from_name: Nikola Smolenski

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Articles about ourselves

body:
On Wednesday 05 November 2003 16:45, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> 3.  GOOD TASTE
>
> Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a reference work, not a tool for our own
> self-promotion.  I can easily envision a mocking criticism of us as a
> non-serious work if we all start writing entries about ourselves.  "Of
> the 1,234 page-length biographies in wikipedia, fully 10% of them are
> of Wikipedia contributors writing about themselves."  Ick.

I think that I've found a loophole: criteria for inclusion of biographies
state that anyone who writes for a publication with circulation higher then
5,000, could be included. And when Wikipedia 1.0 gets published... So,
perhaps the rule should be changed to "a publication except Wikipedia" ;)


list: wikitech-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Brion Vibber

subject: [Wikitech-l] Cookies and sessions and caches, oh my!

body:
On Nov 5, 2003, at 22:00, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> That may also explain these error messages on the foundation's
> webpages:
>
> Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already
> sent by
> (output started at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/foundation/extract.php:13)
> in
> /usr/local/apache/common/php/Setup.php on line 53

Okay, I moved the bits around so it's happy again.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


list: wikien-l

from_name: libertarian

subject: [WikiEN-l] Our credibility is questioned

body:
> She sounds like an activist who will interpret anything neutral
> as taking a position against, and who's lost so much perspective
> that a single person's statement is taken as the official word.

Allow me to disagree. I joined this mailing list in order to learn
about what to post and how to word articles and also to bring to the
attention of someone who can do something about the problems I've
been facing.

I too was under the impression that the aim of Wikipedia was to
present things in an encyclopediac fashion. Admittedly, it is
difficult to achieve this on issues such as partial-birth abortion.
However, when Wikipedia allows allegations ragrding verifiable events
(especially the allegations of political oppnents) to be posted as
a legitimate point of view, the credibility of Wikipedia takes a
beating.

On issues which are not points of view, why not let the verifiable
facts speak for themselves? Follow the old dictum of "show, don't
tell."

In particular, I've been having problems regarding contributions I've
made on India. I've tried to stick to verifiable facts and present
things in an encyclopedic manner, but there seem to be 3 members
who keep watch on what I'm posting and revert it to their version
which carries nothing but what can be classified as propaganda of
the Communist Party of India(Marxist). These people add allegations
by this party as a part of an article.

Initially, I was told that representing all points of views was
considered neutral on Wikipedia and I believed it, even though I
was startled that it could be the case. I would have liked to see
a version which presented issues without jingoism in an encyclopedic
manner. In any case, I accepted the claim that if an issue has N
views, all N views are represented on Wikipedia.
However, when I posted a point of view they didn't like, it was
removed by them!

They've been posting opinions as facts and there is another strategy
they follow. If I have anything positive to say about India, they
come up with "some people think this, others claim that" kind of
article to obfuscate the issue. If there is something negative, they
gleefully make assertions. I am sorry to say that if this is what
neutrality is about, Wikipedia will not have any credibility.

I am open to minute scrutiny of my contributions and removal of
points which are unacceptable (in fact, when someone pointed out some
flaws in my version, I accepted them and removed them since I wanted
to make it better.) For the record, my id is LibertarianAnarchist and
you may check out my posts and subject them to scrutiny by someone
who is really neutral and knowledgeable.

I agree that controversial positions are tough to decide on, but
revising history by writing fiction and their own allegations and
then armtwisting me by claiming that it is controversial since they
have a particular point of view?

I hope Wikipedia will not become a Hindu/India hating site.

Thanks,
A sincere contributor

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Introducing My Way - http://www.myway.com


from_name: jheiskan at welho.com

subject: [WikiEN-l] We are SLASHDOTTED.

body:
Subject line pretty much say it all. Calling all volunteer firedepartment personnel.

See you at Recent changes.

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen (aka Cimon Avaro)
<dons firefighters uniform and heads towards the blaze>


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Well, not really (was We are SLASHDOTTED)

body:
jheiskan wtote:
>Subject line pretty much say it all. Calling all volunteer
>firedepartment personnel.
>
>See you at Recent changes.

All I saw was a reference link to our Heliopause article. That really isn't a
slashdotting (which would mean that we were part of the actual story, and not
just a reference). Many people reference us. This is not new.

But we should still keep an eye on:

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

Oh and after we get the new monster database server up we will probably pass
Slashdot.org in terms of traffic. Then people will fear us when we link to
them on our Current events page.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Jimmy Wales

subject: [WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> > (Not to mention that 99% of all trivial subjects are not at all
> > interesting to the vast majority of people, like information about one
> > particular elementary school.)
>
> Frankly, 99% of all subjects are not at all interesting to the vast
> majority of people. That isn't a reasonable guideline for Wikipedia.

I think it's very useful in this context to distinguish between
Wikipedia.org the ongoing always-in-process website, and some future
Wikipedia 1.0, which will be reviewed (somehow) and space-constrained
(for print, at least).

It is of course true that an article on my old high school would be
undesirable clutter in a space-constrained encyclopedia.  But if I
wrote one now, it wouldn't hurt anything.  It would only ever been
seen by people who are interested, and it wouldn't get in the way or
bother anyone who isn't.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Articles about ourselves

body:
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> >Right, well, we could talk about that offlist if you really want,
>
> OK, whatever, but if you don't want to talk about it here, maybe you
> shouldn't have brought it up here.

Maybe not.  I only wanted to make a general point using your entry as
an example.  Sorry about that.

> The only person here who seems to think the article is biased is you,
> for reasons that you don't want to discuss on this list.

That's not true.  I'm not interested in boring everyone with a long
discussion of how my politics and yours differ, and my own critique of
your work.  But I can tell you how I think the article is biased.  The
point is that your work *is* controversial and the biography doesn't
give any suggestion of that.

> Similarly, the solution to the problem you're posing isn't for me to
> stifle myself but for others to overcome their reluctance to edit
> boldly -- assuming that such reluctance even exists, which you
> haven't  demonstrated.

I personally think that the article about you speaks for itself in
terms of critics being reluctant to edit, out of courtesy to you, or
fear of you having the same sort of outbursts that you've had at Ed
Poor in the past.

But again, the issue is *not* your entry per se, but just your entry
as a nice illustration of the problems of autobiography.

--Jimbo


body:
libertarian wrote:
> I too was under the impression that the aim of Wikipedia was to
> present things in an encyclopediac fashion.

It is!

> However, when Wikipedia allows allegations ragrding verifiable events
> (especially the allegations of political oppnents) to be posted as
> a legitimate point of view, the credibility of Wikipedia takes a
> beating.

What do you mean about 'allows'?  If you see a problem, edit it.

> In particular, I've been having problems regarding contributions I've
> made on India. I've tried to stick to verifiable facts and present
> things in an encyclopedic manner, but there seem to be 3 members
> who keep watch on what I'm posting and revert it to their version
> which carries nothing but what can be classified as propaganda of
> the Communist Party of India(Marxist). These people add allegations
> by this party as a part of an article.

Can you give an exact reference, including references to diffs of
reversions?

> In any case, I accepted the claim that if an issue has N
> views, all N views are represented on Wikipedia.
> However, when I posted a point of view they didn't like, it was
> removed by them!

I have not looked at your edits, but one key that you should keep in
mind of course is that in case of controversy, Wikipedia should not
assert multiple points of view, but merely describe those points of
view.

It sounds like you do understand that, so perhaps if you can give us
some specific references to review, that would be helpful.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I will have to say that without endorsing every last detail of what he
said necessarily, I am firmly in agreement with Cunc on this one.

Rampant deletionism is not a good thing.  There's very seldom a good
reason to delete things.

Let me give an example: "Oviparous".  There is absolutely nothing
wrong with this article, and no excuse for it being listed on VfD.
(Of course, the vote is firmly against deleting.)

"Talossan language" -- a perfectly legitimate topic

"Cory Hall" -- this one did get redirected to U. Cal Berkeley, which
is absurd in my opinion.  This is a well-known building, it may
certainly have an article, even if the topic would not make it into
1.0.  When was it built?  What function does it serve?  Who was the
architect?  What famous things happened there?  All legitimate stuff.

--Jimbo

The Cunctator wrote:

> I haven't really edited on Wikipedia for a while, and I checked in
> because I wanted to add some content. But a quick perusal of my
> watchlist showed that the votes for deletion situation is ridiculous.
>
> The removal of any guidelines for inclusion on vfd (including the most
> important one: when in doubt, don't delete) is criminal.
>
> So is the separation of guidelines for "regular" people and for
> administrators.
>
> So is the "merge and delete" attitude. Merging entries into big messes
> under general titles is much, much worse for the long term health of
> Wikipedia than having many entries with specific titles.
>
> So is the "kill all ephemera" rampage, since presuming that we know now
> what will be considered ephemera 10, 20, and 1000 years from now is
> pathetically presumptive, especially considering there are NO SPACE
> LIMITATIONS on Wikipedia.
>
> So is the obvious takeover of the VfD page by a horde of deletionists.
> Once upon a time one vote against deletion was enough to stop deletion.
> And that is all it should take.
>
> So is, imho, the renewed assault on the sep. 11 pages, but I guess
> that's to be expected, since the argument "some people put so much work
> into carefully researching the reports on the lives of the people killed
> that day and creating entries for them, and we can't be bothered to do
> the same for other people who have been killed, so we should delete all
> the entries" will never die.
>
> Again, now that we have better stub-indication technology, there should
> be *less* need for deletion, rather than more.
>
> Also, if a page has been around for a year or two and been seen by a
> bunch of eyeballs, there's probably a reason it's there, and it probably
> shouldn't be deleted.
>
> yours,
> tc
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> Jimbo: if you're going to give this kind of advice to other people, you
> really should follow it yourself. You've been complaining that the
> Sheldon Rampton entry is biased and is a perfect example of a problem
> entry, but have given no specific examples or references or made any
> edits.

You're mistaken.  I did give specific examples and references to
specific edits.  I gave the exact time and date of an edit by Ed Poor,
for example.  Please check the archives before making accusations like
this.

I don't edit as a general rule, and I doubt if this is the best place
for me to start!  :-)

But I want to repeat one more time... I'm not complaining about that
specific entry.  Sheldon brought the entry up and asked what was wrong
with his editing it.  I thought it was good to explain just what
problems I had with people engaging in the practice of autobiography.
I would not have brought it up out of the blue indepedent of the
context of that conversation, because I don't think it's so bad that
it's really worthy of indepedent comment.

--Jimbo


from_name: Fred Bauder

subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
Libertarian wrote:

In particular, I've been having problems regarding contributions I've
made on India. I've tried to stick to verifiable facts and present
things in an encyclopedic manner, but there seem to be 3 members
who keep watch on what I'm posting and revert it to their version
which carries nothing but what can be classified as propaganda of
the Communist Party of India(Marxist). These people add allegations
by this party as a part of an article.

I'm all ready to jump in and give those folks hell, but from looking at the
article, "India" I find no record of any user Libertarian or of any
widespread reversions. Could you give more detail with some references to
specific articles, edits, information, etc?

Fred


body:
Brion wrote:
>I hacked up a session data handler to optionally keep
>login session  data in memcached rather than the local
>filesystem. Combined with a  change to the cookie
>settings, the English Wikipedia login sessions can
>now be shared between en.wikipedia.org on larousse and
>en2.wikipedia.org on pliny, without having to separately log
>in on each server.

Sweet! I especially like the part about load balancing between en2 and en.

That may also explain these error messages on the foundation's webpages:

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by
(output started at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/foundation/extract.php:13) in
/usr/local/apache/common/php/Setup.php on line 53

Warning: session_start(): Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already
sent (output started at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/foundation/extract.php:13)
in /usr/local/apache/common/php/Setup.php on line 53

http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


from_name: Anthere

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
From: "The Cunctator"

>The removal of any guidelines for inclusion on vfd (including the most
>important one: when in doubt, don't delete) is criminal.

>So is the separation of guidelines for "regular" people and for
>administrators.

>So is the "merge and delete" attitude. Merging entries into big messes
>under general titles is much, much worse for the long term health of
>Wikipedia than having many entries with specific titles.

>So is the "kill all ephemera" rampage, since presuming that we know now
>what will be considered ephemera 10, 20, and 1000 years from now is
>pathetically presumptive, especially considering there are NO SPACE
>LIMITATIONS on Wikipedia.

>So is the obvious takeover of the VfD page by a horde of deletionists.
>Once upon a time one vote against deletion was enough to stop deletion.
>And that is all it should take.

Once upon a time, pages could not be deleted by anyone but Jimbo and Larry
Once upon a time, every user had a voice for or against deletion, not only respected old hands (with at least xx days of presence, and at least nn number of major edits)
Once upon a time, a "regular" user could ask for the undeletion of an article and see his request respectfully and generously temporarily acknowledged
Once upon a time, it was also possible for a sysop to undelete articles upon someone asking to see the content, this without being repeatedly outed
Once upon a time, things were decided per consensus, not per democracy 50% + 1 voice (undeletion rule)
Once upon a time, there were not so many rules that makes en looks like a french administration
Once upon a time, users did not need to be sysops to dare weeding wikipedia
Once upon a time, users dared weed wikipedia without fear of being said all the time their weeding does not follow the rules
Once upon a time, a rule was not so much carved in stone that it could not be challenged
Once upon a time, it was easier :-)

>So is, imho, the renewed assault on the sep. 11 pages, but I guess
>that's to be expected, since the argument "some people put so much work
>into carefully researching the reports on the lives of the people killed
>that day and creating entries for them, and we can't be bothered to do
>the same for other people who have been killed, so we should delete all
>the entries" will never die.

Some people said they would not make donations, because there was no reason their donation would be used to support the existence of the 9/11 memorial :-((
Some people suggested wikipedia memorial should also welcome all the iraki victims for npov :-((((
At least, this is not deletionism

Today, I am negative, tomorrow, I will be positive :-)

---------------------------------
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from_name: Adam [name omitted for privacy reasons]

subject: [WikiEN-l] Partial solution to rampant deletionism

body:
I often find that many of the deletionists endorse and use this "policy":

If an article is not up-to-date, NPOV, well-written, long enough, or sufficiently accurate; then, it should be deleted. It is up to those who vote "keep"; to render this article to a "proper" level of quality; otherwise, it will be deleted.

I think a statement by Jimbo, if he agrees, that it is up to the deletionists to improve articles (rather than deleting them) will be somewhat useful for the non-deletionists. I am tired of seeing articles listed for deletion, simply because somebody thinks it "sucks"; I am tired of being threatened, "You either improve this article within the week; OR, we are gonna kill it!"

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Lee Pilich wrote:
> Absolutely. But perhaps when you consider that the content of that page
> was nothing more than "Cory Hall is the Electrical Engineering building
> at the University of California, Berkeley. It is across the street from
> Soda Hall", and that the same content has been merged into the U Cal,
> Berk page, the redirect doesn't seem so "absurd" any more.

Well, possibly 'absurd' is not the right word.  :-) But really, the
article was a stub on a legitimate topic, and I see no *advantage* to
the redirect.  What was wrong with including the content into the UCB
page (if it belongs there too) *and* leaving the page as it was?

Search on 'Cory Hall wikipedia' at google, and the #1 link is to our
Cory Hall page.  Search on just "Cory Hall" and the page is #10.  But
if you click on the page, you just get something you didn't want -- a
general page on UCB.

> But both seem reasonable positions, neither is absurd.

Maybe.  :-) Absurd was a harsh word, and I regret using it.

> Anyway, how we handle stub articles like these is a separate issue to
> deletions. Nobody's suggesting that we delete this sort of info.

Well, it's intimately related because I got this example off of the
VfD page.  The VfD page is too large in part because people are
listing things for deletion that pretty obviously aren't candidates
for deletion.

--Jimbo


from_name: Christopher Mahan

body:
--- Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Oh and after we get the new monster database server up we will
> probably pass
> Slashdot.org in terms of traffic. Then people will fear us when we
> link to
> them on our Current events page.

so people can then talk about the Wikipedia Effect, as in "We've been
Wikipediaed" or even: "This site is under heavy load from WikiPedia"

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

__________________________________
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from_name: The Cunctator

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I haven't really edited on Wikipedia for a while, and I checked in
because I wanted to add some content. But a quick perusal of my
watchlist showed that the votes for deletion situation is ridiculous.

The removal of any guidelines for inclusion on vfd (including the most
important one: when in doubt, don't delete) is criminal.

So is the separation of guidelines for "regular" people and for
administrators.

So is the "merge and delete" attitude. Merging entries into big messes
under general titles is much, much worse for the long term health of
Wikipedia than having many entries with specific titles.

So is the "kill all ephemera" rampage, since presuming that we know now
what will be considered ephemera 10, 20, and 1000 years from now is
pathetically presumptive, especially considering there are NO SPACE
LIMITATIONS on Wikipedia.

So is the obvious takeover of the VfD page by a horde of deletionists.
Once upon a time one vote against deletion was enough to stop deletion.
And that is all it should take.

So is, imho, the renewed assault on the sep. 11 pages, but I guess
that's to be expected, since the argument "some people put so much work
into carefully researching the reports on the lives of the people killed
that day and creating entries for them, and we can't be bothered to do
the same for other people who have been killed, so we should delete all
the entries" will never die.

Again, now that we have better stub-indication technology, there should
be *less* need for deletion, rather than more.

Also, if a page has been around for a year or two and been seen by a
bunch of eyeballs, there's probably a reason it's there, and it probably
shouldn't be deleted.

yours,
tc


body:
> From: Jimmy Wales>
> libertarian wrote:
> > I too was under the impression that the aim of Wikipedia was to
> > present things in an encyclopediac fashion.
>
> It is!
>
> > However, when Wikipedia allows allegations ragrding verifiable
events
> > (especially the allegations of political oppnents) to be posted as
> > a legitimate point of view, the credibility of Wikipedia takes a
> > beating.
>
> What do you mean about 'allows'?  If you see a problem, edit it.

<snip>
>
> Can you give an exact reference, including references to diffs of
> reversions?
>
<snip>
>
> It sounds like you do understand that, so perhaps if you can give us
> some specific references to review, that would be helpful.

Jimbo: if you're going to give this kind of advice to other people, you
really should follow it yourself. You've been complaining that the
Sheldon Rampton entry is biased and is a perfect example of a problem
entry, but have given no specific examples or references or made any
edits.

Hypocrisy, even if unintentional, does not become you.

--tc


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator wrote:
> The removal of any guidelines for inclusion on vfd (including the most
> important one: when in doubt, don't delete) is criminal.

The above should read "The removal from the top of the "Votes for
Deletion" page of any guidelines..."


from_name: Andrew Lih

subject: [WikiEN-l] We are SLASHDOTTED.

body:
Ugh, perhaps we should make heliopause.wikipedia.org :)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of
> jheiskan at welho.com
> Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 7:33 AM
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] We are SLASHDOTTED.
>
>
> Subject line pretty much say it all. Calling all volunteer
> firedepartment personnel.
>
> See you at Recent changes.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Rick wrote:
>There are too many articles on the Wikipedia that need to be deleted,
>unless someone (perhaps you?) wants to take the time to make all of
>the useless articles useful by writing meaningful content.

There is no reason for a rule which says that all articles have to be
either useful or deleted, which is what you're implying.  Take for
example "Talossan language" which you listed on VfD.

This article is a stub, and I guess you're saying that it should be
either improved right away or deleted.

I think that's mistaken.  The most important thing to remember is that
if left there, it *doesn't hurt anything*.  And since, as it turns
out, this is a known topic that several other people have heard about,
there's a fair change that someone will stumble on the article at some
point and find it useful, even if it stays just the way it is.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Rick wrote:
> I included Talossan language on VfD because the article, as written,
>was nonsense.  It has since been modified to make it a legitimate
>topic.  VfD frequently serves such a useful purpose.  Putting the
>title on "Articles needing attention" is useless, because nothing EVER
>gets fixed that's on that page.

Well, that's a valid concern, but perhaps this merely suggests that we
should, as a community, strongly de-emphasize the VfD page, strongly
de-emphasize deletions, and instead hang out on "Articles needing
attention".

--Jimbo


from_name: Rick

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Nonsense and nonsense.

"Takeover"?  If you have valid arguments against the deletion, then please present them.  But to just avoid the issue and make ad hominem attacks is not productive.  Please go to VfD and detail, point by point, on each article listed, why they should not be deleted, and if your arguments are other than, "We shouldn't delete anything", then your arguments will be taken into account.  But those of us who DO frequent VfD, and feel it's useful, do not delete things just for the sake of deletion.  There are too many articles on the Wikipedia that need to be deleted, unless someone (perhaps you?) wants to take the time to make all of the useless articles useful by writing meaningful content.

As for the one vote means don't delete, that's more than ridiculous, that's the dictatorship of the minority.  And there were, and still are, several users who create accounts solely for the purpose of voting no on any and all items listed on VfD.

RickK

The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
So is the obvious takeover of the VfD page by a horde of deletionists.
Once upon a time one vote against deletion was enough to stop deletion.
And that is all it should take.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout
> and computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an
> encyclopedia.

In wikipedia, I would say 'yes, unquestionably, absolutely'.  Wiki Is
Not Paper.  In wikipedia 1.0 for print/dvd, etc., then we will face
constraints that we don't face on wikipedia proper.

I wouldn't have much interest in working on such an article, but I see
absolutely no problem with it.

> If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think
> belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.
> I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.

O.k., there's mine.  :-) But I hope that further discussion is not
really worthless.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I included Talossan language on VfD because the article, as written, was nonsense.  It has since been modified to make it a legitimate topic.  VfD frequently serves such a useful purpose.  Putting the title on "Articles needing attention" is useless, because nothing EVER gets fixed that's on that page.

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
I"Talossan language" -- a perfectly legitimate topic

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
>>The Cory Hall page was a legitimate stub. Again, one should hesitate
>>to generate such stubs, but it's bad form to delete them.

Rick wrote:
> Why?

Because Wiki Is Not Paper.  This is a legitimate topic about which we
need a legitimate article.  We should hesitate to create stubs because
it's nice to have the "not an article" highlighting.  But if one has
been created, well, it's much better to just leave it alone or, if it
really bugs you, improve it.

Right now, a search on google for 'Cory Hall' returns our page as the
#10 hit.  But when someone actually clicks on that link, they end up
going to a generic UCB page -- which is *not* what they were searching
on.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Why?

RickK

The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:

. The Cory Hall page was a legitimate stub. Again, one
should hesitate to generate such stubs, but it's bad form to delete them.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Rick wrote:
> My opinion is the same as yours.  Such articles have no place on
>Wikipedia.

Is your opinion the same as Gareth's that further discussion is
worthless?  I hope not, and I hope he'll change his mind about that,
too.

I'm interested in hearing about just *why* you think such articles
"have no place on Wikipedia".  What's the harm?  How does it
negatively impact us?

I think the benefits are easily identifiable -- these are topics that
are of ongoing interest to people, they have historical relevance in
the long run, wiki is not paper so they don't hurt anything, and so
on.

But the costs are harder for me to identify.  These aren't appearing
on the front page.  They will only been seen by people who are looking
for them.  Given the mechanics of VfD, it's a lot more work to delete
them than to just ignore them or (better) throw in a couple more lines
to improve them.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I have no problem with the article as it currently exists.  At the time that I listed it on VfD, it basically said that it was the language of a nonexistant place created by somebody who the writer said might have been Canadian.  The author himself (or herself) didn't even know who created the language, so why put in speculation?  There was no mention at the time that it was a conlang, there was no mention that it was anything other than somebody's made up language for a made up place.  VfD has served a useful purpose, by pointing out that this article needed work, something that would not have happened if it was listed on "Articles needing attention".

RickK

Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> wrote:
Rick wrote:
>There are too many articles on the Wikipedia that need to be deleted,
>unless someone (perhaps you?) wants to take the time to make all of
>the useless articles useful by writing meaningful content.

There is no reason for a rule which says that all articles have to be
either useful or deleted, which is what you're implying. Take for
example "Talossan language" which you listed on VfD.

This article is a stub, and I guess you're saying that it should be
either improved right away or deleted.

I think that's mistaken. The most important thing to remember is that
if left there, it *doesn't hurt anything*. And since, as it turns
out, this is a known topic that several other people have heard about,
there's a fair change that someone will stumble on the article at some
point and find it useful, even if it stays just the way it is.

--Jimbo

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

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11?

But if the answer is "no" what does that prove?  He *didn't* survive
9/11, and that's what makes him sufficiently noteworthy for someone to
have bothered to write the entry in the first place.  That's why he's
there, right?

I mean, I don't understand the point of the hypothetical.  You might
as well ask "Would you push for having an article about Hitler if he
had remained an obscure and failed artist?"  Well, no, I suppose we
wouldn't, but, uh, he didn't stay an artist, so he's apparently of
enough interest for someone to bother writing an article about him.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
My opinion is the same as yours.  Such articles have no place on Wikipedia.

RickK

Gareth Owen <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout and
computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an encyclopedia.
If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think belongs
in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.

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subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> I don't buy this argument. Either having such a page is good for
>Wikipedia, and in that case we should not hesitate to generate them,
>or it is bad, and in that case we should seriously consider deleting
>them.

Let me defend the asymmetry for a moment.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to refrain from some practices
ourselves, because we think they aren't good, while still giving other
people a lot of leeway to pursue their own interests, even if we
disagree.

This is similar to the distinction between what you _have the right_
to do, versus what you _ought_ to do.  You have the right to smoke
cigarettes in the privacy of your own home if you want.  I'd advise
against it, as it's proven to be unhealthy.  But it would be wrong of
me to try to stop you.

There are often cases where I think it'd be better to not create a
certain type of page, but where I think that if someone else did, it's
better to just let them do it, even if I wouldn't have.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Peter Bartlett wrote:
> Keeping two copies around sucks up precious maintenance resources
> (in terms of keeping both copies up-to-date with one another)

I think this is not the right way to think about "maintenance
resources".  Volunteers aren't employees, so we can't tell them "Oh,
the management committee has determined that our quality control goals
are best met if we focus on activity X, so do that, even though I know
activity Y is a lot more fun."

Volunteers who want to keep both copies up-to-date want to do that.
We can't re-assign them to something else we think is more productive.

> and creates endless debate about the
> encyclopedicness of the subjects.

Well, that much is true!  ;-)

--Jimbo


body:
Brion wrote:
>Okay, I moved the bits around so it's happy again.

It may just be a temporary glitch, but the foundation's webpages are timing
out for me right now (12:50 AM  Pacific time). Wikipedia is up and so is
meta, so its not that...

-- mav


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

references:
<BBCFE197.12831%cunctator@kband.com>
	<r5id6c5h2ci.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<20031106163558.GL32127@joey.bomis.com>
	<r5i4qxhh130.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>

body:
Gareth Owen wrote:
> Well, it pretty much proves that his only real claim to fame is the
> fact he died on 9/11.

Which in turn means that he does, in fact, have a claim to fame, and
should be included, right?

>  And it proves the only reason that Cunc is pushing for his
> non-deletion is because he has a bee in his bonnet -- and has had
> for the best part of the last 2 years -- about trying to make
> wikipedia.org a monument to 9/11.  Its not, or at least it shouldn't
> be.

Well, I understand where you're coming from here, although I think
that's a bit unfair to Cunc.  We started sep11.wikipedia.org in an
effort to resolve the problem of 'memorials' instead of article.  And
Cunc was basically supportive of that idea, as I recall.

> Does dying at Ypres make you noteworthy?
> Does dying in the Hundred Years War make you noteworthy?
> Does dying in Auschwitz make you noteworthy?
> Does dying in the 1918-1919 inflenza epidemic make you noteworthy?
> Does dying of industrial related illnesses due to management
>incompetence in Welsh coal mines make you noteworthy? [0]

My answer to all of these would hinge on confirmability by other
contributors.  I personally find the history of ordinary people quite
interesting, particularly if placed in the context of a time.

> [0] Please say yes, I feel like my grandfather needs a write up.
>     Please say no, I'd just like to see the reasons.

Are there newspaper articles about your grandfather?  Anything that we
could easily verify?

> [1] (The WTC collapse killed 2,792 people in one day.  The 1919
> inflenza killed 22 million people in 18 months, or equivalent to
> 10-15 9/11s, every day)

*nod* But if your point is that we can't have articles about all those
people, I'd say that we're arguing then about a non-existent problem,
because no one is trying to add those articles, are they?

Think along the lines of Studs Terkel's _Hard Times_, a book about
ordinary people during the great depression, oral histories.  The
people in the book are, arguably, not noteworthy.  But reading about
them is valuable because they took part in an important time and event
(the U.S. Great Depression of the 1930s).

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Andre Engels wrote:
> It seems that some people here are of the opinion that we should
> just leave everything on Wikipedia that is written on it. I
> disagree.

Well, if anyone is actually of that opinion, then I disagree, too.

But, I promised Ed Poor that I'd stop typing about this for today,
so now I will.  :-)

--Jimbo


from_name: Alex Rosen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"Wikipedia is not paper, but it is also not a collection place
for trivia. It remains an encyclopedia, which remains that we do have
to
have some limits on what is and what is not interesting."

Here's how I interpret Jimbo's stance: "Wikipedia 1.0" (the eventual
edited version) will be an encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is not now
actually an encyclopedia. And to get to the eventual 1.0 version, it's
better to encourage contributors, even if that means that a lot of
non-encyclopedic content is added, because this kind of inclusionist
policy will encourage more encyclopedic content as well (by not pissing
people off by deleting things that they write).

I don't know if that's true, but I think his view on this is important,
and I'm tired of arguing about this (both here and on VfD), and I think
we need a firm policy. And I'm OK with this policy.

Alex


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 9:26 AM, "Lee Pilich" <lee at audiblerecords.com> wrote:

> At 05:07 06/11/2003 -0800, Jimbo wrote:
>> "Cory Hall" -- this one did get redirected to U. Cal Berkeley, which
>> is absurd in my opinion.  This is a well-known building, it may
>> certainly have an article, even if the topic would not make it into
>> 1.0.  When was it built?  What function does it serve?  Who was the
>> architect?  What famous things happened there?  All legitimate stuff.
>
> Absolutely. But perhaps when you consider that the content of that page was
> nothing more than "Cory Hall is the Electrical Engineering building at the
> University of California, Berkeley. It is across the street from Soda
> Hall", and that the same content has been merged into the U Cal, Berk page,
> the redirect doesn't seem so "absurd" any more.
>
Actually, it does. The Cory Hall page was a legitimate stub. Again, one
should hesitate to generate such stubs, but it's bad form to delete them.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 8:37 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:
>
>> I will have to say that without endorsing every last detail of what he
>> said necessarily, I am firmly in agreement with Cunc on this one.
>
> I agree in principle, too.
> But Cunc is being disingenuous, trying defend bad and non-encyclopedic
> articles with warm words and fuzzy principles.

My words are not particularly warm and my principles are not at all fuzzy.

> The pages he is defending on VfD with these arguments are:
> http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closings_and_cancellations_following_the_Septemb
> er_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attacks
> which is (IMHO) an OK article, but also many articles about people whose only
> claim to fame is that the died on 9/11.
>
> Of these, cunc wrote (deeply speciously, I might add)
> "These are not tribute pages. They are encyclopedia entries.
> Tribute pages are "This guy is great, we love him so much." We *do*
> encourage people to write entries on people who died in the Holocaust, WW2,
> Vietnam, Iraq, Israeli terrorist attacks, Oklahoma City bombing, etc"
>
> Firstly, I don't believe the second sentence to be true.

Well, I do. Not a very illuminating discussion.

> Secondly, let me pick the first one from that list, and repeat it here in
> full: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Alvarado

That content should be moved to sep11. But if we are to bandy about claims
of disingenuousness, I would say it's disingenuous to imply that I was
defending the Alvarado article out of a list of 26 entries.

Let me pick the second one from that list, and repeat it here in full:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Edward_Bowman,_Jr.

Shawn Edward Bowman, Jr. (19XX-September 11, 2001) was a computer specialist
and active Eagle Scout. Born and raised in  Staten Island, he worked as an
information specialist in the human resources department of Cantor
Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center.

He died at age 28 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack in the
destruction of the World Trade Center.

He was survived by his then-pregnant wife Jennifer and his son, Liam (age
2). His son Jack Shawn was born January 2002.

He was an Eagle Scout in Troop 43, Staten Island. He was a member of the
staff of Camp Aquehonga for 5 years. He worked in various positions, working
as the Camp Services Director in 1992. In the summer of 2002, Camp
Aquehonga, after raising over $15,000, rebuilt the campfire area as the
Shawn E. Bowman, Jr. Ampitheatre.

Tributes and Comments

See September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/Casualties.

External Links
Shawn E. Bowman, Jr. Ampitheatre

----
and the third:
----
Pamela Boyce (19XX-September 11, 2001) was the assistant vice president of
accounting for Carr Futures, Inc.

She died at age 43 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack in the
destruction of the World Trade Center.

She was at work in her office on the 92nd floor of Tower One when it was
struck by American Airlines Flight 11.

She was survived by her life partner of 6 1/2 years, Catherine Anello, and a
sister. After Pamela's death, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times,
Catherine remembered conversations they had about death. Pamela said, "Don't
mourn my death; celebrate my life. I'm not afraid to die, because where I'm
going is beautiful."

Pamela lived in Brooklyn, and was a competitive disco dancer.

Tributes and Comments
----
and the 19th:
---
John Joseph Murray was the founder of Putt for Progress? and a broker in New
York City. He was an honor student at Salesianum? and had outstanding
character. He was an excellent athlete, playing baseball, basketball,
lacrosse, hockey and golf. He was also a strong swimmer, serving as a Long
Island lifeguard, often leading dangerous ocean rescues.

Following graduation from Boston College in 1990, John began a career as a
broker for Cantor Fitzgerald. In 1997, he launched "Putt for Progress," a
foundation devoted to raising money for scleroderma research. Following his
marriage to Rory Owens, to whom he proposed while jogging across the
Brooklyn Bridge, they relocated to the London offices of Cantor Fitzgerald
for some time before returning to New York.

He was killed in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack while working in
the World Trade Center. He was survived by his wife, their daughter Alyson
Rose, born April 2001, and his parents.

Tributes and Comments
----
and the 25th:
----
Daniel Thomas Suhr ( -September 11, 2001) was a New York City firefighter.
He lived in Nesconset, NY?, and was a member of Engine Company 216 in
Williamsburg?.

He was killed at age 37 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack. He was
struck and killed by a falling body outside the south tower of the World
Trade Center. Seven firefighters who otherwise would have gone into the
tower, including four from his company, came to his aid. Father Mychal F.
Judge delivered last rites at the scene; a popular story is that Judge was
killed while delivering the last rites, but he was killed later.

Suhr was survived by his wife Nancy Suhr.

Tributes and comments


from_name: Geoff Burling

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 6 Nov 2003, Gareth Owen wrote:

> The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:
>
> > Let me pick the second one from that list, and repeat it here in full:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Edward_Bowman,_Jr.
> >
> > Shawn Edward Bowman, Jr. (19XX-September 11, 2001) was a computer specialist
> > and active Eagle Scout. Born and raised in  Staten Island, he worked as an
> > information specialist in the human resources department of Cantor
> > Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center.
> >
> > He died at age 28 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack in the
> > destruction of the World Trade Center.
> >
> > He was survived by his then-pregnant wife Jennifer and his son, Liam (age
> > 2). His son Jack Shawn was born January 2002.
> >
> > He was an Eagle Scout in Troop 43, Staten Island. He was a member of the
> > staff of Camp Aquehonga for 5 years. He worked in various positions, working
> > as the Camp Services Director in 1992. In the summer of 2002, Camp
> > Aquehonga, after raising over $15,000, rebuilt the campfire area as the
> > Shawn E. Bowman, Jr. Ampitheatre.
>
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout and
> computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an encyclopedia.
> If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think belongs
> in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.
>
> I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.
>
I'm puzzled about this entire discussion. I thought that this collection of
biographies of all of the 9/11 victims was one of the jewells in the crown
of Wikipedia?

Geoff


from_name: Delirium

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator wrote:

>So is, imho, the renewed assault on the sep. 11 pages, but I guess
>that's to be expected, since the argument "some people put so much work
>into carefully researching the reports on the lives of the people killed
>that day and creating entries for them, and we can't be bothered to do
>the same for other people who have been killed, so we should delete all
>the entries" will never die.
>
>
That doesn't make any sense.  I *can* be bothered to do the work, but I
purposely choose not to, because it's not appropriate to Wikipedia.  I
could mass-import stubs on Oklahoma City deaths, or WW2 soldier deaths,
or Iraq soldier deaths, or hell, my grandfather's death, but none of
these are appropriate.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Delirium wrote:
> That doesn't make any sense.  I *can* be bothered to do the work, but I
> purposely choose not to, because it's not appropriate to Wikipedia.  I
> could mass-import stubs on Oklahoma City deaths, or WW2 soldier deaths,
> or Iraq soldier deaths,

Let's do remember, though, that mass-importing raises a lot of
additional issues that are relevant here.

One of the checks and balances against triviality is "can it be
confirmed?"  Another important one is "has anyone bothered to write
about it?"  Mass-imports defeat this latter check, and so are subject
to a higher degree of scrutiny than hand-edited entries.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Lee Pilich wrote:
> As I say, possible duplication of effort in expanding the info in the
> future. Person X comes along to the UCB page, thinks, "Oh, Cory Hall, I
> can write a bit more about that" and does so. Person Y comes along to
> [[Cory Hall]], and writes a bit more there.

Is this really all that likely if the UCB article links to the Cory
Hall article in the appropriate place?

> I mean, I'm not sure I'd agree with that reasoning in this particular
> case, but it's reasoning that quite a lot of people have used, and it
> does make a certain sense.

Fair enough!  I think that in this caes, that reasoning isn't very
helpful, but I do concede that it is one possible cost of stub
articles, particularly stub articles that aren't well-linked.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

references:
<BBCFE197.12831%cunctator@kband.com>	<r5id6c5h2ci.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<20031106163558.GL32127@joey.bomis.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Gareth Owen wrote:
>
>
>>Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11?
>>
>>
>
>But if the answer is "no" what does that prove?  He *didn't* survive
>9/11, and that's what makes him sufficiently noteworthy for someone to
>have bothered to write the entry in the first place.  That's why he's
>there, right?
>
>I mean, I don't understand the point of the hypothetical.  You might
>as well ask "Would you push for having an article about Hitler if he
>had remained an obscure and failed artist?"  Well, no, I suppose we
>wouldn't, but, uh, he didn't stay an artist, so he's apparently of
>enough interest for someone to bother writing an article about him.
>
>
My point about this is that there are plenty of people who have died in
noteworthy events.  In fact, there are literally millions of them.  I
strongly oppose one-sentence stub entires reading:
"Blah blah was an eagle scout who died in the Sep. 11 attacks."
"Blah blah was a plumber who died in the Holocaust."
"Blah blah was a shoe salesman who died in WW2."
"Blah blah was a computer programmer who died in the Vietnam war."
"Blah blah was a farmer who died in the Khmer Rouge genocide."

There is plenty of verifiable material to import literally millions of
such stubs.  There's WW2 combat casualty information available from the
US government, for one.

If we have all these articles though, Wikipedia will be a joke.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
I wrote:

> WW2 soldier deaths

In the spirit of concrete examples, does anyone have objections to the
automated importing of verifiable stubs (ranging from one sentence to 5
sentences) on the following 160,000 people?

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/worldwar/

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 11:22 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> If they hadn't died on 9/11, would you still support their inclusion.
> How about this non-entity:
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Jim Sprigg was born October 1972 in Sandbach, Cheshire, to Scot's parents.
> An attentive student he passed 10 GCSE Exams and 6 A-Levels before obtaining a
> double-first from St. Johns College, Oxford.  After working briefly in market
> research, he returned to studies, gaining a PhD in wave scattering theory from
> the University of Manchester, and going on to work in ocean circulation theory
> at their School of Oceanography.  He married Jane Sprigg, who he met at the
> local folk music club, and proposed to at an Emmylou Harris concert.
>
> In his spare time, he was a keen marathon runner and rugby union referee.
>
> Sprigg was killed by on September 11, 2001,
> when he was hit by a number 37 bus in Didsbury.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where's your reference?


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>One of the checks and balances against triviality is "can it be
>confirmed?"  Another important one is "has anyone bothered to write
>about it?"  Mass-imports defeat this latter check, and so are subject
>to a higher degree of scrutiny than hand-edited entries.
>
>
I don't think the latter one's really relevant in this case: the only
reason the sep11 entries have drawn more work than the ww2 victims is
that Wikipedia did not exist during ww2.  If it did, it's quite likely
everyone would've been adding entries as the body bags of their friends
came in.

-Mark


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 11:22 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:
>
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout and
> computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an encyclopedia.
> If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think belongs
> in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

The great thing about Wikipedia is that you can IGNORE the entry.

It causes you no harm and kills no trees.

Moreover, there is now a permanent memorial to this "nonentity". 100 years
from now people may come to Wikipedia wondering who the ampitheatre is named
for.

> I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.
>
> (Maybe a new server on non-entities.wikipedia.org)
>
>
> Are you seriously suggesting that the late Ms. Boyce, disco dancer, and
> devoted partner to Catherine, is a reasonable target for an article in an
> encyclopedia.  If so, then there is such little common ground between what we
> think belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

There is strong interest, and will likely continue to be for generations, in
the gay victims of September 11. Their deaths and the succeeding lives of
their partners--treated very differently from the heterosexual partners of
victims-- are political issues with broad repercussions.

>
> Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Murray, amateur athlete and
> golfing charity worker, is a reasonable target for an article in an
> encyclopedia.  If so, then there is such little common ground between what we
> think belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.
>
Funny, how in your one line description of Mr. Murray, "founder of a
sclerodema charity" became "golfing charity worker". I guess Jimbo Wales is
a "volunteer website contributor". Not very interesting. And George Bush is
a "federal employee".

I mean, can't you at least concede that at least John Joseph Murray did
something "important"?

The entry needs editing for style, but it's not an unreasonable subject,
even without the September 11 connection.


from_name: Poor, Edmund W

subject: [WikiEN-l] Godwin's Law (was: rampant stupidity re: deletionism)

body:
Someone mentioned Hitler, so I think it's time to give this thread a
rest.

Can we stop with the "obscured and failed artist" and "federal employee"
comments about Hitler and Bush, just for a few hours? I'm getting tired
of my in-box WAV file going "bing" every 2 minutes.

Ed Poor


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 11:46 AM, "Gareth Owen" <wiki at gwowen.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

> The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:
>
>> I guess Jimbo Wales is a "volunteer website contributor".
>
> Yes, I'd say thats exactly what Jimbo Wales is.

I'd say he's the "founder of Wikipedia, the largest copylefted reference in
the world."

>> I mean, can't you at least concede that at least John Joseph Murray did
>> something "important"?
>
> In the sense of "important enough to be included in an encyclopedia."
> Not really, no.
>
> Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11?
> (bear in mind that this would've enabled him to do
> *more* golf-based charitable work)

If someone had bothered to write newspaper articles about him, and someone
else had added the entry to Wikipedia, then yes. I've created at least one
equivalent entry (with no Sep-11 connection) before.

I probably wouldn't have bothered to add the entry unless I knew the guy.


body:
On 11/6/03 11:50 AM, "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com> wrote:

> Someone mentioned Hitler, so I think it's time to give this thread a
> rest.
>
> Can we stop with the "obscured and failed artist" and "federal employee"
> comments about Hitler and Bush, just for a few hours? I'm getting tired
> of my in-box WAV file going "bing" every 2 minutes.

Methinks the pot is calling the kettle black. Do what I do and filter
Wikipedia entries not to go bing. And advocate for the discussions to be
moved to a bulletin board system so that we have a scalable solution for
meta-discussion.


from_name: Sheldon Rampton

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Articles about ourselves

body:
You wrote:

>That's not true.  I'm not interested in boring everyone with a long
>discussion of how my politics and yours differ, and my own critique of
>your work.  But I can tell you how I think the article is biased.  The
>point is that your work *is* controversial and the biography doesn't
>give any suggestion of that.

I guess that depends on what you mean by "controversial." The only
evidence you've offered for that is the statement that your "head
nearly exploded" when you read an article by me in your local
newspaper.All this tells me is that you disagree with something I
wrote (although I have no idea what _specifically_ you found
objectionable), but that alone doesn't make me "controversial." For
someone to be "controversial," I think there has to be a _public_
controversy, and your exploding head is not enough to make a
controversy.

_Any_ writer's work, unless it is a textbook on some dry, technical
topic, is bound to have some people who disagree with it. Of course
some people disagree with my writings, and I'm sure that my work
contains errors and bias. I'm a human being, and all human beings are
prone to errors and bias. All I can do about that personally is make
a good faith effort to look at criticisms and correct errors when
they are pointed out to me. The fact of the matter, however, is that
there have been very few negative reviews of my books, and even fewer
cases in which people have pointed to specific errors in them.

Case in point: I'm sure that John's and my latest book is
"controversial" to people who support the war in Iraq, which of
course is self-evident from the title ("Weapons of Mass Deception").
However, the only specific errors that anyone has noticed in
"Weapons" are trivial. (For example, we referred to the Czech
Republic in one place as "Czechoslovakia.") Maybe the absence of
public criticism just means we're not important enough for critics to
think it's worth the debate (even though "Weapons" spent two months
on the New York Times extended bestseller list). It's clear that the
war in Iraq is controversial (and our book is among the works
"controverting" it), but that doesn't mean our book itself is
controversial. For the book itself to be considered controversial,
there has to be a controversy about it, and aside from Jimbo's
exploding head, there hasn't been one.

For what it's worth, though, I have added a few sentences to my
article summarizing what PR industry defenders have said about my
work, including a link to the ActivistCash.com web site, our only
real public critic. For the record, I regard ActivistCash.com (the
work of a Washington lobbyist for the tobacco, liquor and restaurant
industries) as grossly unfair and dishonest. For example, they went
so far as to call John and me "terrorists" on one occasion shortly
after 9/11, and they have absurdly and falsely claimed that I
personally channeled millions of dollars to the Sandinista government
in Nicaragua.

>I personally think that the article about you speaks for itself in
>terms of critics being reluctant to edit, out of courtesy to you, or
>fear of you having the same sort of outbursts that you've had at Ed
>Poor in the past.

Oh, you mean the "outburst" I had when Ed attacked me upon
discovering that I had joined this list? (An attack that you yourself
stated -- and Ed himself eventually admitted -- was unfair?) Or do
you mean the recent "outburst" in which I reacted to his declaration
that he was going to send out "official" warnings to other
Wikipedians for engaging in what he called "junk science" and NPOV
violations? Why is it OK for Ed to attack other Wikipedians, and an
"outburst" when I defend them vigorously?

I think my exchanges with Ed have been blunt and persistent, but I
don't they were "outbursts." YMMV.
--
--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
--------------------------------


from_name: wiki pedista

subject: [Wikitech-l] LanguageEs.php

body:
Hello,

Could please someone that has CVS acces put the
LanguageEs.php file that is on meta on the stable
branch of the CVS? And, after that, someone that has
server access could actually install it?

I asked Brion a couple of weeks ago, but either
because
he is, as always, terribly busy or because it was not
in
french or esperanto, he hasn't answered (I could have
tried spanish...)

AstroNomer/AstroNomo

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rambot Census Junk

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:
> That is the essence of what is wrong with the Rambot census junk

Yes, well, the ongoing complaints about those articles (which I happen
to like) certainly proves that mass-adds do shortcircuit a certain
check against trivia that we need to be careful about.

I happen to like those articles very much, but your point is still
valid.

--Jimbo


from_name: Gareth Owen

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> So is, imho, the renewed assault on the sep. 11 pages,

Lets cut to the chase.

There is a place, somewhere out in the wilds of the internet, where glowing
tributes to other-unexceptional people killed in the Sep. 11 atrocities should
be.  They should stand as a monument to the tragic and senseless killing of
that day.

But en.wikipedia.org is not that place. Really its not.  Encyclopedia's are
for notable people, not just those caught up in notable events.

Perhaps we someone should set up sep11.wikipedia.org where these articles
should be placed as a tribute to these people.  Oh, wait, they already have.
--
Gareth Owen
"And Cunct, please stop being such a prick."
                        -- wikipedia-l gains a new mantra (Wed Nov  6 2002)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rambot Census Junk

body:
Let's do remember, though, that mass-importing raises a lot of
additional issues that are relevant here.

One of the checks and balances against triviality is "can it be
confirmed?"  Another important one is "has anyone bothered to write
about it?"  Mass-imports defeat this latter check, and so are subject
to a higher degree of scrutiny than hand-edited entries.

--Jimbo

That is the essence of what is wrong with the Rambot census junk

Fred


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> I will have to say that without endorsing every last detail of what he
> said necessarily, I am firmly in agreement with Cunc on this one.

I agree in principle, too.
But Cunc is being disingenuous, trying defend bad and non-encyclopedic
articles with warm words and fuzzy principles.

The pages he is defending on VfD with these arguments are:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closings_and_cancellations_following_the_September_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attacks
which is (IMHO) an OK article, but also many articles about people whose only
claim to fame is that the died on 9/11.

Of these, cunc wrote (deeply speciously, I might add)
 "These are not tribute pages. They are encyclopedia entries.
  Tribute pages are "This guy is great, we love him so much." We *do*
  encourage people to write entries on people who died in the Holocaust, WW2,
  Vietnam, Iraq, Israeli terrorist attacks, Oklahoma City bombing, etc"

Firstly, I don't believe the second sentence to be true.
Secondly, let me pick the first one from that list, and repeat it here in
full: http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Alvarado
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A victim of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack.

Tributes

MY FRIEND ~ANTHONY ALVARADO~ WAS 31 YEARS OF AGE. HE LIVED IN THE BRONX WITH
HIS FAMILY.  ANTHONY WAS WHAT YOU COULD CALL A TRUE FRIEND, A GOOD SON, FATHER
AND BROTHER. HIS LIFE WAS CUT SHORT ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 BY SOME ONE WHO HAD
NO RIGHT TO TAKE HIS LIFE. ANTHONY LIKE ANYONE ELSE HAD IS UPS AND DOWNS, BUT
HE WAS A HARD WORKING MAN. ANTHONY HAD A CHILD TO TAKE CARE OF. BUT I KNOW
THAT ANTHONY IS NOW IN A MUCH BETTER PLACE AND THAT GOD HAS HIM IN HIS SWEET
EMBRACE.

ANTHONY, I NO LONGER HAVE YOU FACE TO FACE, BUT ONE THING I HAVE AND NO ONE
CAN TAKE FROM ME IS THE BEAUTIFUL MEMORIES YOU LEFT BEHIND.

I'LL ALWAYS LOVE AND REMEMBER YOU

NAOMI AGUIRRE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heres another (in full):
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_John_Keller
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph John Keller was a manager at the World Trade Center Marriott.

He was killed while working in the World Trade Center in the September 11,
2001 Terrorist Attack.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And another : http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Michael_Williams
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Michael Williams was a bond salesman for Sandler O'Neill. He was engaged
to Jillian Volk, to whom he proposed on the lap Macy's Santa in December 2000.

He was killed at age 24 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack while
working on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

They are not *and never will be* good encyclopedia articles,
because the people they were about are no more notable than I am.
--
Gareth Owen
"I love the wikipedia, but sometimes I get the impression that certain people
 on this list are very bored, and so argue about something when there's really
 bugger all to argue about. Edit some articles, for god's sake." -- LP


from_name: Lee Pilich

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
At 08:02 06/11/2003 -0500, Cunc wrote:
>I haven't really edited on Wikipedia for a while, and I checked in
>because I wanted to add some content. But a quick perusal of my
>watchlist showed that the votes for deletion situation is ridiculous.
>
>The removal of any guidelines for inclusion on vfd (including the most
>important one: when in doubt, don't delete) is criminal.

They were removed in order to save space, I think - a shame, but the size
of VfD really is ridiculous these days. They are linked to from VfD, and
I'm pretty sure that people who delete pages are aware of them.

>So is the separation of guidelines for "regular" people and for
>administrators.

I agree that looks a bit odd. The idea, I think, is to have one page which
details the deletion policy, and another page which explains to admins what
they should actually do when deleting a page. It may well be better to
merge them. If you feel strongly about it, well, you know what to do...

[snip a couple of bits i basically agree with]

>So is the obvious takeover of the VfD page by a horde of deletionists.
>Once upon a time one vote against deletion was enough to stop deletion.
>And that is all it should take.

But once upon a time, we didn't have people making pages like [[List of
people with one arm called Michael]] (contents: "*[[Madonna]]") and then
defending them to the hilt on VfD. Well, OK, I've made that example up, but
comparable things do happen now more than they used to.

That said, I do agree that there is a general move towards deleting more,
and that this is a bad thing.

[snip]

>Also, if a page has been around for a year or two and been seen by a
>bunch of eyeballs, there's probably a reason it's there, and it probably
>shouldn't be deleted.

I do agree with you that stuff is getting put on VfD that should really
never be put there, but if you actually look at what *does* get deleted
you'll probably find it's not *quite* as bad as it first seems. I think
that the number of old pages that get deleted, for example, is very tiny.

Besides, if you don't like the way traffic is being handled through VfD,
you should handle more of it yourself. Maybe that's what I'll start to do.

LP (Camembert)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
At 05:07 06/11/2003 -0800, Jimbo wrote:
>"Cory Hall" -- this one did get redirected to U. Cal Berkeley, which
>is absurd in my opinion.  This is a well-known building, it may
>certainly have an article, even if the topic would not make it into
>1.0.  When was it built?  What function does it serve?  Who was the
>architect?  What famous things happened there?  All legitimate stuff.

Absolutely. But perhaps when you consider that the content of that page was
nothing more than "Cory Hall is the Electrical Engineering building at the
University of California, Berkeley. It is across the street from Soda
Hall", and that the same content has been merged into the U Cal, Berk page,
the redirect doesn't seem so "absurd" any more.

Given that some mention of Cory Hall is needed in the UofC,B page whether
the Hall has its own article or not, the question is: is it better to have
this info in the UofC,B page and duplicate it on its own page, or is it
better to just have the info in one place and only make a separate [[Cory
Hall]] page when there's more info about it? Not an easy question to
answer, I think - the first could result in duplicated effort across the
two articles, while the second could discourage expansion of the info about
Cory Hall completely. But both seem reasonable positions, neither is absurd.

Anyway, how we handle stub articles like these is a separate issue to
deletions. Nobody's suggesting that we delete this sort of info.

LP (Camembert)


from_name: Erik Moeller

subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Articles about ourselves

body:
Jimmy-
> I personally think that the article about you speaks for itself in
> terms of critics being reluctant to edit, out of courtesy to you, or
> fear of you having the same sort of outbursts that you've had at Ed
> Poor in the past.

The only "outburst" by Sheldon I remember is the joke about modifying the
software to have a switch to have "the ability to push a button that will
instantly send one million megavolts coursing through the body of Ed Poor.
(Just joking.)" This was written in February, after Ed started a flame-
thread in January:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-January/000889.html

Furthermore, Ed himself has started other nice threads like
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-October/007114.html
in which he wrote: "I'm going to start issuing official warnings to NPOV
violators. If that doesn't slow them down, I'm going to suspend them --
give them a temporary ban." He was referring to one of his "opponents" in
the global warming debate.

Of course everyone was willing to accept this as a temporary outburst
(although it was clearly not a joke). Ed is a good contributor, but to
exclusively put blame on Sheldon here for their difficulties on the global
warming article and others, to imply that others would be fearful of
Sheldon's "outbursts", that is completely in contradiction with the actual
record. Let's not rewrite history here. I think your own POV is clouding
your judgment.

Regards,

Erik


from_name: Ray Saintonge

subject: [WikiEN-l] India problems

body:
Fred Bauder wrote:

>Libertarian wrote:
>
>In particular, I've been having problems regarding contributions I've
>made on India. I've tried to stick to verifiable facts and present
>things in an encyclopedic manner, but there seem to be 3 members
>who keep watch on what I'm posting and revert it to their version
>which carries nothing but what can be classified as propaganda of
>the Communist Party of India(Marxist). These people add allegations
>by this party as a part of an article.
>
>I'm all ready to jump in and give those folks hell, but from looking at the
>article, "India" I find no record of any user Libertarian or of any
>widespread reversions. Could you give more detail with some references to
>specific articles, edits, information, etc?
>
Our new friend [[User:LibertarianAnarchist]] seems to have more on his
mind than Communism.  The polarized POV's in India over the Hindu/Muslim
divide can be as vicious and blind as any of our classical POV debates.
 The communism/capitalism divide is fairly mild by comparison.  One of
the problem articles is [[ 2002 Gujarat violence
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence> ]].

Our friends contributions included

> In February 2002 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002> , 58 train
> passengers, including Hindus returning from a pilgrimage to Ayodhya,
> were burnt alive by a mob of fundamentalist Muslims who surrounded the
> train near Godhra
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Godhra&action=edit> ,
> Gujarat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat> and set it alight after
> dousing it in petrol.
>
> As news of this gruesome incident spread across the state of Gujarat,
> scores of people were killed in communal rioting that took place in
> the days that followed. Gujarat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat> .
>
> The official toll from the riots is pegged at around 800, while
> India's leftist and Marxist groups claim over 2000 people died, a
> figure considered extravagant by others. These groups further claim
> that the incident was a one-sided "pogrom" against Muslims that was
> unleashed by Hindus.
>
> Although precise statistics of the violence are unavailable and
> subject to much controversy, it is now known that a significant number
> of Muslims as well as Hindus were killed in the rioting that followed
> the carnage at Godhra.
>
This was replaced by

> In February and March 2002 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002> , about
> 58 people (apparently mostly Hindus) died in a train fire in Godhra
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Godhra&action=edit> ,
> Gujarat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat> .
>
> Following this, many people were killed in incidents in the following
> days and weeks throughout Gujarat
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarat> .
>
Expressions such "burnt alive by a mob", "gruesome incident" and
"one-sided pogrom" can inflame passions as well as railway cars.

The "communist" angle on this relates to the appointment of [[V. R.
Krishna Iyer]] to investigate the incident.  Iyer is a retired justice
of the Supreme Court of India, who was previously a cabinet minister in
the 1957 Communist Party state government in Kerala state.  By all
appearances he has considerable personal credibility that extends beyond
any political affiliation that he may have had.  The strongest
complaints come from those who felt that his report did not support
their POV.  The reference to his communism appears to be a largely
irrelevent straw man argument.

The politics of India is a subject with which most of us are
particularly unfamiliar.  At least in North America we tend not to hear
very much about what happens there despite the fact that India is the
second most populous country in the world.  It is difficult for most of
us to know whether or not anything about it is neutrally written.  For
the article in question, the adjectives employed are the most revealing.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> Let me pick the second one from that list, and repeat it here in full:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Edward_Bowman,_Jr.
>
> Shawn Edward Bowman, Jr. (19XX-September 11, 2001) was a computer specialist
> and active Eagle Scout. Born and raised in  Staten Island, he worked as an
> information specialist in the human resources department of Cantor
> Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center.
>
> He died at age 28 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack in the
> destruction of the World Trade Center.
>
> He was survived by his then-pregnant wife Jennifer and his son, Liam (age
> 2). His son Jack Shawn was born January 2002.
>
> He was an Eagle Scout in Troop 43, Staten Island. He was a member of the
> staff of Camp Aquehonga for 5 years. He worked in various positions, working
> as the Camp Services Director in 1992. In the summer of 2002, Camp
> Aquehonga, after raising over $15,000, rebuilt the campfire area as the
> Shawn E. Bowman, Jr. Ampitheatre.

Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Bowman, Eagle Scout and
computer specialist is a reasonable target for an article in an encyclopedia.
If so, then there is such little common ground between what we think belongs
in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

I'd be intrigued to see the opinions of others.

(Maybe a new server on non-entities.wikipedia.org)

> Pamela Boyce (19XX-September 11, 2001) was the assistant vice president of
> accounting for Carr Futures, Inc.
>
> She died at age 43 in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack in the
> destruction of the World Trade Center.
>
> She was at work in her office on the 92nd floor of Tower One when it was
> struck by American Airlines Flight 11.
>
> She was survived by her life partner of 6 1/2 years, Catherine Anello, and a
> sister. After Pamela's death, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times,
> Catherine remembered conversations they had about death. Pamela said, "Don't
> mourn my death; celebrate my life. I'm not afraid to die, because where I'm
> going is beautiful."
>
> Pamela lived in Brooklyn, and was a competitive disco dancer.
>
> Tributes and Comments

Are you seriously suggesting that the late Ms. Boyce, disco dancer, and
devoted partner to Catherine, is a reasonable target for an article in an
encyclopedia.  If so, then there is such little common ground between what we
think belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

> John Joseph Murray was the founder of Putt for Progress? and a broker in New
> York City. He was an honor student at Salesianum? and had outstanding
> character. He was an excellent athlete, playing baseball, basketball,
> lacrosse, hockey and golf. He was also a strong swimmer, serving as a Long
> Island lifeguard, often leading dangerous ocean rescues.
>
> Following graduation from Boston College in 1990, John began a career as a
> broker for Cantor Fitzgerald. In 1997, he launched "Putt for Progress," a
> foundation devoted to raising money for scleroderma research. Following his
> marriage to Rory Owens, to whom he proposed while jogging across the
> Brooklyn Bridge, they relocated to the London offices of Cantor Fitzgerald
> for some time before returning to New York.
>
> He was killed in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack while working in
> the World Trade Center. He was survived by his wife, their daughter Alyson
> Rose, born April 2001, and his parents.

Are you seriously suggesting that the late Mr. Murray, amateur athlete and
golfing charity worker, is a reasonable target for an article in an
encyclopedia.  If so, then there is such little common ground between what we
think belongs in an encyclopedia, that further discussion is worthless.

If they hadn't died on 9/11, would you still support their inclusion.
How about this non-entity:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Sprigg was born October 1972 in Sandbach, Cheshire, to Scot's parents.
An attentive student he passed 10 GCSE Exams and 6 A-Levels before obtaining a
double-first from St. Johns College, Oxford.  After working briefly in market
research, he returned to studies, gaining a PhD in wave scattering theory from
the University of Manchester, and going on to work in ocean circulation theory
at their School of Oceanography.  He married Jane Sprigg, who he met at the
local folk music club, and proposed to at an Emmylou Harris concert.

In his spare time, he was a keen marathon runner and rugby union referee.

Sprigg was killed by on September 11, 2001,
when he was hit by a number 37 bus in Didsbury.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Rick wrote:
>
>>I included Talossan language on VfD because the article, as written,
>>was nonsense.  It has since been modified to make it a legitimate
>>topic.  VfD frequently serves such a useful purpose.  Putting the
>>title on "Articles needing attention" is useless, because nothing EVER
>>gets fixed that's on that page.
>>
>
>Well, that's a valid concern, but perhaps this merely suggests that we
>should, as a community, strongly de-emphasize the VfD page, strongly
>de-emphasize deletions, and instead hang out on "Articles needing
>attention".
>
I agree.  Wikipedia must be well carpeted, if we judge it by the
opportunites that we have for people to sweep things under them :-)

This line of inquiry begs the question, "How do we make 'Articles
needing attention' more functional?"  That list does just keep getting
longer.  Also if I follow a link from there, I'm often left wondering
whether it has already been fixed, or maybe it shouldn't have been on
that list in the first place.  Encouraging people to go there and take
time to actually deal with an article of their choice could bring the
length of the list down.  We perhaps need to update the page that
advises newbies about what they can do to contribute so that they can
easily go to "Articles needing attention"

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 2:14 PM, "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
>>
> My point about this is that there are plenty of people who have died in
> noteworthy events.  In fact, there are literally millions of them.  I
> strongly oppose one-sentence stub entires reading:
> "Blah blah was an eagle scout who died in the Sep. 11 attacks."
> "Blah blah was a plumber who died in the Holocaust."
> "Blah blah was a shoe salesman who died in WW2."
> "Blah blah was a computer programmer who died in the Vietnam war."
> "Blah blah was a farmer who died in the Khmer Rouge genocide."
>
> There is plenty of verifiable material to import literally millions of
> such stubs.  There's WW2 combat casualty information available from the
> US government, for one.
>
> If we have all these articles though, Wikipedia will be a joke.
>
Practically none of the sept. 11 entries are one liners. (The only ones
which do exist have had most of their content moved to the sep11 wiki
because the existing content was subjective--the continued existence of the
entries preserves the edit history.) Those should be considered with a grain
of salt (though the preservation of the edit history should be considered as
a factor). But there are a lot of straw man arguments being used here.

Noone is recommending importing millions of stubs.

Noone is recommending importing thousands of stubs.

Every september 11-related entry was created by hand and individually added.


from_name: Andre Engels

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"The Cunctator" <cunctator at kband.com> schrieb:

> Actually, it does. The Cory Hall page was a legitimate stub. Again, one
> should hesitate to generate such stubs, but it's bad form to delete them.

I don't buy this argument. Either having such a page is good for Wikipedia, and in that case we should not hesitate to generate them, or it is bad, and in that case we should seriously consider deleting them.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 2:21 PM, "Delirium" <delirium at rufus.d2g.com> wrote:

> I wrote:
>
>> WW2 soldier deaths
>
> In the spirit of concrete examples, does anyone have objections to the
> automated importing of verifiable stubs (ranging from one sentence to 5
> sentences) on the following 160,000 people?
>
> http://www.accessgenealogy.com/worldwar/
>
I do.

Noone is recommending the automated importing of stubs.

If, however, you wish to add the individual stories from that list, based on
publicly available records, then I encourage you to do so.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> writes:

> I guess Jimbo Wales is a "volunteer website contributor".

Yes, I'd say thats exactly what Jimbo Wales is.

> I mean, can't you at least concede that at least John Joseph Murray did
> something "important"?

In the sense of "important enough to be included in an encyclopedia."
Not really, no.

Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11?
(bear in mind that this would've enabled him to do
 *more* golf-based charitable work)
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


from_name: Peter Bartlett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
-----Original Message-----
From: The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator at kband.com]
Sent: 06 November 2003 16:02
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

>[snip contents of several of the sep11 victim pages]

If those are the best examples to be found, I think the goals of
Wikimedia would be best served by having all those pages on the memorial
wiki and not on the en.wikipedia as well. Keeping two copies around
sucks up precious maintenance resources (in terms of keeping both copies
up-to-date with one another) and creates endless debate about the
encyclopedicness of the subjects.

What are we and our users losing my having this content at sep11 only,
linked-to wherever necessary in the other Wikimedia sites. Seems like
the wikipedia enjoys unnecessary superior status to the Wikimedia sites
sometimes

Pete
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pcb21


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
On 11/6/03 2:04 PM, "Geoff Burling" <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> I'm puzzled about this entire discussion. I thought that this collection of
> biographies of all of the 9/11 victims was one of the jewells in the crown
> of Wikipedia?

The September 11 pages led to a huge surge in traffic and participation in
Wikipedia, and for a long time were the top portals to the site. I'm not
sure where they stand now.


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Andre Engels wrote:

>The only thing that went wrong with Talossan language, in my opinion,
>is that it is _still_ on Votes for Deletion, basically cluttering it,
>although there is already a clear majority for keeping, and the reasons
>that were there for deletion do no longer apply. The original act of
>putting it there was completely justified.
>

It seems to me that with such a voting trend the item should simply be
removed from the VfD page.  Are people so intimidated by the wrath of
the VfD denizens?

Ec

>


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

references:
<BBCFE197.12831%cunctator@kband.com>
	<r5id6c5h2ci.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<20031106163558.GL32127@joey.bomis.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> Gareth Owen wrote:
> > Now tell me, would you push for his inclusion if he'd survived 9/11?
>
> But if the answer is "no" what does that prove?

Well, it pretty much proves that his only real claim to fame is the fact he
died on 9/11.  And it proves the only reason that Cunc is pushing for his
non-deletion is because he has a bee in his bonnet -- and has had for the best
part of the last 2 years -- about trying to make wikipedia.org a monument to
9/11.  Its not, or at least it shouldn't be.

> He *didn't* survive 9/11, and that's what makes him sufficiently noteworthy
> for someone to have bothered to write the entry in the first place.

Does dying in 9/11 make you noteworthy.
I don't think so.  Tragic, maybe.  Deserving of sympathy, certainly.
Noteworthy?  No, thats not a word I'd care to use.

Does dying at Ypres make you noteworthy?
Does dying in the Hundred Years War make you noteworthy?
Does dying in Auschwitz make you noteworthy?
Does dying in the 1918-1919 inflenza epidemic make you noteworthy?
Does dying of industrial related illnesses due to management incompetence in
     Welsh coal mines make you noteworthy? [0]

No, no, no and no.  All very tragic events -- and most of them of more
long-term significance than 9/11[1] -- but being caught up in a noteworthy
event doesn't make you noteworthy.

> I mean, I don't understand the point of the hypothetical.  You might
> as well ask "Would you push for having an article about Hitler if he
> had remained an obscure and failed artist?"

But what Hitler went on to do changed the world.
Thats why his article doesn't begin "Adolf Hitler, failed painter".
Hitler has something else

What the 9/11 victims went on to do is -- through not fault of their own --
nothing.

If we indiscriminately include 9/11 victims by virtue of their being 9/11
victims, then we might as well start including people whose sole claim to fame
is that they're failed painters.

(Daniel C. Boyer, at least will be buoyed by this news).

> I'm interested in hearing about just *why* you think such articles "have no
> place on Wikipedia".  What's the harm?  How does it negatively impact us?

It make us look like we can't distinguish people of note, and can't determine
what it means to be worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia.

And because, basically, they're just post mortem vanity pages.

[0] Please say yes, I feel like my grandfather needs a write up.
    Please say no, I'd just like to see the reasons.

[1] (The WTC collapse killed 2,792 people in one day.
     The 1919 inflenza killed 22 million people in 18 months, or equivalent to
     10-15 9/11s, every day)
--
Gareth Owen
"Wikipedia does rock.  By the count on the "brilliant prose" page, there
 are 14 not-bad articles so far" -- Larry Sanger (12 Jan 2001)


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
Alex Rosen wrote:

>Here's how I interpret Jimbo's stance: "Wikipedia 1.0" (the eventual
>edited version) will be an encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is not now
>actually an encyclopedia. And to get to the eventual 1.0 version, it's
>better to encourage contributors, even if that means that a lot of
>non-encyclopedic content is added, because this kind of inclusionist
>policy will encourage more encyclopedic content as well (by not pissing
>people off by deleting things that they write).
>
A lot of our people on the deletionist end of the spectrum may be
happier working on "1.0".  When it's ready for editing, it will need
personnel.

Ec


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"Rick" <giantsrick13 at yahoo.com> schrieb:
> My opinion is the same as yours.  Such articles have no place on Wikipedia.

I agree. Wikipedia is not paper, but it is also not a collection place
for trivia. It remains an encyclopedia, which remains that we do have to
have some limits on what is and what is not interesting. It's just that
the bar can be laid a lot lower. It seems that some people here are of the
opinion that we should just leave everything on Wikipedia that is written
on it. I disagree.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> schrieb:

> There is no reason for a rule which says that all articles have to be
> either useful or deleted, which is what you're implying.

Well, I think that that is a very sensible rule. There is no reason to
have something that is useless.

> Take for example "Talossan language" which you listed on VfD.
> This article is a stub, and I guess you're saying that it should be
> either improved right away or deleted.

No. When he put it on VfD, it was a stub with information that on the
face on it seemed false, and probably it was.

> I think that's mistaken.  The most important thing to remember is that
> if left there, it *doesn't hurt anything*.

Now that is where I disagree with you. I think it *does* hurt

> And since, as it turns
> out, this is a known topic that several other people have heard about,
> there's a fair change that someone will stumble on the article at some
> point and find it useful, even if it stays just the way it is.

Then again, there is also the chance that someone would have stumbled
upon it before it was changed, and have believed that there was a country
called the 'Kingdom of Talossa' with Talossan as its national language.
Maybe _that_ could be considered harmful, no?

The only thing that went wrong with Talossan language, in my opinion,
is that it is _still_ on Votes for Deletion, basically cluttering it,
although there is already a clear majority for keeping, and the reasons
that were there for deletion do no longer apply. The original act of
putting it there was completely justified.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

body:
"Jimmy Wales" <jwales at bomis.com> schrieb:
> Andre Engels wrote:
> > It seems that some people here are of the opinion that we should
> > just leave everything on Wikipedia that is written on it. I
> > disagree.
>
> Well, if anyone is actually of that opinion, then I disagree, too.

Interesting... In a previous discussion I really got the impression
that you are of this opinion. Or at least that you are thus if the
thing written is a fact.

Maybe you did not receive my last message in the previous discussion?
If you did, could you please react to the last part of it? I'd like
to know how far our opinions are apart.

Andre Engels


subject: [WikiEN-l] Rampant Deletionism

references:
<BBCFE197.12831%cunctator@kband.com>
	<r5id6c5h2ci.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<20031106163558.GL32127@joey.bomis.com>
	<r5i4qxhh130.fsf@gill.maths.keele.ac.uk>
	<20031106171026.GR32127@joey.bomis.com>

body:
Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com> writes:

> Which in turn means that he does, in fact, have a claim to fame, and
> should be included, right?

No more than everyone else who has ever died during any other notable event.
And I happen to think that thats not a very good claim to fame.  Sorry.

> I personally find the history of ordinary people quite interesting,
> particularly if placed in the context of a time.

So do I. But wikipedia.org is *not* a place for new research, and that applies
to new research in social history.  There is certainly *a* place for research
of this kind.

But ... the way to tell these peoples stories in an encyclopedia is not
with a lot of articles about individual people, but a considered, well
researched article about conditions on the whole.

> Are there newspaper articles about your grandfather?

No.  I guess he was too ordinary.

> > [1] (The WTC collapse killed 2,792 people in one day.  The 1919
> > inflenza killed 22 million people in 18 months, or equivalent to
> > 10-15 9/11s, every day)
>
> But if your point is that we can't have articles about all those people

Its not.  Its that this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Flu
(or, rather an improved one much like) is the way to deal with the social
history of that epidemic, much as these articles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_Terrorist_Attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attack/Memorials_and_Services
are the way to deal with the socio-historical facets of 9/11

> Think along the lines of Studs Terkel's _Hard Times_, a book about
> ordinary people during the great depression, oral histories.

Or Lawrence Ritter's "The Glory Of Their Times".
They're both great books.

Neither of them happen to be encyclopedias.
--
Gareth Owen
I'm very enamoured of the idea of meta-content markup ...
there are a lot of cool possibilities. But we should be reluctant to tamper
much with a system that totally works in an amazing way. -- Jimmy Wales