 30, 2005, at 10:33 AM, Timwi wrote:
>
> > Fastfission wrote:
> >
> >> [[Category:Pseudoscience]] is one which gets objections at fairly
> >> regular intervals. The reasons for the objections are pretty
> >> straightforward -- the users making such objections are almost always
> >> either Creationists or Eugenicists or other people who believe in
> >> bodies of thought labeled as "pseudoscience" -- and the response is
> >> generally pretty straightforward as well: Wikipedia is not claiming
> >> these so-labeled articles are actually "pseudoscience", but rather
> >> that they are labeled *by the mainstream scientific community* as
> >> "pseudoscience".
> >>
> >
> >
> > It is the year 2047.
> >
> > After a plentiful dinner, Bob and Stan have somehow got into this
> > discussion that doesn't seem to want to come to an end. Bob is a
> > Creationist, firmly believing in the truth of the Bible. Stan is a
> > scientist and defends Darwin's theory of evolution.
> >
> > To settle the dispute, Stan gets up and grabs a book from the
> > shelf. The front cover reads, "Wikipedia 1.0 - Category Index".
> > Knowing that if there's one thing he and Bob can agree on, it's the
> > reliability of the world-renowned Wikipedia, he browses through it
> > and eventually presents to Bob a page led by the heading
> > "Category:Pseudoscience". His finger points to the place where
> > Creationism is listed.
> >
> > "See, Creationism is pseudoscience," he explains.
> >
> > Bob snaps the book out of Stan's hands and browses forward a fair
> > chunk of pages. Under "Category:Satanic lies", he shows to Stan, we
> > find a reference to the entry on "Evolution".
> >
> > "See, Evolution is a Satanic lie."
> >
> >
> > No matter how many people you can convince that listing Article X
> > under [[Category:Pseudoscience]] does /not/ mean that Wikipedia
> > takes the stance that Topic X is a pseudoscience, the vast majority
> > will assume that it does.
> >
> > And that is why people are complaining about those categorisations.
> >
> > I am happy to have [[Creationism]] listed under
> > [[Category:Pseudoscience]], but only because it happens to agree
> > with my POV.
> >
> > Maybe the only way out of this is to call the categories something
> > unwieldy-but-NPOV like [[Category:Theories or beliefs widely
> > considered pseudoscience]]...
> >
> > Timwi
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>


subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Re: Fulfulde Wikipedia [was:Request for a Wikipedia
	in Cebuano]

body:
Guaka wrote:
>
>>? U+01B3 Ƴ
>>? U+01B4 ƴ
>
> Are there also capital letters for the other signs?
> http://bm.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning
> http://ff.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning

Of course there are. But I can't edit those messages because they're
protected.

> Somehow the ng's look like normal n's on my screen. Maybe there's
> something wrong with my font stuff, or with Debian's or XFree's in
> general.

Doesn't surprise me. Use Windows.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: IRC and freenode

body:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
>
>>I'd think we'd be better off if people on this list donated first to
>>wikipedia.
>
> It is already the case that Wikimedia gets lots and lots of donation money.
> Directing people to Freenode will not hurt us at all and if that can help that
> network to stay up, then we can continue to concentrate on our goals.

Then why doesn't Wikimedia just donate to Freenode? :-p


from_name: Andrew Venier

subject: [WikiEN-l] Personal attacks and low EQs

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>Can someone suggest a rephrasing of "Be liberal in what you accept,
>and conservative in what you send" which will not get misunderstood as
>speaking of anything political?
>
>
Perhaps: "Be careful in what you say, and generous in what you
construe."  Though I think the topics are already covered by
Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith, respectively.


from_name: Geoffrey Bell

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV

body:
On 7/2/05, Nathan J. Yoder <njyoder at energon.org> wrote:
>
>
> If you could provide specific examples of what you consider POV within
> a logical fallacy article, I'd like to see them.
>
> From "Ad hominem"

"An *ad hominem* argument, also known as *argumentum ad hominem*
(Latin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin>,
literally "argument [aimed] at the person", but usually translated as
"argument to the man"), is a logical
fallacy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy>that involves
replying to an argument or assertion by addressing the person
presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself or an
argument pointing out an inconsistency between a view expressed by an
individual and the remainder of his or her beliefs."

>From "Wishful thinking":

In addition to being a cognitive
bias<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias>and a poor way of
making
decisions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_making>, wishful thinking
can also be a specific logical
fallacy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy>in an argument
when it is assumed that because we wish something to be true
or false that it is actually true or false.

For example:
 The teacher gave us a difficult exam! We shouldn't have to be subjected to
such stress under the course of our education.

It may be that it was uncomfortable, but that does not mean that
uncomfortable things should always be avoided. Wishful thinking
underlies appeals
to emotion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion>, and is a red
herring <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_%28fallacy%29>.

 I would like to mention that I don't agree that "we shouldn't have to be
subjected to such stress under the course of our education," but I certainly
know some who do.
--~~~~


from_name: Angela

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
On 7/2/05, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, here is what the text looks like, so you all don't have to go
> try it yourselves.   It doesn't explicitly suggest the reader is a
> vandal, but it certainly isn't polite.  It is rather deceptive...

That is the standard blocked text
(<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Blockedtext>) which doesn't
really apply to blocked-by-sorbs users.  The default text really needs
to be ignored, since it suggests contacting User:SORBS DNSBL, which is
an account anyone can create (it was created by a vandal on en:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/SORBS_DNSBL>).

I've edited MediaWiki:Sorbsreason on en and meta. On meta, the message
will now be:

__________________________________________

= User is blocked =
>From <projectname>

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by [[SORBS DNSBL]].

The reason given is this:
Your IP address is listed as an open proxy in the SORBS
(http://www.sorbs.net) DNSBL.

If you are wrongfully blocked by this RBL check, please get tested at
http://www.sorbs.net/faq/retest.shtml for automatic removal from the
blacklist.

This feature is still very much in testing, so if you are wrongfully
blocked by it we would very much like to know about it as well. Please
contact Tim Starling, whose email address is the reverse of is
ua.ude.bleminu.scisyhp at gnilrats.t, or email the developers' mailing
list (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l).

A description of the details of this feature can be found at proxy blocking.

This block is automatic, and was not carried out by User:SORBS DNSBL
as is suggested above. The text below is given to all blocked users.
It may not be applicable to you.

You may contact [[SORBS DNSBL]] or one of the other [[administrators]]
to discuss the block. Note that you may not use the "email this user"
feature unless you have a valid email address registered in your user
preferences. Your IP address is 194.117.134.72. Please include this
address in any queries you make.

==Note to AOL users==

Due to continuing acts of vandalism by one particular AOL user, this
wiki often blocks AOL proxies. Unfortunately, a single proxy server
may be used by a large number of AOL users, and hence innocent AOL
users are often inadvertently blocked. We apologise for any
inconvenience caused.

If this happens to you, please email an administrator, using an AOL
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__________________________________________

Angela.


from_name: Alfio Puglisi

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
On Sat, 2 Jul 2005, SJ wrote:

>On 7/1/05, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If there is a problem with the information given to blocked users,
>> which as far as I can tell makes no such suggestion that the user is a
>> vandal, then this can be edited by any admin at
>> [[MediaWiki:Sorbsreason]] and [[MediaWiki:Sorbs create account
>> reason]].
>
>Well, here is what the text looks like, so you all don't have to go
>try it yourselves.   It doesn't explicitly suggest the reader is a
>vandal, but it certainly isn't polite.  It is rather deceptive,
>really, in that it seems to tell you how to solve your problem, but is
>only leading you towards further exasperation.

Happened to me too a couple of times, and I'm on a dynamic IP. According
to SORBS that IP was an open proxy a whole four months ago (enough time to
be assigned to dozens of people). The procedure to de-list it was
exceedingly complex and, after 20 minutes, i discovered that it wasn't
working. Not to mention the need to give a working email address to them
before one can even try to remove his IP from ther lists. A very bad
experience, and the second time I didn't even try, but just rebooted the
router until I got a different IP.

It's impossible for non-tech savy users to remove themselves from SORBS.
Is it really necessary to keep this filter? I see lots of talk about
vandal bots, did we have real, big incidents in the past before using
SORSB?

Alfio


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Categories and NPOV: Libraries?

body:
On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Andrew Gray wrote:

> On 01/07/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
>
> > In fact, the research of book cataloging systems was a dead science until
> > Yahoo came along some ten years ago; one friend who is a book cataloging
> > geek (he actually tried to convince me to let him assign catalog numbers
> > based on his own scheme to my personal library), sadly remarked no new
> > research had been done since the 1930s. It's a case that in the
> > English-speaking world, both the Dewey or LC systems are "good enough"
> > for their needs. (Those that don't use one of these either follow a
> > home-brewed system created in the 19th century, or, as in the case of
> > the British Library -- avoid the issue of cataloging, & simply assign
> > a shelf number to their books.) And migrating to a new system is an
> > unnecessary cost most libraries -- which are perennially short on
> > funds -- want to avoid.
>
> India uses Colon classification, which I believe is the 1930s system,

That's the one; my friend refers to it as the "cutting-edge" classification
system.

> and I'm not sure you can really call UDC, the turn of the century one,
> "home-brewed" - it gets a lot of usage, international standard and
> all, although in the English-speaking world it's a minor partner to
> Dewey.

Hmm. I hadn't heard of UDC, & after reading the Wikipedia article, I
suspect I've probably been in a library that uses it, & assumed that
it was Dewey. (I confess that I don't look that closely at the catalog
numbers on the spine of the book, & could have easily confused the
two.)

> (The two are, in many ways, similar; UDC is a bit more
> flexible, in general terms). And then there's Bliss, which is mildly
> obscure and American, but does get some use.

Also read the Wikipedia article on that one. Sad to learn that the
home library ofits founder gave it up years ago.

[snip]

> Not a dead area, just one where the big breakthroughs seem
> to have been made <g>
>
That's the ebb & flow of any discipline; I figure in library science
there is also the lack of any easy breakthroughs, & little or no
money to devote to reasearch. But I remember someone (either Kernighan
or Pike) once making the comment that research into Operating
Systems is in the same boat -- & probably for the same reasons.

Geoff


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Simple English Wikipedia - Requesting a rethink

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:

>If there really is a need for "simple" language use, there is always
>the possibility of using NLP software to intelligently convert
>articles from normal English to Ogden's Basic English;
>
This idea is interesting, but I am unable to locate software that does
reliable machine translation from standard English to Ogden's Basic
English.  Is there a specific resource you could point me to?


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Simple English Wikipedia - Requesting a rethink

body:
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> The subject of Simple English Wikipedia has came to the mailing list before,
> but after reading talk pages there and seeing the dormancy of Recent Changes
> (bar a few persistent users, and the odd anon editor) I feel it is time to
> suggest a rethink, or at least look into the direction of Simple English
> Wikipedia.

Funny, and I thought there was already widespread concensus to get rid
of it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it even its original
initiator and most enthusiastic supporter (Angela?) is by now convinced
that the project was a failure and that the idea was unsound.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: IRC and freenode

body:
On 7/2/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> Then why doesn't Wikimedia just donate to Freenode? :-p

Because our donors have been given the impression the money was going
towards Wikimedia's own servers and not to third parties. If this is
going to be done in future, the "how we spend the money" page needs to
be updated to reflect that.

Freenode's fundraising drive has now finished successfully by the way.

Angela.


body:
On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On 7/1/05, Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > As for de-adminning, the only thing I have to add is that admins who
> > leave Wikipedia, & fail to make prior arrangements, should lose their
> > admin rights after 3-6 months. I see this as just a janitorial action,
> > intended to help keep things simpler; & if you leave Wikipedia without
> > saying "good-by" or letting anyone know that you'll be back, then
> > I feel that person doesn't deserve our trust.
>
> Eh, you don't have to put it like that.. Sometimes duty calls
> elsewhere in life..

True, my phrasing was a bit harsh. But still, how much effort does it
take to let someone know that one is in the hospital/dealing with a
family crisis/moving somewhere without internet connectivity, & won't
be contributing to Wikipedia for a long while?

Then again, if this *did* happen to one of us, who would we send
notice to? Frankly, if I got an email allegedly from another admin (&
the headers checked out), who said she/he was leaving Wikipedia for a
while, *I'm* not sure how I would act on it, beyond posting a copy of
the email on the admin's user page.

> We're not paid to be here.. However, in active
> admin accounts are a bad thing... someone who cracks a few admin
> accounts could cause enough damage to keep the developers busy for
> days. So we should revoke admin powers on such accounts, but only for
> that reason.. not due to a lack of trust..

That's why I compared this to a janitorial activity. However, the case
I was thinking about applies only if the admin leaves *without* offering
any notice: just stops editting one day & does not return for 3-6 months.

> And we should be liberal in
> returning the powers if the user becomes active again.

Well, I guess this is where we disagree: if an admin gives notice of
a temporary absence -- that is, she/he'll intends to return -- then they
get to keep adminship -- or have it restored upon return. If they just
vanish (or leave in anger over some issue), then it should be removed,
& if they return that Wikipedian has to go through the approval process
once again.

Geoff


body:
> David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
> > The subject of Simple English Wikipedia has came to the mailing list
before,
> > but after reading talk pages there and seeing the dormancy of Recent
Changes
> > (bar a few persistent users, and the odd anon editor) I feel it is time
to
> > suggest a rethink, or at least look into the direction of Simple English
> > Wikipedia.
>
> Funny, and I thought there was already widespread concensus to get rid
> of it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it even its original
> initiator and most enthusiastic supporter (Angela?) is by now convinced
> that the project was a failure and that the idea was unsound.
>
> Timwi
>

Well, if this is infact true, then its deletion should be looked in to.
Consensus needs to be found officially, because as it stands, it isn't
getting anywhere fast (or slowly, for that matter).


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Logos ready to switch

body:
Mark Williamson wrote:
> Ahh, yes, I'm missing a couple.
>
> One on sc:, one on ff:, one on ht:, and on bm: (bm:'s still needs
> fixing though).

Surely the bm one isn't in Bamanankan! :)


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> The most difficult part of the implementation is probably the captcha
> itself.

If LiveJournal have done it, surely MediaWiki can?

> I would be strongly opposed to requiring captchas for all logins, even
> those which do not come from open proxies, because a visual captcha
> would exclude blind people from accessing Wikipedia.

LiveJournal's captcha includes the option to take an audio test.

Timwi


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Blocked yet AGAIN!

body:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
> Actually SORBS is pretty frequently wrong. The IP address we had a
> home a while back (before wikipedia used sorbs) was marked as having
> an open proxy... Which is had... a year ago.  SORBS ignored all emails
> from me, because they require the provider to take action. My provider
> ignored my emails because they know I don't have any other choices
> (other than paying for a real t1)...

Why are we blindly using this SORBS list if it is that bad? It is
trivial to check if a certain IP-address/port combination is still an
open proxy, so when someone edits from that IP, just check it and unban
it if it isn't...?